First Listen Poll

[jeffica]

First heard and loved in 06 (Taper and Soft), became obsessed in 07 when BOTT came out. Haven't looked back

[nickelette424]

I kept seeing a commercial on VH1 I think a year ago where they kept playing the chorus to Sex on Fire. I was rather annoyed that it was in my head even though I had never heard more than that portion of the song. So, a couple days later I went to Youtube to kinda feed the annoyance. Oddly enough the first thing that popped up was a live performance of Milk. I thought what an odd name for a song. I listened to it and about 5 or 6 hours later I had bought three of their albums off iTunes and I have been obsessed ever since.

Sex on Fire still annoys the crap out of me though, lol.

[kultbert]

for me it was 'red morning light' in 2005. awesome song!

[Deleted]

2003, Red Morning Light on FIFA

[Erin]

It's kinda interesting to see quite a few of you discovering them through a game. The other day I was trolling YouTube and some kid commented on finding a certain band through a game, which got a reply from some old elitist that games are such a terrible format to find music. I don't think it matters much how you got to know about something, what matters the most is that you got to know the music.

[rosaphoenix]

first song SOFT in a pub, I ask DJ and he show me cd, when I get home search online, and I fell in love with his music, and so far.
I think 2005
So although there are songs I like more, soft for me is special,

[Rebecka]

I liked some of their songs from OBTN when it came out but I never paid much attention to the band.
I really liked 'Closer' last year. I always listened to it on the bus to school, but it wasn't until this spring that I really understood how amazing they are.
We were doing a research in school and we could choose any subject that we wanted. I didn't know what to chose but somehow, I have no idea why (BUT THANK GOD I DID), I chose Kings of Leon.
When I saw their home videos I was blown away. With them, their music and everything!
The song that means the most to me is Cold Desert. I still remember the first time I listened to it. I cried a lot!

[beaker]

Knocked Up did it for me. I'd been reading a lot about them in Rolling Stone up until then, and their review of BOTT was enough for me to finally check them out.

[BobbyK]

i first started listnen to them last year, my brother already had only by the night and they was my girlfriends fave band and she told me to listen to them, i loved only by the night so i decided to buy the boxset thing from hmv and hated it, but i kept listnen and listnen and then i loved them

[aha shake pepscake]

2003, baby. Red Morning Light. Dad got me their album on a whim, and I listened to it on my Walkman thingy on my way home. My 12 year old brain IMPLODED with awesomeness.

[BlueBerryCookie]

I've got nice story.. KoL were not popular in my country from the start. They play them on the radio very rarely even now. S I didnt have many ocassions to get to know them but it happened finally!...
It was summer 2009 and I was working in a bar at the seaside and one day one of a friend of my boss visited us. We all together had a little trip in the evening by his car. Was driving, drinkin and having fun when he put some record on and just played it. Can't remember what it was, what album, what song (probably Use Somebody), but I've just fallen in love with Caleb's voice. I think I should be greatful to this guy forever he put the right record on! We came back to the place where I was working, downloaded the track and Use Somebody was the main song of our summer even though it wasn't much popular in my country. The summer finished, I came back home, bought the newest album then (OBTN) and got some songs from the Internet. What's more - I didnt know how do they look like. I just didnt care, loved the music and that's all. I didnt even try to find out if there are some videos of this band on youtube. And that's how it started.... A few months later the big boom of KoL started in Poland, my friends also got to know them but only US and SOF. And then I thought to myself "Hey, they must have some videos and faces at all!" Find out on youtube, first video I saw was Charmer I think and I got lost FOREVER when I saw them!
I wish I knew them before OBTN cause I love ASH so much and on OBTN there are only few songs catching me.... Fortunately its CAS now which I'm freakin about so it's not so bad at all
Thanks for attention

[jemenfiche]

Knocked Up...I was obsessed with that song for like a month before thinking "Hey maybe I should check out their other stuff." Of course I had heard SOF and US on the radio, but it was Knocked Up that really did it for me.

