Interviews / Articles

[bellestarr]

Sep 27, 2005

‘Underdog’ Kings of Leon keep their sound changing
Scott McLennan

Kings of Leon singer Caleb Followill, who sounded so worn and weary on the album “Aha Shake Heartbreak,” is a lot lighter in spirit these days.

Followill enthused about the next Kings of Leon record and an upcoming concert tour of South America with pals the Strokes.

“We’re blessed ,” Followill said, even though the band is still something of what he described as an “underdog.”

“We may not have the most fans, but we fans all over the place,” he said.

And as Kings of Leon wraps up a year of touring, it is reaching out to New England-area fans in a big way this week. Kings of Leon is at Toad’s in New Haven tonight, then heads to the Pearl Street nightclub in Northampton tomorrow, and lands at The Casino in Hampton Beach, N.H., on Friday. These shows come on the heels of spring visits to the area as the opener for U2, plus a summer swing through night clubs with tourmates Secret Machines.

Kings of Leon works this hard in part because it has to. The band’s swampy, soulful mildly-psychotic brand of rock ’n’ roll is not the sort of thing that radio cozies up to. But that’s OK, since Kings of Leon’s music is best encountered live or at late-night album listening sessions. The band can sound alternately threatening and wounded. The sounds are dramatic and fractured, splitting the difference between being catchy and being confusing.

Kings of Leon’s story is well known at this point. Brothers Caleb, Matthew and Nathan Followill teamed with their first cousin Matthew Followill and made music that sounded like a caustic reaction to their fundamentalist religious upbringing. Playing a Tennessee variant of garage rock, the Kings of Leon delivered “Youth and Young Manhood” in 2003 as such bands as the Stokes, the Hives and White Stripes were pumping up interest in a gritty back-to-basics sound in rock.

And like those other bands, Kings of Leon became stars in the U.K. while having to settle for cult status back home. Kings of Leon enjoyed the rock-star lifestyle brought on by “Youth and Young Manhood,” and at turns lived life to the excess. The band chronicled its post-“Youth” life on “Aha Shake Heartbreak,” an album stacked with songs about sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, but delivered in such a way as to call into the question the supposed glamour of it all.

In addition to staring into a mirror and delivering unvarnished reports, the band challenged itself to make the songs sound different from those on its debut. Followill said the next album is likewise going to keep things fresh and forward moving. The songs are pretty much written, he said, and expects the band to start recording in November.

“It’s going to be a completely different record. What people said about the big difference between ‘Young Manhood’ and ‘Aha Shaker’ you’ll see even more of on the next one,” Followill said. “We’re just trying to write big songs. We all think about our parts in the songs. We’ve all got big egos and we all want to be heard on each song. Before, sometimes people could be lazy, but now everyone gets involved with the writing.”

And Followill suggested that the band may soften its outlook somewhat on the next album, all in the name of keeping things interesting.

“Maybe we’ll so some clean things,” he said. “Songs my mom can listen to.”

[bellestarr]

An ever-expanding realm for Kings of Leon
01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, September 25, 2005

BY RICK MASSIMO
Journal Pop Music Writer

Kings of Leon is a family band, with brothers Caleb, Jared and Matthew Followill joined by cousin Nathan Followill to make two albums so far that combine classic rock with the Velvet Underground with field hollers and gospel stomps.

It's a compelling mixture that comes from many different places and is unique at the same time. It's insular -- it's not often easy to figure out what exactly Caleb is singing, and when you can it's often unusual and possibly shocking -- and sounds like the natural result of four guys who have spent way too much time together.

Leon Followill, Caleb's father, was an itinerant preacher, and while the family had an occasional year or two in one place, home was basically the road. That brought the boys together, Caleb says. "We kind of didn't have anybody else."

The other thing that the life brought him, he says, was a desire to get in front of people. "I like the attention," he says of performing, and as a child "I was always doing something or going to be something."

The first ambition was to be a preacher himself, he says. "I was a preacher when I was a kid, according to everyone else, and I was pretty good, they said."

He'd pick up five bucks by spreading the word outside church.

"That's all we knew, was preaching. So I imagine that at the age of 5 I was a better preacher than most men are."

