From Boys to Hitmen

Two minutes into my interview with Brandon Flowers, the surprisingly preppy-looking singer and keyboardist of mega-selling Las Vegas indie outfit The Killers, and I’m nervously scanning his vast London hotel suite for hidden cameras. There’s obviously some kind of weird joke being perpetrated here. Why else would the 27-year-old rock star be avoiding eye-contact and sniggering like a schoolgirl?

On the way into the room, his press handler had quietly advised me not to ask Flowers about the lyrics from the band’s new single ‘Human’. The first cut off their soon-to-be-released third long player, Day & Age, ‘Human’ sounds like a glorious hybrid of the Pet Shop Boys and U2. It’s four minutes of synth-heavy, sweeping, epic rock, and boasts the rather melancholic chorus, “My sign is vital/My hands are cold/And I’m on knees, looking for the answer/Are we human, or are we dancer?”
“Brandon has already been asked, ‘What does ‘Are we dancer?’ mean?’ about 100 times by journalists,” the handler informs me. “So you’re probably better off not going there!”
Actually, I’m already aware that the lyrics were inspired by a Hunter S. Thompson quote, in which the late gonzo journalist bemoaned the fact that America was raising “a generation of dancers.” Given that Thompson’s most infamous book was the chemi-crazed Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas, and Vegas is The Killers’ hometown, it seems a good place to start. But perhaps not...
So, Brandon, is Hunter Thompson a big deal in Vegas?
“Not as big as Elvis!” he replies, before near-shrieking out a somewhat nerdy, girlish giggle. “Ha-ha!”
I don’t really know how to respond to that, and a good 10 seconds of awkward silence follows. Eventually, he speaks again, “Em... in France the book is translated as Las Vegas Paranoid. This is one thing I’ve learned because of all this. But, yeah, I guess he’s sort of a big thing.” Then he laughs again. “Ha-ha!”
Deciding to keep things literary, I wonder has he read the work of Willy Vlautin, the Richmond Fontaine singer-turned-novelist, who also hails from Nevada. Flowers responds with a strange look and a simple, “No,” before sniggering again. “Ha-ha!”
Somewhat disconcerted with the way this is – or isn’t – going, I jump ahead and ask is he happy with Day & Age?
“Yeah, I’m happy with it. Ha-ha!”
You were touring your second album Sam’s Town for quite a while...
“We did it pretty heavy duty. Ha-ha!”
Did you write much of the new record on the road?
“Yeah, we did. I stopped going out so much, and started taking a keyboard everywhere. It spawned a couple of these songs so that’s the one good thing.” He squirms uncomfortably in his seat and emits another, “Ha-ha!”
What is it with this guy? He’s making me Las Vegas Paranoid. Flowers got hitched a couple of years ago. I ask how married life is treating him?
“Good. Ha-ha!”
Is that why you stopped going out so much?
“Yeah.”
Jaysus! This is like making awkward conversation with your kid sister’s nervous debs date. I don’t know what it is that finally breaks the ice, but Flowers suddenly seems to realise that he’s making strange.
“I’m sorry, man,” the singer says, waving a hand over his face as if to reboot himself into interview mode. “I’m just a little... Ha-ha!”
It’s becoming obvious that he’s not being rude, this is just the way that he is. Despite a take-no-prisoners onstage persona, Flowers comes across like the shy, edgy type in conversation. The laugh is more of a nervous tic than anything else. Still, as he relaxes, he gradually becomes more talkative. The US election is happening in just a few days and he perks up slightly when I mention it.
“It’s a very exciting time. I’m not a fan of bandwagons so I hate saying it, but yes, I’m an Obama man. But I’m not doing it because every other actor and artist is. It’s unavoidable. His views, the way he carries himself, what it represents about the way we’re going – everything... he’s undeniable. So we’ll see what happens.”
Amazingly, there’s no high-pitched “Ha-ha!” when he finishes. But then, American politics is no laughing matter.

The youngest of six children, Brandon Flowers was born in Las Vegas in 1981, but his devout Mormon family moved to Utah when he was eight. His father was a produce man, working in grocery stores, and his mother was a housewife.
Quiet and shy as a teenager, Flowers didn’t really fit in growing up in the small town of Nephi (FYI The Book Of Nephi is the first book in the Book Of Mormon, and opens, “I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in the learning of my father”). A devoted fan of British bands like The Smiths, Depeche Mode and The Cure, he kept his own company and was considered something of a weirdo in high school. Worse again, he preferred playing golf to playing football – and apparently considered going pro before his music career took off.
