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happy week 299, 23-29 january 2009. photos by torey mundkowsky

translation from greek by Vassiliki Kotzia/ vkotzia on instagram

Are they human or are they The Killers?

Four years ago, when we first heard Somebody Told Me by The Killers, we probably didn’t expected we’d still be talking about them after all this time – let alone see them on the covers of Greek magazines! We couldn’t even believe they were in fact American, from the most unlikely place: Vegas.

But now we know what hit us! They’re a band with musical depth and original ideas, no ruminations and cookie-cutter songwriting, with solid good songs, not just chart hits and -last but not least- Brandon, a frontman who may not be good looking but has managed to emerge as one of the coolest people of 2008.

The Killers are here with their third record, a super-mega hit, Human, and according to rumours they will be visiting Greece soon for a live show. Let’s see what they have to say about all of this and especially what is their answer to the question “are they human or are they The Killers”.

What does it feel like for a band like you to be waiting for their new record to come out?

Dave: We’re just impatient.

Brandon: We’re excited, yeah. Of course we had to wait until it was perfect and ready to release, so there was a lot of anticipation. We hope this translates in many ways.

The Killers, as a band, have always been a very visual-conscious band. Do you think art and image really go together?

Brandon: Image is an important part of art.

Dave: Everyone’s got an image. Even if they wish to be invisible, that’s their image.

Brandon: We actually follow our songs, it’s the opposite to what a purist would say or do. They’d probably say that a song is some sort of an exaggerated version of a true story or, at least, a fragment of our lives, but we do the opposite: we make the song and we let it pave the way for us. But the song is us, it is who we are! We’re changing, we’re not the same four guys who wrote Sam’s Town or Hot Fuss and we’re doing our best to represent that.

There’s a lot of saxophone on your new album, maybe even too much…

Dave: Mark, our bassist, has always said he wanted a saxophone solo on a song. We’re open to introducing any new instrument, but the truth is we had no idea how big a change we were making when we decided that.

…maybe not until journalists started to point it out…

Dave: You know, we were thinking “let’s add some saxophone”. I like the way it turned out.

Brandon: There’s no such thing as a non-compatible music instrument. We were really open to new ideas when making this record and the saxophone made the whole thing sound more cheerful.

In this new album the sound of the 80s is still present. I can hear traces of bands like Talk Talk, The Human League and the Pet Shop Boys. But in some songs, I can hear the sound of Motown or Chicago.

Dave: We do have a lot of influences, it’s true. It’s interesting that you mention soul music. It’s definitely in there somewhere.

Brandon: Actually, we got to soul music via David Bowie. But yeah, Motown is impossible to bypass, it’s the essence of American music.

Your song Spaceman talks about an alien abduction. I know you come from Vegas, near the infamous Area 51, but how do you expect the audience to perceive the lyrics of this song?

Brandon: There’s quite an obsession with all things alien! I think we all got that. We all talk about those things with a spark in our eye. Like Fire in The Sky. Have you seen Fire in the Sky?

Dave: No, how old is that?

Brandon: I was 8 and I’m 27 (he was actually 12, the movie came out in 1993). It’s supposed to be a true story with some guys camping out in the forest, and one of them gets abducted in the end. You gotta watch it, it’s pretty good!

It seems you don’t want to stick to a specific sound style for long. Each record is an opportunity for something new. Do you fear repetition?

Dave: Yeah, we’ve always been like this. We have various different influences and we’re not afraid of trying new sounds and going in new directions. It depends on the phase we’re going through while making a record.

Brandon: Change is inevitable. We’re not afraid of sounding the same, but we’re also not afraid of embracing something new. We could easily make Sam’s Town vol.2 but when we got together in the studio, it just didn’t go down this way.

Lyrics-wise there seems to be some nostalgia for a rather old-fashioned way of life. Is it a response to the fast-paced life we live or is it just the result of growing up, having kids etc?

Brandon: It’s the pursuit of a more simple life. You know, we’re living in interesting times. You never know when the next great inventor will show up and give us something that will make our lives a lot easier, and that’s great. But at the same time, it seems our fundamental values are fading away. That’s why I want to bring forward things like romance, devotion etc. It’s kind of sad these things seem out of fashion nowadays. It’s sad they sound out of place to the kids of today.

It's true people don’t even communicate properly anymore. I rarely make any phone calls, it’s all texting and messaging…

Brandon: Yeah, and don’t get me started on simple things like saying hello to people out in the street! They just freak out, it’s insane! I still do it though, just to see people’s reactions. There’s always someone who looks at me in disbelief like “why did this dude just wave at me?”. Both Dave and I grew up in small towns and let me tell you, I still got this picture of my dad in my head, waving at cars passing by. You don’t get to see that any more.

The chorus of Human was inspired by Hunter S. Thompson. Are you a fan of his?