Followill's parents started to drift apart during the constant travel, and at the same time, he and his brothers realized that "we didn't always have to live in a bubble, and we could do what we wanted to do." At first, that meant rebelling, "doing what kids do," but at age 16 Followill started writing songs. He was doing odd construction jobs, and writing songs "about stuff that was interesting, and hoping that it would come true one day."

Now 23, Caleb Followill says he's only been playing guitar for three years; he only picked it up "to learn to play the songs I was writing."

Nashville detour

The Followills at first tried to write songs for contemporary, commercial country singers, even landing a publishing deal in Nashville: "We'd write whatever. We'd think of people we knew who were making albums, and write songs according to their style. . . . That's the thing that got us where we are now, because it puts your finger on the pulse of what's going on."

It wasn't very successful. "We'd laugh our ways through it. We'd go up to a publishing company in Nashville. We'd be laughing so hard, and they'd pay us money, and we'd go . . . write songs for us."

Eventually, "we were sick of writing songs that people would sing. We wanted to write the songs that people were afraid to sing."

On their latest record, this year's Aha Shake Heartbreak, the idea was to be even more representative of their own slightly skewed universe than on their 2003 debut, Youth and Young Manhood.

"We didn't leave anything up to anyone else. We're sick of the way people were taking our music, and the way that they think we're about something that we're not."

The group's biography and backstory gave people the wrong idea, Followill says. "Everyone had this big Southern-rock hope. . . . But we didn't want to be that [even] on the first album. We didn't know that that's what people would think of us. I didn't realize I sounded country; we just wanted to play some fast punk-rock songs.

"We're going to write the songs we want to write, and play them the way we want to play them, and if people don't get it, who gives a damn? Because they didn't get the last one either."

Moving on

The key now, Followill says, is to branch out. "I think punk rock is too one-dimensional. I think if you're a punk-rock band, you should only make one or two albums. Other than that, you have to start stretching it a little bit. . . .

"I want to say whatever I think. I want to have people dancing, crying . . . I want it all."

They got within spitting distance of it all this spring, when they opened a slew of shows on U2's arena tour. Followill calls the U2 stint "a great experience. We got to see it on a big, huge level. Bigger than we'd ever seen it before.

"They're sweet guys; they're really passionate about music, and our music. . . . They made the people like us. If they didn't, they'd say our name over and over until they did."

After about another month of touring, the Kings will finish up writing songs for a new record. "It's really melodic and really pretty. When I say something's pretty, I think fast songs can be pretty just like slow songs. . . .

"It's got what you like about us, but wherever you thought we took the last record, we're still on that path. We're just further up the road."

Kings of Leon and The Like play at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel, 79 Washington St., Providence, tomorrow night at 9 p.m. Tickets are $17.50 in advance, $20 the day of the show. Call [phone].

[casadondong]

great articles!

[caroline, maybe]

bellestarr said:

Kings of Leon is a family band, with brothers Caleb, Jared and Matthew Followill joined by cousin Nathan Followill to make two albums so far that combine classic rock with the Velvet Underground with field hollers and gospel stomps.

what a way to screw up the family tree lol

and I'm so excited about the new album -- ahh!

[bellestarr]

Kings of Leon 'Shake' up Pearl Street
By Bill Donovan, Collegian Staff
September 28, 2005

Northampton's Pearl Street Nightclub will be jumping Wednesday night with southern-alternative rock act Kings of Leon. The group will hammer its way through their new album "Aha Shake Heartbreak," their sophomore effort, with The Like, an all-female band, opening at 8:30 p.m.

The Kings are a hybrid of sounds, which can be heard on their new record. On "Aha Shake Heartbreak," the band sounds menacing at times, yet quiet and somber on other tracks. The guitar distortion is crisp, with biting-riffs similar to those of AC/DC axe-man Angus Young. "Pistol of Fire" is such an example; the song has a heavy groove to it accompanied by a funky bass line and crashing drum set. "Day Old Blues" features a simple acoustic melody with a chorus full of spirited yodeling. Lead singer/guitarist Caleb Followill's raspy voice goes from sounding bothered to unconcerned on these pieces. It is similar to Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes. This band borrows some of its sound from Neil Young, as well.

A quartet made up of three brothers and a cousin, the Kings origins lie in Tennessee, where their religious upbringing led to their breaking out with rock music. Caleb, Nathan and Jared Folowill grew up in the midst of their parents having troubles. Their father, Leon; was a Pentecostal minister who brought them to many church events. The siblings were told they could only listen to Gospel music, and it was not until later in high school that these aspiring musicians would get a taste of rock acts such as Led Zeppelin, The Velvet Underground and Pixies.