Do you still play golf?
“Not as much as I want to. I just don’t have time.”
Did you ever hear Mark Twain’s take on the sport? He considered it a good walk spoilt.
Flowers furrows his brow, disapprovingly.
“Well, it depends on how he’s looking at it. He could be talking about the frustration of a game. Because it can be one of the most difficult games, but it’s one of the purest sports.”
How do you reconcile being a devout Mormon with being a make-up-wearing rock star? Surely they’re somewhat incompatible?
“Maybe a little,” he shrugs, embarrassed.
Well, does your religion influence the way you live your life?
“Yeah. I think it’s unavoidable. Well, it’s not totally unavoidable. But it’s written in me, I guess, from the way I was raised. But it’s a choice that I make as well. I’m not just going with something out of comfort or... You know, it’s something that I decided to pursue, I guess.”
This means that he rarely, if ever, drinks, smokes or takes illegal drugs. But surely there must have been a period when he rebelled against such Mormonic conformity?
“Yeah, there was definitely an area of uncertainty, I guess. In my late teens. When you’re 19, if you’re worthy and all that, you go on what they call a ‘mission’. My brother went to Chile.”
And you went into music?
“Yeah, pretty much. When I was 19, I bought Hunky Dory – and that turned me the other way, I think. I couldn’t believe something brought me that much pleasure as David Bowie. I was so excited by that music.”
Your discovery of Bowie came quite late, considering you’d been seriously into The Smiths before that...
“I had! Everyone I’d listened to was influenced by David Bowie in a major way. But I guess I hadn’t dug that deep. From Depeche Mode, The Cure, Duran Duran, The Smiths, The Cars – I mean everyone has got a little Bowie in them.”
Famously, Flowers is terrified of flying, which can’t make constant touring particularly easy on his nerves.
“I dread flying, but what we do is try to make it the least amount of flying as possible. So if we fly to a continent, we take a bus around until it’s time to leave the continent. Ha-ha!”
The Cure’s Robert Smith, who refuses to fly anywhere, takes the QEII whenever the band are touring America.
“I’ve actually looked into taking that.”
Do you think you would have been a traveller if you hadn’t been in a band?
He actually looks a little annoyed at the question: “People think Americans are stupid because they don’t travel as much. You know, we’re not as well travelled as Europeans. But it’s amazing to me how closed-minded you’re being about that. For me, a trip to Texas is for you a trip to France. Yeah, I’m still in America but it’s just as far a distance and it’s the same ticket price as your trip to France. So it’s not a fair criticism. But to answer your question, if I would’ve been a traveller, I would’ve had to make enough money to go to places. Which at this time would be difficult. But I’ve always been a dreamer. I still haven’t gone to Africa, and I really want to.”
Another of Flowers’ little quirks is apparently a morbid fear of the number 621.
“It’s my birthday – because we do it the opposite of the way you guys do it here. I dunno. I was playing around with a Ouija board when I was a kid and I asked it when I was gonna die. It could have been my friend messing with me. It’s just ridiculous that I carry it with me still. It’s no way to live, I can tell you. Every time I get on a plane I make sure that it’s not in the flight number somewhere. I even add things up or look at it backwards.”
Have you ever refused a hotel room numbered 621?
“I’ve never had that happen, but I would!”
Given the amount of touring the band undoubtedly have ahead of them, it’s likely to happen someday. But enough numerical nonsense. The Killers’ rise to fame hasn’t been without its controversies. While Flowers has been known to mine difficult family circumstances for his songs (on Sam’s Town ‘Uncle Jonny’ was about his cocaine-addicted uncle’s suicide attempt, while ‘Bling (Confession Of A King)’ detailed his father’s battle with alcoholism before becoming a Mormon when Brandon was five), his lyrics haven’t always been appreciated.
How his father and uncle feel about their lives being used as song-fodder is unknown. But three years ago, while The Killers were on tour in Scotland, Flowers read a newspaper report about the tragic death of Jodi Jones – a 14-year-old from Dalkeith who was murdered by her boyfriend. He wrote a song from the perspective of Jodi’s distraught mother. Although the band played ‘Where Is She?’ live a few times, they quickly shelved it after an angry outcry from the Scottish press.
“I felt very ignorant,” he says now, visibly shuddering. “It’s one of the few things I really wish I’d never done. I was young and stupid. I should’ve just shut my mouth. It’s something I get asked about every now and then – and I just feel embarrassed and ashamed. It sucks. I should’ve shut my mouth. I wish I could erase it. I was naïve. I was so young still, when I think about it. I’m still learning so much.”