Brandon: Aren’t we all… You know, I found out that in France, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” has been translated as “Las Vegas Paranoid”! You always learn something new!

Are you inspired by literature in general?

Brandon: I don’t read too much, to be honest. I’m obsessed with writing lyrics and I’m trying to get to read more. Only recently, I read “On The Road”, at the same time when we were making this record. I’m a bit of a laggard but that’s a new world for me.

Do you think you’d be making different music if you lived somewhere else?

Brandon: Nevada is beautiful. I love going to New York, London or Paris -its romantic side, especially. But after 10 days or so, I’m scouring the horizon for the mountains. It’s a simple place, where we live.

Dave: I love playing live. It’s hard being away from home, but we love what we do. Our job is to play music and entertain people with our songs, that we try so hard to write and record.

Brandon: We go places we’d never visit otherwise. I don’t think I’d even know about, let’s say, Panama if our music didn’t take us there.

I understand your music is received differently in different places around the world.

Dave: There are dramatic differences, yeah. In Europe audiences differ from one country to another. In Germany, for instance, our fan base is growing steadily. Hot Fuss did pretty well but Sam’s Town smashed it. And Human is huge there, from what we hear.

Brandon: You may think we got big overnight, but if you take a closer look you’ll see that we did it one step at a time. A lot of people think we just shot to stardom but that’s not what happened. We tried to do everything based on a plan, from the way we formed the band to the way we perform live. And I have to say, things are going according to that plan.

Even with all these additions to the music & arrangement, your new album sounds a little stripped compared to your previous work. You’ve given your music more air to breathe.

Brandon: Yes, there’s more space. That’s a sign of maturity and it feels good that we’ve got to this point, but I also kind of suffer with all this space at our live shows! I mean, I’ve got used to our tight live performance, you know, I’m running around throughout the show. But now, Dave has this long guitar solo at the end of Losing Touch… what the hell am I supposed to do?

Dave: Come have fun with me!

Brandon: I mean, I love the solo but what am I doing there? I’m still learning, I guess…

You’ve said you’ve done a lot of work with Stuart Price via email. How does this work? Have you tried it before?

Brandon: Yes, it’s true and he made it sound fresh! It felt like he started working on pre-production before we even hit “send”. Then he’d send his ideas back to us and we’d either agree or disagree. Then we got together in the studio for about a month and we recorded the songs. I read about this new record Brian Eno did with David Byrne. They did the same thing and only got together for a couple of weeks and finished the whole thing. They totally outran us!

Is it a convenient way to work?

Dave: It’s convenient. Even if you’re in another city or another country, if you come up with a good idea you can email it to the rest of the guys. You don’t even have to get out of the house. And then the other guys can work on it and when we go to the studio we already have the backbone of a song.

Killers bits & pieces

Brandon & Dave met in August* 2001 and started writing songs together right away.

When they started the band they had a different drummer and bassist, but they were replaced by Ronnie & Mark in early 2002.

The were named after a fictional band appearing in the music video of New Order’s Crystal.

Their main influences include artists like the Rolling Stones, U2, New Order, Smashing Pumpkins, The Cure, David Bowie etc

They say that the best thing about being in a band is that you don’t actually “go to work”

Before becoming famous, full-time musicians, the members of The Killers worked various jobs. The worst ones? A Telemarketing company and a fast-food restaurant. The first one was bad because they had to bother people that didn’t want to be bothered and the second one…just stank.

Their journey to stardom began from the UK. In early 2004 they were completely unknown in their native US.

They have sold over 12 million records worldwide.

Brandon is a practicing Mormon and his son is named after a Mormon prophet.

Dave recently lost his mother and Brandon’s mother is currently fighting a serious illness. The closing track of Day & Age “Goodnight, Travel Well” is dedicated to both of them.

A Dustland Fairytale is about Brandon’s parents who met in high school and are still together, after 44 years.

Stuart Price’s real name is Jacques Lu Cont. He has worked extensively with Madonna, Keane and Gwen Stefani, just to name a few. He first collaborated with The Killers in 2005 when he did a fantastic remix to the (twice as fantastic) Mr. Brightside.

Brandon says “I know I shouldn’t be reading reviews but I do. It’s so easy, it’s just a click away. It’s stupid and I’m stupid but I still do it”.

Another stupid thing the otherwise lovely Brandon has done back in 2004-2005 was to systematically trash-talk other bands like The Bravery, Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco. He’s taken it all back.

Notes:

The interview is from early 2009, just a few weeks before TK were announced as the headline act at Rockwave Festival, Greece’s biggest festival at the time. The show got cancelled at the last minute, due to a freak thunderstorm. (In Greece, open air concerts don’t go ahead in the rain)

#the killers #day & age #day and age #brandon flowers #ronnie vannucci #mark stoermer #dave keuning #tk interview #happy week magazine #my stuff #translated interview #was the writer on drugs to call brandon not good looking????

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