Leon traveled all over the South, visiting other churches and bringing along the boys. At these meetings, the Followill youths would be encouraged to take up the drums and made some noise. In 1997, their lives changed dramatically with the divorce of their mother and father. After this, the brothers moved all over, taking up odd-jobs such as house-painting in Oklahoma. The desire soon came to put together a rock group after the boys arrived in Nashville and began writing and making music. Doing this, they asked their cousin, Matthew Followill, to join them on drums; while Nathan and Jared played bass and guitar.

One night in the city, the Followills came across a friend of theirs, a singer named Terry Boyer who asked them to jam at his house. Boyer, amazed by what he heard assisted with getting them a manager. The Kings joined with RCA and recorded an EP in 2002. "Youth and Young." "Manhood," their first album, came out a year later, featuring the hit single "Molly's Chambers."

In the U.K., this band has a greater following; for example, when "Aha Shake Heartbreak" was released, it placed number three on the British charts. However, Kings may get more worldwide attention now due to their tour with U2.

Los Angeles-based indie rock openers The Like released their album "Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking?" earlier this month.

Expect to see the Kings cover most of the material off of their new album, particularly songs like "The Bucket," "King of the Rodeo" and "Slow Night, So Long." It should be a loud and quiet night, filled with the craziness of this unpredictable rock act.

Kings of Leon will also be playing this Friday at the Hampton Casino Ballroom on Hampton Beach in N.H. at 8 p.m.

www.dailycollegian.com
if you want to send this guy feedback and clue him in as to who is who in kol...

[bellestarr]

Featured in Arts & Entertainment

Kings Of Leon Aren't Showy But They Get The Job Done


By BEN JOHNSON
Day Staff Writer, Arts/Music Reporter
Published on 9/29/2005

You'd think that growing up with a traveling evangelist for a father, one of three brothers would know a little something about getting an audience hyped up. Isn't that what a traveling evangelist does? Sort of make people all hot and bothered with prayer, all high on Mr. High and Mighty?

But when southern rock band Kings of Leon took the stage at Toad's Place Tuesday night, Caleb, Nathan, and Jared Followill along with cousin Matthew didn't use histrionics to inspire their congregation. While the band jiggled woodenly, the kids flailed, mouthing the words Caleb howled into the microphone.

Still, if you concentrated you could see and hear these fellows working hard for their money as the night progressed. Sweat began to glisten on their arms and faces, and their fast-paced rock driving a weeknight crowd of faithful college and high school kids into fits of frantic dancing.

The set list at Toad's boasted many songs from both of the band's most recent records, “Youth and Young Manhood” and “Aha Shake Heartbreak.” They opened with gun-themed tune “Molly's Chambers,” and followed with songs like “Taper Jean Girl,” “Wasted Time,” and “The Bucket.” As the band alternated between old and new songs, drummer Nathan seemed to speed up the tempo of the show. Counting each new tune off just as the last one ended, he made each song tumble into one another like drunks in a dive.

For a while, it seemed that the band would never reach that magic moment where the music takes over the body of the player and puts him in a trance of exaggerated, involuntary movements. But right around “Four Kicks,” a bar-brawl of a tune with violent, vivid lyrics, the Kings of Leon finally started to loosen up.

Caleb thanked the crowd for their enthusiasm, and seemed to soak up some of it. By the time they were half way through “Red Morning Light,” the guys started to seep a few smiles here and there. Bassist Jared aimed a few cheeky faces at Caleb, and those close to the stage could hear the pony-tailed singer say, “Let's go boys” before charging into a rousing version of “California Waiting.” It almost sounded like the rough-and-tumble dudes were about to ride out with a posse instead of mounting their instruments.

At the end of the night, when the band reappeared for the obligatory “encore,” they appropriately built into a throat-tearing, heart wrenching version of “Trani.”

The sad melancholy ballad of plucked guitar and two beat drumming built slowly and unstoppably towards the hoarse scream of Caleb, who was finally moving around as he choked himself through “I said ‘lay it on the ground, throw in a white noise sound, like a trani on a ten.” The other Followills seemed to follow the cue, and soon everyone was lurching about the small stage like so many Christians speaking in tongues.