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt over the last few years?
“That was part of it. It’s not that I need to put a muzzle on myself, but it’s not doing the world any favours to bring anything negative up. I regret saying anything negative about other bands or things like that.”
He’s certainly had his run-ins. When The Killers first became popular, Flowers publicly attacked labelmates The Bravery – telling MTV, “They’re signed because we’re a band,” and making snide references to the fact that Bravery frontman Sam Endicott had previously fronted a ska band called Skabba The Hut.
“Things like that just didn’t do anybody any good,” he sighs. “I sing a song and it brings people together and it’s so positive. Songs like ‘All These Things I’ve Done’ or ‘Read My Mind’. So, you know, it’s a clash.”
So why did you do it?
“I grew up having a big infatuation with the song ‘My Way’,” he explains. “Paul Anka wrote it – a Canadian! It’s funny, I have a great live album called The Main Event. It’s Sinatra doing it at Madison Square Garden, and he says, ‘I’m now gonna do the national anthem’, and everybody rises and then he sings ‘My Way’. It’s awesome. It’s so good.
“But there’s a line in it where he speaks about saying the things he truly feels, you know, about a man, and that he doesn’t regret it. So I think things like that have fed into me speaking my mind, and feeling like I’m saying it like it is, and so it shouldn’t matter. But that’s not necessarily the right thing.”
Talk turns to the new album Day & Age (fearful of internet piracy, the record company gave me just three listens before taking it away again).
“It’s a brave album,” he reflects. “And what’s funny is it’s more playful and it’s more colourful. It took a band with confidence and with a little experience and a little... we almost had to prove ourselves enough just to get to the point where we could make these songs.
“When I say it’s like looking at Sam’s Town from space... a lot of this was started on the road for Sam’s Town. And playing those songs every night was great, we really became a great live band – the songs were big and we had a lot to prove. And then you go to a hotel room at night and start a song and I guess it’s... [pauses] I felt like my soul is nailed down to the desert of Las Vegas. I feel a real connection. So I guess that’s what it was, I was trying to identify where I was from, but from all these other places. I guess that’s the best way to describe it.”
Speaking of deserts, the song ‘Dustland Fairytale’ seems to be about your parents’ early relationship...
“It starts out with me singing about my mom and dad. But I guess it branches out into being bigger than just my mom and dad. Because I don’t really get into the characters of who these people are. You know, I wasn’t going for that. Because it’s already been kind of put down in some press that I’m not able to develop these characters, but I wasn’t trying to in that. It was the sentiment of what my mom and dad represent that I feel like is dying and that’s really more of what I was trying to capture. Devotion and hard-working and stuff like that.”
Day & Age was produced by Stuart Price (aka Jacques Lu Cont), best known for his work with Missy Elliot and Madonna, who’d previously remixed ‘Mr. Brightside’.
“We worked with him on a couple of songs that made it onto Sawdust [last year’s collection of B-sides, rarities and new songs] – like ‘Sweet Talk’. He also worked on our last Christmas single. But the thing that really first sparked our attention about him was his ‘Brightside’ remix. It changed my whole perspective on everything – because he changed the chords and it was still a great song. Sometimes I think it’s better than what we did. It really messed me up! So now I almost can’t do a song without thinking ‘do I need to flip these chords around?’ So it’s opened up a new world.”
Sawdust featured a song called ‘Tranquilize’, which saw you collaborating with the legendary Lou Reed. How was that?
“It was just an honour, I guess. I’m really proud of the song we did together. ‘Tranquilize’ is one of the highlights of our career so far. The style, the lyrics, the sound, the production – everything about it I love. We were all a little scared of him at first, but you try and learn what you can from people, and then you go your separate ways.”
Flowers is also a massive U2 fan, and fondly recalls The Killers’ stint supporting the Irish act on their last tour: “We opened for them in Wales, Amsterdam and Poland – and they were three of the best nights of my life.”
Have you seen much generosity from the elder statesmen of rock ‘n’ roll, generally?
“So far there hasn’t been anybody who’s been unkind. Mick Jones is another great guy. You grow up hearing those songs and they seem so untouchable and so far away from us – especially in America. Nevada is a long ways away from here. So to meet people like that and have them tell you he likes what you’re doing and he’s so kind... and it’s just crazy. Ha-ha!”
The press handler reappears and asks me to wrap it up. So, Brandon, do you have long-term ambitions for The Killers or are you just taking it one album at a time?
