The Black Keys turn down £200,000 ad

Dan and Pat from the Black Keys admit to knocking back £200,000 for a commercial in their early years.

The Black Keys spoke to Canada's Studio Q and admitted that as struggling musicians they were offered £200,000 to license their music for a UK mayonnaise commercial… and they turned it down.

Pat Carney and Dan Auerbach were discussing the idea of selling out, since they have regularly licensed their music to advertisements, television shows and videogames.

They revealed that a company offered them the money at a time they were touring around in the crappy minivan that appears on the cover of their latest album El Camino.

Pat admits that at the time, "We had, maybe, $2000 in our checking account". They and their manager at the time worried about it not being a "good look" to accept the deal.

Dan says he regretted that they worried about what people would think of them.

"The reason why we turned it down was, look, our parents are middle-class, they live in Akron [Ohio], they work all year long," he said, "Dan's mum is a school teacher, my dad works at a newspaper, they work all year long, they work their asses off. They got upset with us when we told them we didn't take the money. Coz it's crazy."

"It's, like, four years of their salary," Dan chips in.

Pat continues, "And when you start making decisions based on…" "What some blogger thinks," Dan laughs. "That went to Bard College or Oberlin," Pat shrugs.

They then had a good laugh about the fact that they love mayonnaise and went on to reveal that they've also turned down an offer from Hummer.

Check out the interesting conversation below.