Brandon Flowers has spoken to NME about revisiting his formative years to give more of himself away than ever before on new solo album ‘Thrasher’, as well as tackling the “loneliness epidemic” for an incoming “sister record” and what’s next for The Killers.
The frontman of the Las Vegas band will release his third solo album this Friday (August 21), drawing from his early childhood years and country music like Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings that his father would play to him while driving around rural Utah. It carries the Americana thread launched by The Killers’ classic 2006 album ‘Sam’s Town’ and picks up where their last record, ‘Pressure Machine’, left off with its “South Western” leanings.
“I enjoyed making ‘Pressure Machine’ so much that I didn’t want to leave,” Flowers told NME as we met in his record label offices in London. “I didn’t think that this should be a Killers record, so I zeroed in even more. Where ‘Pressure Machine’ was centred around Nephi, Utah, and all those stories were taking place within the town, this one is even more personal. I’m zeroing in on my inner circle. That’s how I see it.”
And why now, at the age of 45 and with such a vivid songbook already under his belt, is Flowers getting so personal?
“I think I’m capable of it now,” he replied. “I don’t think I was capable as a songwriter in the early days. I’ve always wanted to and told stories, but I wasn’t good at it. I think this is just an evolution of my craft, and I think I’m finally ready to do this.”
Recorded in country music’s spiritual home of Nashville, ‘Thrasher’ sees Flowers reunite with longtime producers Shawn Everett and Jonathan Rado, as well as team up with guitarist David Rawlings, pedal steel player Bruce Bouton, and 85-year-old Charlie McCoy (the harmonica player who featured on all four of Bob Dylan’s Nashville records).
As Flowers revealed to NME last year, ‘Thrasher’ is the first of two new solo albums – with this one more narrative ahead of a more “romantic” follow-up.
“It’s the same band,” he shared of the other album on the way. “It’s maybe not as country but maybe country-leaning; in the same way that Tom Petty is country adjacent, or The Travelling Wilburys.”
Flowers added: “I see it as an answer to the loneliness epidemic. It is a problem that I’m seeing where we’re separating ourselves. Those beautiful things that make us human are getting lost. The greatest joys of my life have been those moments – just being a young man and dating, falling in love, whatever it was. That’s what keeps the world turning.”
Check out the rest of our interview below, where Flowers looked back on his childhood, opened up about the power of country, his life as an artist and a father, and teased a new Killers record in the works.
NME: Hello, Brandon. What is it about these memories and your early years that marry so well with an album like ‘Thrasher’?
Brandon Flowers: “I think I just have a great memory. I carry around these stories, and it’s become my job to tell them. It’s a big responsibility. There’s a song about my sister on the record called ‘Miss America’, and you don’t want to mess it up. You want to do justice to her experience. It goes back to age and the care that I can put into it. I didn’t have access to that or to the words before. My abilities weren’t there.”
Doing your sister justice is quite a burden. Is she cool with it?
“Yeah! I played it to her, and if she’d have hated it or not wanted it out there then I wouldn’t have. I’ve shared those great moments with my wife before on previous records where you’re playing this thing for them. It’s a bonding moment.”
Take us back to the time where this record is set. What was life like at home?
“It’s something I haven’t been completely forthright about. You put up what you are willing to share in an interview. I’ve always said I’ve had a Rockwellian upbringing, and to a certain extent I’m totally telling you the truth. I love my mom and dad; they stayed together, I went to church, had a lot of family dinners, played golf with my dad and that side of things – but there are other sides to my upbringing that I’m starting to explore and be more open about.
“I’m still scared to bring it up because I don’t want to tarnish my family. My way of doing it is in the songs. It’s tough for me to explain, but there was drug abuse around, there was domestic violence, there were physical fights. I did grow up around things like that. Those are memories that stay with you.”
Was there an element of intentionally hiding that at first in The Killers’ songs to focus on the glamorous Vegas side of the band? Or is it more about only being able to process it now?
“In The Killers, I felt like a representative of the band. Just the thought of writing a song about my sister on ‘Hot Fuss’ would have been wild! It’s just this thing that’s been a natural grassroots evolution. That’s really where it came from. You figure out what you’re comfortable sharing in interviews and how you’re getting labelled. We are ambassadors for Las Vegas now. We didn’t set out for that; it was thrust upon us. I’m happy to be now, but that’s the thing people wanted to talk about. We didn’t think we were that weird until it became something that people honed in on.
