Brandon’s beard haunts my dreams and soon it will haunt yours too. A quick google search for the words “Brandon Flowers” and “beard” yields something north of 203,000 hits. Half the world apparently has opinions on The Killers’ frontman’s recent – some might say highly distressing – foray into facial shrubbery. What people can’t understand is why one of rock’s prettiest stars should wish to mask those fallen choir-boy features beneath – and you’ve seen the pictures, so let’s not hold back – the kind of moustache that could get you thrown out of the Village People.
“It’s strange, all the fuss about the beard,” muses Flowers, sounding slightly wounded. “The thing is, I’ve never been able to grow a beard before.”
Up close, Brandon’s beard looks even odder yet. It is, I’m afraid, a troubled beard, a beard with issues. Over the lip, Flowers (25), who is polite and maybe even sweet but not, you sense, quite of this world, has a porn star-lite vibe going on. Further along, the beard, turning scraggy and droopy, appears to harbour aspirations of joining the Kings of Leon. By the time we reach Flower’s chin dimple, the ‘tache has segued into a streak of frankly half-hearted stubble.
Certain among us are perplexed, not to say irked, by Brandon’s beard. Neil Tennant, a friend, went so far as to accuse Flowers of turning his back on The Killers' supposed grand project: to become the biggest selling and most adored pop act in history. Of course, the thing that really bothered Tenant wasn’t the goatee per se but all that the goatee stood for: its repudiation of the clean cut lines of pop in favour of the gruff, mutton-chopped authenticity of rock music.
“I don’t think Neil has anything to worry about,” offers Flowers in a languid burr surprisingly removed from his singing voice. “Rock music is pop music. If you have a hook in a rock song, it’s a pop song. The Beatles are pop. The Stones are pop. I think the words rock and pop can go together just fine.”
As if the beard didn’t articulate the point clearly enough, The Killers’ bait and switch is writ large on their new record Sam’s Town, a crashing, yearning suite of rockers that set its sights on megadome adoration. With an Anton Corbijn cover shoot that explicitly references U2’s Joshua Tree, lo and behold, Sam’s Town is more than a remarkably confident second album; it is nothing less than the sound of a group staking their claim to being the biggest band in the world.
“Coming back to the US after touring the world was like seeing our home country with fresh eyes,” Brandon says of The Killers’ decision to depart from the new-wave scenery that was a hallmark of their four million selling 2003 debut Hot Fuss. “I guess before we went, we hadn’t realised how American we were. None of us had been outside of the country before. When we got home from the tour, I think we had a new appreciation of that and it started to influence the music. That’s why we called the new album Sam’s Town. It’s a casino in Las Vegas that I used to live across the street from. We wanted to immortalize Vegas in song the same way that the Beatles immortalized ‘Strawberry Fields’. “
Face to face, Flowers has a tendency to wax enigmatic, which is a surprise considering how easy it is to dissemble The Killer’s music. On stage, however, he plays it unerringly straight, throwing himself with abandon into the part of Great Rock Frontman. The night before our interview, beneath the faded stucco of Blackpool’s Empress Ballroom and before an agog crowd, Flowers appeared to at once channel Springsteen, Bowie and U2. Arms open in a crucifixion pose, he pulled off a fair approximation of sweaty earnestness, but did so wearing a glittering red neck-tie, while being shrieked at by dozens of swooning young ladies – a feat arguably beyond the collective talents of Bruce and Bono (we’ll get to Bowie later).
The moment he steps off stage though, the rock star shimmer fades from his eyes. The fast lane, it appears, holds little interest for Brandon – whilst several of The Killers joined the previous evening’s after-show (and free bar), nattering with Jo Whiley and Zane Lowe in the musty bowels of the Empress complex, Flowers was early to bed, where he fell into the embrace of a good book. A practicing Mormon (wife Tana Munblowsk, whom he married in Hawaii last year, drew him back to the faith), he tries to keep at arms length the party lifestyle many rock stars ardently believe to be part of their job description.