This band is young, and its members are obviously very close to each other, which may explain their hesitation to turn into charismatic performers every time they walk on stage. But their music is so full of genuine observation and feeling that you can't help but love the Kings of Leon for what they create, even if they're a little statuesque.

[AccuratePassion]

Awesome articles. Thanks a bunch. I skimmed through them because a lot were repetitve but there was some good stuff. That first one on this page had a bunch of typos though. Don't know if it was the publication or you though.... If it was you its all good cause it must be hard retyping all that but if it was copyed and pasted shame on them!

PS I gave you karma.

[bellestarr]

thanx for the karma - all errors are from the papers, i just select & copy...lol
here's another rather strange one...

Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon wins the crowd with his natural charm. (Alexandra Begley/News-Letter)


Kings of Leon stun Baltimore


by Lauren Hill
September 30, 2005



It has been an interesting journey for the Followill brothers: growing up in a beat-up car in Tennessee with their father, a traveling Pentecostal preacher; discovering sex, drugs and rock and roll after their father left the church; forming a band with their cousin Matthew Followill; signing with RCA; and having their first album nearly go double platinum in the UK.

Many have attempted to label the Kings of Leon, so named after their father, as the Lynyrd Skynyrd of the 21st century, the Strokes of the South. But no matter the label, the Kings have an appeal that has brought them success and a healthy turnout for their show at Baltimore's very own Sonar.

Advertised as the "Sin City Tour," sponsored by Camel Cigarettes, walking into the club was like entering an alternate TV ad universe where the girls are hot and the nicotine flows like water. From the moment you stepped in the club, a rent-a-hipster pulled you aside to talk to you about the many wonders cigarettes have to offer.

The main area was crawling with scantily clad pole dancers and amusements like the "Chapel of Lust," where concertgoers had the opportunity to take a matrimonial snapshot with the Elvis impersonator of their dreams.

The pre-show entertainment provided by the Features, another Tennessee band, was well received. The group's sharp post-punk numbers and theatrical antics proved thoroughly enjoyable. Between acts, the go-go dancers took the stage, sauntering around in saloon-reminiscent lingerie, and the beer guzzling paused for a while to allow for mass ogling.

After the last of the diamond-encrusted harem hightailed it off the stage, an epic display of lights and chanting appropriate only for Bowie or God ushered in the Kings of Leon.

They were greeted by screaming admirers and answered them with equal intensity. Racing from song to song with extreme vigor, they played an equal and nearly complete mix of songs from their first and second albums, Youth and Young Manhood, and Aha Shake Heartbreak. The set was one part gritty -- including songs like "Four Kicks," and "Wasted Time," with Caleb growling cockily through his trademark squinty cringe expression -- one part sweet, with Caleb's pouty twang communicating such original emotions as loneliness on tour; and two parts carefree, head-bobbing anthems of excess and girls.

With pure gold riffs and infectious beats, the Kings had the entire crowd dancing, clapping and singing along to classics like "King of the Rodeo," and the cha-cha-like "Soft," whose lyrics would really hit home with Bob Dole.

The delivery of the songs was extremely straightforward, barely varying from the recorded version, but it was embellished with a couple of relatively uninspiring solos from lead guitarist Matthew. What they lacked in talent, however, they made up for in image. With his Elron-like sex appeal, Caleb was somehow able to take chicken legs in tight white pants beyond tacky -- all the way to disturbingly hot.

The rest of the band served as an appealing backdrop of aloofness, with bassist Jared brooding in the corner, Nathan still sporting the hermit-style beard popular with the band in the Youth and Young Manhood era, and smoke proudly billowing from the Camel wedged between Matthew's guitar pegs.

While their performance didn't have much to add to their songs, The Kings' attitude, beautiful bittersweet melodies and the energy that their songs translated to the audience made for a very good live show.

Some would say this new tour/ad campaign combo redefines selling out. But with more and more smoking bans being imposed, Baltimore is one of a shrinking number of cities where concert-goers can enjoy a few coffin nails with their live music.

Somewhere, some Truth campaigner's head is exploding, but hey, it's a free country. The Kings of Leon put on the same awesome show that they would have anyway, and the pole dancers and extra glitz weren't a bad addition either. In the words of Ian Dury (almost), sex and Camels and rock and roll are very good indeed.