“We realised we were proud to be from Las Vegas and were waving the flag. We were just trying to get out at first and not work like our dads.”
Growing up in Nephi, how did you imagine your future?
“I have a song about an ageing valet parker called ‘Paradise’. That was my goal in life. I wasn’t scholastic; I didn’t get good grades, I graduated really below average. My uncles and cousins raised families on their wages from the casinos: from bellmen to valet parkers to people that worked in the food industry. That was their lifeblood. It wasn’t that far-fetched, but the idea was that I wanted to work at a nice place – The Bellagio, The Wynn or something like that.
“That was what I saw when I looked down the road. I was happy and content, I wasn’t shooting any higher than that. It’s a miracle what has happened to me.”
You’ve spoken a lot about how you were shaped by Pet Shop Boys, Oasis, The Smiths and New Order, but what was your music taste like in your formative years?
“I had two different educations, and that’s really what it is for a singer or a musician. It’s well-known that I inherited this music from my brother, who’s 12 years older than me. That was everything you’d associate with The Killers: The Smiths, Depeche Mode, New Order, U2, Billy Bragg, all this British stuff – it was everything. Then there was another education I was getting: my sisters were listening to ‘90s R&B music and my parents were listening to country music. It was always there, since I was young. My dad would have been listening to Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, John Conlee. These were great songs and great songwriting.
“It was always there and I liked it, but I always felt guilty. You don’t listen to ‘Louder Than Bombs’ by The Smiths and then listen to Willie Nelson. You feel like you have to choose when you’re growing up. I chose correctly for the time. I chose The Smiths over Willie Nelson, but then as you get older you realise that there’s so much room for all of it. It’s no secret that I fell in love with so much more American music later, but that was just a step towards this. Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Tom Petty – they’re country-leaning sometimes, and it has led me down this road back to my father’s music on this record.”
Is it strange to see the worlds of pop and country smashing together so much nowadays then now that country is on trend?
“Maybe! I’m a little bit more of a purist within the genre. I feel like right now, this is the vehicle for me and the stories I have to tell.”
What do you think it is about country music that allows you to do that?
“There’s an authenticity to this tradition, and it relies on the story. These are American stories that I’m telling, and it’s amazing how easily they fit into it. I’m just surprised how naturally it came to me and how naturally it felt. I just said, ‘I know how to do this’. Where does that come from? When I was driving to the dentist with my dad, he was listening to this music.”
And it’s a true American art form as well…
“Yes, and it’s beautiful. It’s sort of gone astray as of late, but there are some people that are writing good songs again and injecting an authenticity back into it. I don’t think anyone expected it to be me to do that, but I surprised myself and I love it.”
Why do you think there is this hunger for country music at the moment?
“I don’t know. The storytelling is such a human business. When you can tie to a melody, that’s a powerhouse.”
Tell us about the all-star cast of musicians on this album…
“I’m kind of embarrassed, but I’ll admit it – I didn’t appreciate what I was getting into. I do now and I love it, but I felt like I was hot stuff. I had these songs finished, I’ve headlined Glastonbury, I’ve been selling out some stadiums, but when I walked into the room with these guys, that stuff just didn’t matter, and it melted away! It was like, ‘What have you got?’ I fell in love with their process.
“Every day would just start with 45 minutes of people telling stories. You’re just soaking that in, because you’ve got so many cool experiences. Just Charlie McCoy, he can tell you Leonard Cohen stories, he can tell you Simon & Garfunkel stories, Bob Dylan stories, Roy Orbison stories. It’s just like, ‘Who is this guy? He’s played on everything!’ It should be ‘Charlie McCoy featuring Brandon Flowers’, because his hooks are so prominent on the record. He’s really great.
“Then Bruce Bouton is a steel guitar player. He’s one of these guys who will find a lyric and then reaffirm what I’m saying musically. You hear these little nuggets that match what you’re singing, and it’s just such a joy.”
And that makes you up your game?
“Absolutely. I sang live with them, which I haven’t done since ‘Sam’s Town’. I sang better. For ‘Miss America’, there’s no cutting – it’s just me and the band playing.”
‘American Dream’ feels like the centre-piece of the album. What dream are you imagining there?
“It’s an actual dream sequence. It feels surreal, but it was a great way to wrap up the record. It’s the oldest of the songs. It’s Ronnie [Vannucci Jr, The Killers] on drums. It’s always nice to have Ronnie present. Every other song on the record is very specific, and on that one I am getting a little bit colourful and taking some artistic licence. It’s one of my favourites.”