“We’re happy to be in the position we’re in, but we all still feel like we’ve got something to prove. We’ve still got ways to go. I think there’s still songs out there.”
You’ve stated previously that you believe that songs are floating out there in the ether, already fully-formed, and it’s your job to catch them. Do you still believe that?
“Em... I believe that if you stop doing it, it’s almost like a sport, you can lose it. And that scares me.”
What’s been your longest dry spell?
“We’ve been going pretty steady. After Hot Fuss was written and we were touring, it was crazy. But towards the end of it, when it got a little bit easier and it was just about playing gigs and we’d done a lot of press, we wrote songs like ‘Bones’ on the road. So it’s been kind of flowing ever since. It’s always one here or there. But they’re not all keepers. There’s a lot of junk along the way. Ha-ha!”
Finally, the album track ‘Spaceman’ seems to be about alien abduction. Do you believe in UFOs?
Flowers giggles yet again: “It’s just as exciting for me to think that it’s the military coming up with new things that are gonna be unveiled one day. I remember my dad seeing the Stealth out in Las Vegas because they’re always flying out there. And it was way before it was introduced. He talked about this black triangle in the sky and he thought it was a spacecraft. Well, he didn’t know what he’d seen! Ha-ha! And eventually he realised later that it was the Stealth that he saw. So I think there’s something going on. Ronnie, our drummer, is a believer in extra-terrestrials.”
Well, that’s my first question for him sorted...
“He’ll go on forever!” Flowers guffaws. “He’ll fill up the whole interview with that. Ha-ha!”
So that, ladies and gentleman, was Mr. Brandon Flowers. Nice sincere guy, little nervous, laughs a lot...

Long-haired, mutton-chopped drummer Ronnie Vannucci is sipping a chocolate milkshake when I walk into his room. Relaxed, affable and dressed like grunge never went out of style, the 32-year-old seems the polar opposite of his frontman.
“UFOs?” he drawls, when I tell him what Brandon’s just told me. “Sure! I believe in ‘em!”
But his smile says let’s not even go there, so we don’t. Instead we discuss other celestial matters. I ask if he’s also a Mormon, or even just the religious type?
“No, I’m not. Religion’s not an issue for me, really, at this point. I don’t necessarily live by it. I’m a soulful person. I was raised with the very, very basic fundamentals of Christianity. My parents were both very into humankind and the soul and nature and things like that. But we didn’t go to church. We were taught to be kind and to be mindful of others.”
Brandon’s religion obviously influences the way he lives his life on the road. So do you make up for his good behaviour with some badness of your own?
“No, I like to have a good time, but I have a wife that keeps me in line,” he smiles. “So I have a good time, but I draw the line. We got married a little over five years ago, but we’ve been together since 1995. So she knows me!”
Did you get married at the Las Vegas wedding chapel – the quaintly named ‘Little Chapel of the Flowers’ – where you used to take photos?
“I actually wanted to get married there, but we ended up getting married in a friend’s backyard in Vegas. It was very quaint and beautiful. A friend of ours, a bishop in the Mormon church, did the honours. But he was just a friend, a good dude, and it wasn’t a religious ceremony at all.”
So did you photograph many drunken impulsive weddings during your time working there?
“Actually no. It was a family-run place, run by Mormons, friends of my wife. I kinda got juiced in. They had a thing that if anybody appeared to be inebriated or affected chemically in any way, we just wouldn’t do it.”
A native of Las Vegas, Ronnie Vannucci Jr was born in 1976. As a young child, he apparently drove his parents crazy by banging rhythmically on every object in their house.
“I knew from the early, early zygote stage that I was going to be doing something in music – and probably, hopefully, something important. You know, in the papers and on TV and shit.”
Is fame important to you?
“Em... no, it isn’t. Not at all, really. That stuff just comes with the territory. I mean, I was never like a six-year-old egomaniac, but I thought that that stuff came with the territory of where I wanted to be: on a stage playing with three other funky dudes and making music that people can relate to in one way or other. And to be able to kind of touch people and entertain people with music. I was doing that for my parents’ friends when I was seven or eight. Giving drum solos in the living room. I would put on concerts. It was sweet. Actually, I should start doing that again!”
Are you all now local heroes in Las Vegas?
“Well, we don’t have any enemies, I guess. You can definitely tell when your video’s out or when it’s not out. You can walk through a restaurant and you kind of feel eyes on you. But when your video’s not out, you’re not hot shit at the moment, you’re just like everybody else. I like the ‘just like everybody else’ part.”