[bellestarr]

there was a b & w caleb photo with the article that got lost in translation...
www.jhunewsletter.com (search kol)
also a sucky review of ASH you can ignore %^$&^$$^

[mickey o'neil]

god i hate it when people call them THE kings of leon like in that last article.

bellestarr, thanks for always finding articles for us.

[Tanner]

andy said:

god i hate it when people call them THE kings of leon like in that last article.

it bothers some other people I know. I never notice it though.

[jaredismygod]

i know its just like its not THE for gods sake learn their damn name before you write an article on them you mong...

[lmd88]

I hate it when they get the members wrong, like nathan playing bass or mathew being a drummer. SPIT ON THOSE PEOPLE

[bellestarr]

this was an oldie that i'd never seen in SPIN. nathan's always good for a laugh...
just imagine the 4 of them playing tennis together - in shorts yet - lol



Shorty-Short Shorts! Backstage Pass with Kings of Leon
By: Marc Spitz

August 7, 2004


Kings of Leon have made the most of their downtime while recording their second album in L.A. When not out nightclubbing, the hirsute southern-rock quartet have been frightening old ladies. "We're living in an apartment-style hotel," drummer Nathan Followill explains. "It's got a tennis court on the roof, so we can stay in shape. We're absolutely horrible at tennis, but we like to put on our little shorty-short shorts and gross out all the women laying by the pool."

Brothers Nathan, Jared, and Caleb and first cousin Matthew, who hail from Tennessee, relocated to "the city of the velvet rope" (as Nathan calls it) in May to begin recording the tentatively titled Ah Hah Shake Heartbreak (again with producer Ethan Johns). Due later this year, it features a generous, family-style portion of the Kings' retro sound.

Nathan describes "Paper Jean Girl" as "a little boogie-ish. You can get down and shake your ass to that one." This time, however, there's also some experimental noise (or "controlled chaos") on "Slow Night So Long," plus a few production techniques that postdate 1973. "There's one song called 'The Bucket,'" adds Nathan. "I don't wanna say it's modern sounding...." How about "less classical"? we suggest. "Wonderfully put. That's why you're a writer and I'm a dumbass who gets to beat on a drum head."

[lmd88]

This may have been on before:

Studied in callowness, pants tight beyond reason, Kings of Leon are three young brothers and a cousin from Tennessee, and at first glance they lay themselves open for criticism. One angle is that they sound like the Strokes - with the idea of scaling rock back to a trebly, tightly compressed, rickety human sound that can still mobilize teenagers. A sexier, more self-conscious version of garage-rock, basically. Real-time recording, no fade-outs; long rows of prodding eighth notes; simple, direct guitar lead lines.
Another cause for concern is that the band's singer, Caleb Followill, may be playing up his Southernness. He doesn't sound so swampy when he talks. But finally, who cares? Rock bands are opportunistic by the rules of the game, playing up whatever works. If they end up serving a larger purpose, then they really are lucky.

The band's new album, "Aha Shake Heartbreak" (RCA), works really well, better than its much more callow and obviously limited first album, and better than its show at Webster Hall on Wednesday night. There is no larger purpose in sight, but there is enough good about the band to enjoy the surface.

Keep in mind that the callowness is real: the band's youngest member, the bassist Jared Followill, has just recently turned 18. (Between songs, he smoked like an 18-year-old, too, holding a cigarette between his middle and ring fingers.)

Things are happening for them very quickly: they sold half a million records in England, creating around them an irresistible myth of Southern libertinism. The three brothers in the band grew up traveling through the South with their father, an itinerant preacher, so there's snake-and-apple stuff, too, a desire to see them as precociously talented under-age sinners. Recently an English magazine described Caleb's voice as sounding as if it came from "eating cigarettes and gargling bourbon at the bottom of a swamp."

But the bourbon-gargler was all business on Wednesday night, possibly nervous, possibly overwhelmed: compulsively retuning his guitar after each song, determined to blaze through the show without showing much of himself, focused on driving toward each stop-on-a-dime ending and making it exact.

The set's best songs from "Aha Shake Heartbreak" - "Slow Night, So Long" and "Four Kicks" - had excitement enough encoded into the arrangement of the songs; for the rest of the set, the band sounded merely efficient.