You sing about Elvis driving a Tesla. Do you think he would?
“No, but in this dream he picks me up in one. I have my own vision of that and what it means, and I hope people pick up on that kind of stuff.”
How much should we read into this dream?
“Oh I think you could read into it a lot. I would like to have a psychiatrist or a therapist dissect it.
How do you imagine the future now?
“It’s tough to be optimistic about the future right now. It seems to be getting weirder and we’re isolating ourselves more and more. I’m seeing it firsthand with my children, who are three teenage boys. I saw the saddest thing the other day where someone was talking about how kids don’t goof off as much, because there’s bound to be a friend near with a phone who could film it.
“For some reason, that really dawned on me. All three of my sons have grown up with that. There was always a kid in your friendship group that would do that if they had the chance. Just that loss is heartbreaking.
“We go on hikes and we get outside. I try to instil in them that they’ll fall and break their ass if they get their phones out. Those kinds of moments are really important for me to make time for and for them to see. A lot of people aren’t doing that. It’s become a luxury, even though it’s free to go on a walk. I hope that there’s some sort of course correction, but it’s looking bleak.”
They’ve retroactively called the ‘00s the ‘indie sleaze’ era because it was so wild with people partying in the last age before you could film everything on a phone…
“That’s right. I didn’t have a phone until I needed to do interviews, and that was the label telling us. It’s crazy that I didn’t have one. It sounds like I’m 150-years-old!”
Does age and fatherhood change your ambition as an artist and the way you think about the work?
“You feel more responsibility, and you should. I just feel gratitude for taking stock of my life. Regardless of if I’d had kids or not, ‘What has music given me and what am I going to give back? What mark am I going to leave?’
“Also, you don’t want to embarrass the kids! I want to grow old gracefully. As an artist, I think there’s a way to do that. There are some bands who just don’t and try to hold on. You want authenticity. That’s what you’re getting from me, and I feel that should be celebrated. My favourites did that. Look at John Lennon’s last few records, he made amazing art out of it and didn’t write ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ again because he didn’t need to. There’s a beauty in that.”
Do you see yourself as a Mick Jagger-style lifer?
“Maybe! It’s become such a big part of my identity that I don’t know what I would do without it. I’m spoiled rotten because I get to be at home and write songs and have those moments, I get to have moments with the band where we share these moments in the studio, I get to go on stage, and I get this other limb where I can tell my family’s stories.
“I am really lucky, and I don’t see that slowing down as I get older.”
Does country music give you more longevity away from the constraints of The Killers? Do you imagine being in The Killers when you’re 75?
“I hope so. Either way works. This other path I’ve started to carve does feel more age-appropriate. Maybe I will be able to pull off ‘Somebody Told Me’!”
September will be 20 years of ‘Sam’s Town’. With there being something of a thread between ‘Sam’s Town’ and this record, will you be doing anything to mark the anniversary?
“We did mark ‘Hot Fuss’ and did the residency in Vegas, but if we do that for every record then we’ll never stop. That’s the problem with it, but there’s nothing planned. Maybe we’ll do something for 25 years? It feels like that could line up. I can’t believe it’s been 20 years. We used to get taxis to Willesden Green to Assault & Battery studios where we finished off the record. It doesn’t feel like 20 years ago!”
Is there a new album from The Killers in the can?
“It’s not in the can, but the guys have been really great and accommodating about coming to Salt Lake to write and get demos going. We meet periodically in Salt Lake, and that’s just on account of where I’m at as a father. Ronnie’s kids are really young, Dave [Keuning, guitarist]’s son is already an adult, I’m just at this tender time where I want to have dinner with my family where I can. They’ve been great about it, and we’re just going to keep chipping away.”
And that’s the full band working together again?
“It’s the full band, and we’ve been working with Ariel Rechtshaid and Shawn Rado. The band have got some time off for good behaviour, but we meet every now and again to see if we’ve got anything left in the tank.”
Which version of The Killers will hear on the next album? More neon arena rock than Americana?
“There’s no specific goal, but you have to keep that in mind. Sometimes you forget until you play a song in front of 50,000 people and realise it’s not the time for that. That’s definitely in the back of our minds.”
Brandon Flowers releases ‘Thrasher’ on Friday August 21 via Island Records, before a headline tour of North America, the UK and Ireland kicks off in September. Visit here for tickets and more information.