By all accounts a good student, Ronnie attended both Clark and Western High Schools, and formed his first band Purple Dirt while a young teenager (they mostly played Depeche Mode and Cure covers). Although he attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and York University, he never actually completed his music degree.
“Yeah, we got signed before I could actually finish Music School, but I’m only a few classes away. I’m gonna hopefully go back and finish up this year.”
Ask him which drummers he admires, and he’ll reel off names like Tony Williams, Joe Jones, Brian Blade and Billy Martin: “These guys are primarily jazz or avant garde type drummers, not so much pop ones. I like Mitch Mitchell from the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Jon Bonham. Stuart Copeland’s great, too.”
Do you attempt to bring your own jazz stylings to The Killers’ sound?
“If you try and force that kind of thing onto a pop or rock song, it can get ugly. Especially if the other guys don’t really understand where you’re coming from. It’s not conducive to a writing environment. But I think there’s certain things that sort of slip in there unconsciously.”
Do you get much say as the, erm, drummer?
“Yeah... JUST PLAY THE BEAT, BONGO! Ha, ha! No, actually this band’s very democratic. We all write. I play other instruments and I’m able to show things on other instruments.”
Do you prefer playing live to recording?
“Tell you what, it’s about neck and neck right now. Because recently I’ve been very involved in recording. Actually, I was recording about 30 minutes ago on my laptop.”
What exactly?
“Just some ideas. Banging them out on my laptop. I use a programme called Logic – it’s kind of Apple’s version of Pro-Tools – and we actually recorded the whole album in this format. A lot of it I recorded. Basically it started out with all of us working in various living rooms, bedrooms, spare bedrooms and basements. We’d all be bringing these ideas to the table via the internet – we’d email an MP3 or post these files online onto an MP3 site – and basically we’d all be able to swap ideas whilst remaining in our own neck of the woods.”
You all still live in Vegas, though, don’t you?
“Yeah. But Dave’s got a place in San Diego as well, and I hide out in the mountains in Utah most of the time. So we’re not always together.”
Did full songs for Day & Age come together in this way?
“Sure,” he nods. “We’d basically just go round in a circle and whittle it down to a song. So that when we finally get together, we have a list of shit to go through, so we’re not sitting around with our thumbs up our asses going, ‘Play a riff!’ ‘When You Were Young’ was kinda written that way, and ‘Losing Touch’ was kinda that way. So we use the recording programme, we bounce it back and forth between the band and Stuart. A lot of those demos actually made it onto the record.
“You know, we basically spend about four or five months doing that – emailing ideas back and forth to each other. And then finally spending a few weeks or a month-and-a-half actually in a room together, working through these ideas to a better form. Because a lot of times the drummer writes the guitar part but it sounds a little uneven, so you have to give it to someone who knows what the hell they’re doing – aka Dave [Keuning]– and have them spruce it up and put his own things on it. It’s kind of what we all do.
“But they’re not all done like that. Out of all four of us, Brandon is probably the most prolific or main writer. And sometimes he’ll bring in almost-whole songs, but they inevitably get changed so much that they change shape altogether and turn into different songs.”
While he reveals that he and his wife would like to start a family soon, he also tells me that he sees The Killers as a long-term prospect.
“You really have to be around for your kids when they’re in the early stages – you know, so they hear your voice and know who you are and you’re not a total stranger to them – so I don’t know how that would work out. But we’re all still totally committed to the band.
“We really look up to groups like U2, who’ve been doing it since they were like 14,” he continues. “It’s really inspiring. What’s even more inspiring is that those guys aren’t dicks either. And maybe they’re not dicks because they don’t have to be. Maybe they were dicks at some stage, but I can’t see that. Anyway, it seems like it can be done. Everybody in our band still has their marbles. There’s not a crazy fucker in the band. Or they’ve kind of done the crazy bit already and now they’re... normalising.”
What’s the craziest thing anyone in The Killers has done?
“Oh, I don’t know,” he sighs, warily. “Everybody keeps asking me that! I should probably have some stock stories for that question, but I don’t wanna have stock stories. To a point, from an entertainment factor, it’s nice but... We have some good ones, but nothing worth bringing out of the quiver. Sorry!”
For the moment, he’s just looking forward to going out on the road again touring Day & Age: “I’m really happy with this album. I think of it as kind of free. It’s shot full of great moments in a lot of ways. All of them are strong songs. I feel like I’m selling it if I describe it too much. I’m just really proud of it, and I’m anxious to see what other people think. We wanna make music that affects people in a positive way.”