“Yeah, it’s difficult to hold true to the values you believe in,” Flowers says, though in a tone of voice that suggests skipping an after-show in lieu of some quality time with an airport novel is, in fact, the easiest thing in the world. “But my faith is there for me. It’s not as if I stay in every night. Sometimes I go out with the band. But I try to avoid the temptations and that’s the difference I think – the fact that I try.”
A bright vein of spirituality runs through Sam’s Town. Have Flowers’ Mormon beliefs seeped into the music?
“It kind of shows its face. It’s nothing that I set out to do, but it’s something about myself which I can’t deny. It’s a scary torch to be carrying, but y’know, we’re not all about Jesus. We still have the ruckus running through us. I think it’s possible to be spiritual without sacrificing your credibility. Look at U2 – they touched on those issues in a way that was tasteful and positive.”
U2, in fact, have emerged as a notable influence on The Killers. Brandon and Bono are chums – the pair dueted when the Vertigo tour fetched up in Las Vegas in 2005. Theirs would appear to be a mutual appreciation club; the Vegas concert saw U2 dropping the "I got soul" refrain from ‘All These Things That I’ve Done’ into an encore.
“What happened is that they were doing two nights in Las Vegas and we got talking at a party on the first night,” explains Brandon. “It shows you how sweet they are that the track I did with them was ‘In A Little While’, which they know is my favourite song. I turned up at soundcheck and they were practising it. The first time I met them I was totally star-struck. People over here don’t realise it, but in America bands like U2 and The Beatles seem so exotic because they’re so far away. That’s why we react so strongly to the music. “
Bono, it seems, has taken it upon himself to mentor Flowers and the rest of the band. He advised The Killers to work with the producer Gareth ‘Jackknife’ Lee on the new record (in the end, they plumped for the formidable double act of Alan Moulder and Flood, largely because of their track record with Depeche Mode, another inspiration). Larry Mullen, meanwhile, offered Brandon some choice tips for dealing with detractors.
“He told me that if a journalist doesn’t like you and writes a bad interview, go back and have that person interview you for the next album. And if he doesn’t like that record either, then make sure he interviews you again. You got to keep letting them know that you’re doing your thing, that it just doesn’t matter what they say, because you know where you are going with this.”
The Killers have also struck up a friendship with Elton John, who got on so well with Flowers he threatened to gate-crash the singer’s wedding (in the end he relented, largely because he hadn’t been told where the nuptials were taking place).
“Elton’s advice to me was just to always work hard, to never get complacent and take things for granted,” says Brandon. “Of course, that’s easy for him to say, considering that at his peak he was capable of writing two or three albums every year.”
Celebrity meet-ups haven’t always gone as smoothly. While The Killers hit it off with U2 and Elton, a chance encounter with David Bowie was rather more fraught.
“That was a real awkward experience, for us and for him,” says Flowers, wincing. “What do you do? It’s Davie Bowie. I just stared at him. I was like, ‘Ashes To Ashes’ – love that song. He’s not going to realise what an effect his music had on me. You want to tell him, but he hears that all the time.”
Like Bowie, The Killers have cultivated a considerable gay following. For a rock band – an American rock band who thunk guitars and sing about girls ripping your heart in two let’s remember – this is possibly unique. Dare we suggest that the pink demographic owes less to The Killers’ music than to Flowers, a pretty boy with a glint of sin in his eyes?
“It’s nice that they like the music and that they like us,” says Flowers, suddenly bashful. “But it’s all down to the songs. The songs are what people respond to.”
Surely, though, Flowers is aware that, as frontman, all eyes are on him. Certainly he goes further than most rock stars to cut a dash. Who can forget his unfortunate dalliance with mascara and lipstick? And while he’s long since junked the make-up pouch, this morning finds him faintly raffish, replete with a red cravat.