[texas]

For me, I am not ashamed to say it was Sex On Fire in fall 2008.

I heard it in my buddy's car driving around freshman year of college. I downloaded it a couple days later. That RIFF in the beginning, Caleb's riff, just grabbed me and wouldn't let go. And the point I'm trying to make here is that Sex On Fire didn't seem like a piece of shit to me, and it shouldn't now. People call it mainstream, I didn't see it that way. I slapped the song on a CD that i burned with MGMT's Electric Feel and Time To Pretend, The Strokes, and some Arctic Monkeys songs. Within a week and a half, I had downloaded the song Crawl and bought the Youth & Young Manhood album on iTunes. Two months later, I owned everything, even both versions of Talihina Sky and a live bootleg. For the record, I rank KOL's albums 1) ASH 2) BOTT 3) Y&YM 4)CAS 5)OBTN now, but I am still addicted to every song they've recorded.

[Razz!]

Unfortunately I was only 12 when YAYM came out, and I was only just getting into music properly, so I was a bit clueless and often sat on the sidelines of bands rather than buying their album. I remember being that young and watching Molly's Chambers and Wasted Time on MTV2, and I remember thinking it was catchy and powerful, but somehow because I was such a fledgling music lover, I didn't get completely suckered in and buy the album. But I hadn't forgotten about them, and when The Bucket came out, I instantly thought "okay, this is DEFINITELY for me!" I bought ASH and was straight away so glad that I had. It was the album that really stood out of my collection, for all the best reasons. I've been a rabid fan since, I'm just so nostalgically bummed about all those real tiny KOL gigs that they must have played in pokey bars and pubs right here in my own country that I never got to see.

xxx

[oh my fuck!]

a tv commercial for obtn in late 2008/early 2009, lol! one of the few commercials that ever inspired me to actually buy something, haha! sex on fire and use somebody were played in it, and i remember thinking that kol seemed like "my kind of band" and that i wanted to hear more, so i started exploring their music, starting with obtn and bott. songs like knocked up, ragoo and manhattan really got me hooked. bott is today one of my favorite albums ever.

so yeah, i guess sex on fire and use somebody were two small appetisers for what was waiting for me... i know a lot of people (including fans) think these songs are overrated, but i could never say a bad word about them, because they're the reason i started listening to this wonderful band

[closercrawl]

2008 on the radio they play Sex on Fire, the intro is stunning. Then on Youtube see many songs and bought the 4 albums. Like the older albums more then Only by the Night . Because of the Times is my favorite.

[Batuta]

2005

I dont know when was the first time that i heard Molly`s Chambers, but when i first heard King of The Rodeo and then i discovered that it was from the same band, GOD, i became a trully fan.

[rachee]

2008. Sex on Fire was all over the radio, and I hadn't paid that much attention to it. Then I was over at a mates house, and she played some of KOLs songs off her laptop and said she wanted to see them live. I ended up buying YAYM and BOTT a couple of weeks later, and downloaded some songs off OBTN, and liked them, but nothing major. I can remember buying The Bucket EP off iTunes, and the live version of Wicker Chair being one of the first songs I ever paid proper attention too. Then I got ASH and fell in love after listening to that album

[daisy88]

I remember hearing RML on FIFA and The Bucket was played in a advert on TV but I had no idea who sang the song.

It wasn't until 2008 that I got into them. My friend was a really big fan and at the end of a rugby match we went to, they played Fans. I really liked it so I went on YouTube when I came home and found the live videos from the Hammersmith Apollo gig and that was it!

[twelvefiftyone]

hmmm. I saw the Sex on Fire video but I really wasn't impressed with it, I dunno. Use Somebody came out and all that jazz. This was when I got pretty interested and I started listening to other songs and stuff. Then I sort of forgot about them until a few weeks ago when I was in the car on the way to my bass lesson, some radio station was playing The End and after my lesson I went and picked up Come Around Sundown and yep. That's my story.