In a short show, less than an hour long and a little too long at that, missing was the weirdly honest, up-front and dryly recorded feeling of Caleb Followill's vocals on the album. Usually a band plays live and you see the holes and deficiencies; here you saw a band that had slickened its sound on the road, possibly taking some of the wriggling life away from the music you hear on the album.

[sel]

lmd88 said:

missing was the weirdly honest, up-front and dryly recorded feeling of Caleb Followill's vocals on the album. Usually a band plays live and you see the holes and deficiencies; here you saw a band that had slickened its sound on the road, possibly taking some of the wriggling life away from the music you hear on the album.

there is NO pleasing some people!

[lmd88]

hehe, sorry didnt see that part. Heres a positive one in return.

The Tennessee Rock band "Kings of Leon" is huge in Britain, and it's not hard to understand why: The shaggy quartet looks and sounds like some sort of Hebert Hoovarian ideal of rugged individualism.

To an outsider obsessed with a romantic "On The Road" vision of America, Kings of Leon's warbling vocals and chugging guitars must seem like a perfect evocation of wide-open spaces and denim-clad freedom.

It's not such a bad vision, actually, and the band did its best to live up to it Tuesday night at Toad's Place in New Haven.

The group has spent months on the road, including a stint opening for U2, since releasing its second album in February.

All that time on stage has honed Kings of Leon's full-throttle rock 'n' roll into a lean, sleek form that's even tighter than the familial bonds that link the band of three brothers and their cousin.

Although he mostly stood riveted to his microphone, singer Caleb Followill glistened with sweat just a few songs into the 70-minute set. He played growling rhythm guitar while he sang, alternating between a warm, gruff drawl and a dry-throated croak that made him sound three times older than his 23 years.

His lyrics are often inscrutable, thanks to marble-mouthed enunciation, but he got his point across on "Soft," a matter-of-fact first-person account of unfortunately timed performance anxiety.

Cousin Matthew Followill added stinging fills on lead guitar to the ferocious "California Waiting" and played simple but searing solos over the knotty rhythm of "Spiral Staircase."

After opening with an older song, "Molly's Chambers," the set mostly focused on the new album, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." The band rocketed through a thunderous call-and-response on "King of the Rodeo" and injected a world-weary and fame-wary vibe into "The Bucket."

Drummer Nathan Followill worked his bubblegum and blew occasional bubbles while he battered his drum kit, and bassist Jared Followill picked out catchy and insistent bass lines off to the side.

At the end of the main set, Caleb Followill thanked the crowd for coming to the band's first Connecticut gig since 2003. Kings of Leon returned for a two-song encore that ended with the slow, seething "Dusty."

[caroline, maybe]

they played DUSTY?!?!?! no way, I've always wanted to hear it live but I didn't think there was any hope!

[bellestarr]

The Fairfield Mirror - Entertainment
Issue: 10/6/05

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Kings of Leon create unique sound with live show
By Peter Lapre

Kings of Leon, a young act hailing from Tennessee, performed at Toad's Place on Tuesday, Sept. 27. They find themselves in New Haven on their prolonged tour in promotion of their second album, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." The southern rockers recently arrived back from a highly successful British leg of the tour and are in the midst of duplicating that success stateside.

While some try to pigeonhole the group as purely 70s southern rock revivalists (mainly for their retro look), the facts point to something different. The family act of three brothers and a cousin with the same surname, Followill, utilize a foul-mouthed and depraved style despite a fundamental Christian upbringing.

With their first two releases, Kings of Leon have been doing one of the hardest things in rock, creating a unique sound. Their composition is built around singer Caleb's refreshingly jarring drawl that screeches to a hybridization of English blues and garage rock with southern sensibility. From there, the Kings mix in an unrelenting beat built around drummer Nathan's stylings and buttressed by bassist Jared's simple yet intoxicating groove. The end result is audio dirt, a fuzzed whirlwind of contoured noise.

With much said, the self-proclaimed Kings took stage amidst a screen of pomp and hype. They did not disappoint. The band came out swinging with appropriate and energetic opener, "Molly's Chambers," that left Caleb drenched in sweat by song's end.

As they moved on, the retro-clad, chain-smoking band members induced a frenzy of fist-pumps and foot-stomps. This crowd heard just what their British counterparts did: a band on the cusp of sensation.