“I’m from Las Vegas,” he says. “Showbiz is in the town’s blood. Every where you go, even the 7/11, there are pictures of Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. As a kid I moved to Utah and I identified with Sinatra. Living where we did, he represented the big city to me. When I was 16, my folks let me go back to the city, to Vegas. ‘My Way’ stood for the things that drew me there, that sense of glamour.”
Conjuring a follow-up to Hot Fuss was, admits Flowers, initially daunting, if not overwhelming. Yet he feels The Killers had already brought their song-craft to a new level with ‘All These Things That I’ve Done’, one of the last numbers written for their debut.
“That song was the breakthrough,” he says. “It led us into the new record. By the time we wrote it, we were getting more ambitious as a band. Plus, since then we’ve toured so hard that we’ve developed as musicians. Our sound is so much bigger, heavier now. It’s really moved on. Initially the plan was to take a break. Then we realised how long it had been since the last album, so we got straight into it.”
One discernible influence on Sam’s Town is Springsteen. Flowers readily admits as much, which is just as well because, in places the album’s debt to ‘Born To Run’ in particular is undeniable, if not blatant. The exact moment he fell for Springsteen remains crystal clear in Brandon’s mind: he was driving to his home in the Vegas suburb of Henderson, listening to a classic rock station, when the track’s strident intro vaulted from the radio. He felt as if he had been struck on the head with a cartoon anvil.
“There were, like, seven hit singles from Born In The USA and everybody knows those,” he says. “But that one time, Born To Run hit me in a different way. After that, it was a gradual thing. I bought a Greatest Hits, which included ‘Thunder Road’, and that was on Born To Run as well, so then I got Born To Run. It was great to have a different inspiration. It made the new album exciting for us. I don’t know what we would have done if we’d been influenced by the same people as on the first album. You don’t want it to be the same old same old.”
Still, suggestions that The Killers, by embracing Springsteen and U2, have turned their back on pop doesn’t sit well with Flowers. “Springsteen is pop,” he says. “‘Dancing In The Dark’ – that’s a beautiful pop song.”
Lyrically, the singer believes he has raised his game with Sam’s Town. On the first record, Flowers says the songs divided between scraps of autobiography or entirely fictional narratives. This time, aware that he has an audience, Flowers steps up to the pulpit. His intention is not, he insists, to preach. Thinking back to his own adolescence, when Morrissey and Bono helped shape his outlook on the world, he is straining to write lyrics that affect people, that have the power to make a difference to their lives.
“When I was 15 years old music changed the way I thought,” he says. “I took a lot of time with the lyrics on this record because I don’t want to be responsible for making anyone stupid or hurting them or taking them around the wrong path. I’m very proud of the lyrics. I think they’re positive. It’s hard to be positive. I wanted to represent what we were really about on the album. On the first album we were just representing a fantasy of the kind of music I had grown up with but which I didn’t know anything about.”
Brandon has already dropped at least one classic couplet, of course. ‘All These Things That I’ve Done’ is more than The Killers’ anthem. Today, it’s everyone’s anthem. Hearing all of the Empress Ballroom chanting, “I got soul but I’m not a soldier” in unison, Flowers admits to experiencing a tingle in his belly.
“I think we have a command over the crowd in a good way,” he reflects. “It’s good for us and it’s good for them. I guess before I go on stage there’s a trigger I pull inside of myself. It’s an excitement that gushes over me. It wasn’t always like that. It’s come with touring so much.”
Seeming not to possess a cocky bone in his body, Flowers insists he is not taking it for granted that Sam’s Town will become the mega-seller it clearly aches to be. If the bubble should burst for The Killers – an eventuality which, honestly, is impossible to imagine – he insists it would not be the end of Flowers’ world.
“If I had to go back to one of my old jobs it would be working at Stanley Mountain golf course in Nevada,” he says, laughing. “You do pretty well out of the tips and, also, you get to play golf for free."