How did Brandon Flowers, Ronnie Vannucci, Dave Keuning and Mark Stoermer go from the Las Vegas dive bar circuit to selling four million copies of their debut album, Hot Fuss? On the eve of the band's highly-anticipated Oxegen 2005 appearance, Stuart Clark talks to the people involved in the making of The Killers.
Their debut Hot Fuss sold over 4 million copies and in the process set The Killers up as one of the brightest young hopes of the modern era. On the eve of the release of their second album Sam’s Town, the band look like settling for nothing less than U2-sized supremacy. Now, if only Brandon Flowers would shave off that, ahem, controversial face fuzz.
They may be one of the hottest bands of the year, but Las Vegas synth fiends The Killers are planning to cool off this Christmas with some well-earned down-time and a skiing holiday in Utah. But not before they’ve discussed texting Charlize Theron, hanging with Elton John and that David Bowie tribute with Stuart Clark.
The first time The Killers played Oxegen they fretted whether anyone would turn up to see them. Now they’re sweeping in to headline the main stage. They talk to us about being chased by papparazi, growing up in Middle America and sharing a bill with Bono and, er, Gary Barlow
How cool are Clap Your Hands Say Yeah? Well, cool enough to shift forty thousand units from cardboard boxes before anyone had heard of them. Ice cold enough to make the universally knee-trembling reviews this album received stateside seem far too understated. Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, Alec Ounsworth’s Brooklyn five piece has it all going on.
The singer is actually much more assured onstage than the last time I saw The Killers, at the Olympia in 2004, when his inhibitions seemed to be holding him back.
The band churn out the dreariest material from both Sam’s Town and Day & Age, and – although I’m definitely in the minority – I find myself feeling a bit bored.
Sam’s Town suggests that the newly face-fuzzed Brandon Flowers has contracted a serious dose of Bruce-llosis (a quick scan of the album’s titles yields a number of Boss buzzwords: “river”, “town”, “Jonny”, “wild”). No bad thing necessarily, but any rock band without the E-Streeters’ skill or Springsteen’s Steinbeckian grasp of American history should beware of straying across the wrong side of the New Jersey tracks and ending up in Bon Jovi-ville.
Sam’s Town consistently grandstands to the bleachers, makes cheap plays for the listener’s emotions and foolhardily flaunts with the conventions of good taste. Just like a great rock ‘n’ roll record should.
They’ve embraced the big sound of America but The Killers still aren’t fully comfortable with the burdens of stardom, reveals frontman Brandon Flowers.