The band clanged and crooned through the 70-minute set with songs from the first release, "Youth and Young Manhood," but relied more heavily on the newer album. As the night rolled on, Cousin Matthew's presence on lead guitar could really be felt. During their single, "The Bucket," he jabbed in and out, branding the landscape with his scorching riffs for an already enthralled audience. From there, Kings of Leon weaved through one crowd pleaser after another, going from the catchy "California Waiting" to the more subdued and grimy ballad "Trani."

The performance reached a climax during the end of the main set with "Slow Night, So Long," which culminated in a fury of repeated drum fills without the frill. Caleb thanked the crowd before heading backstage for making their first return to Connecticut in two years a memorable one.

The band then returned for their two-song encore. They set their still-lit cigarettes between the strings of their guitar's heads and went back to work. For their closer, they chose the riveting yet restrained "Dusty," which slowly simmered into the night and calmed ringing ears: an appropriate end.








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[bellestarr]

Holy Rollers
By Parke Puterbaugh
special to relish
Thursday, October 6, 2005


No reality-TV producer could design an experiment in culture shock as perfect as the real-life tale of Kings of Leon.

The scenario: Three sons of a country preacher man - Caleb, Nathan and Jared Followell - are immersed from infancy in the ascetic life of the Pentecostal church. They travel the Bible Belt with their parents and are delivered, town to town, revival to revival, from the "evils" of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

Then comes the Big Twist. The boys' father, Leon, is kicked out of the church and gets divorced. The boys move to Nashville with their mother. There, they discover rock 'n' roll and form a band, recruiting cousin Matthew Followell to play guitar. The four, barely out of their teens, sign with RCA Records.

They name themselves Kings of Leon after their deposed preacher father. Suddenly, four relative innocents are surrounded, unsupervised, by the time-honored temptations of the road - sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll (and cigarettes and alcohol, too).

"If someone told us we couldn't do something, we would make sure that we did it," said Nathan Followell, the band's drummer. "That way we could say, 'Never tell us there's nothing we can't do.'"

What the band has seen and done is documented with unflinching honesty on Kings of Leon's two albums - Youth & Young Manhood (2003) and Aha Shake Heartbreak (2005). The songs chronicle a desire to meet the world head-on with the kind of wild-hair fervor that accompanies making up for lost time.

There's even a self-effacing side, one that perhaps stems from the biblical commandment "Thou shall not lie." Vocalist Caleb Followell confesses to performance failure in the song "Soft," wherein his alcohol-numbed body fails to rise to the occasion with a willing supermodel.

The Kings' albums have been characterized, respectively, as being about things they hadn't done but had fantasized about, and being about things that they have fantasized about that actually happened - songs that balance innocence and experience.

Nathan speculated about the subjects that will be on the band's all-important next album, for which they've already written 10 songs. "Things that we wish had never happened!" he said, laughing, as he talked by phone from Columbus, Ohio, where the band was scheduled to play at a small club that night.

Earlier this year, Kings of Leon played huge arenas as U2's handpicked opening act. This summer, the group played big festivals all over Europe, performing in front of as many as 70,000 people. Now, the Kings are on a 15-date tour of their homeland, hitting relatively small clubs. The band calls its club jaunt "the Sweaty Little Dive Bar Tour."

"It's definitely a lot more fun to be able to connect with the kids in the crowd," Nathan said. "The festivals are more.... I can throw a baseball and not ever hit security at the barrier, they're so far away."

The virtue of humility has stayed with the Followells. The Kings had a motive for willingly backing away from arenas to perform for a few hundred people in clubs.

"It keeps us in check," Nathan said. "It takes us back to our roots and definitely squashes any ideas we have of getting a big head or anything like that. It's a blast, man. We love it. It's back to the days of playing a show, and then hanging out with everybody afterward, and letting them buy you drinks and taking their girlfriends and all that fun stuff."

The Kings of Leon's high-energy, guitar-based music lends itself to such mischievous behavior. Imagine a Dixie-fried version of The Strokes, or maybe a hybrid of Aerosmith and the Black Crowes - but with a thoroughly distinctive singer.

European audiences, particularly those in the United Kingdom, warmed to the Kings long before audiences in the United States - Youth & Young Manhood went double platinum in Britain. But back home, the idea of a rootsy rock band with a yowling singer has been a tougher sell with a mass audience that remains hypnotized by teen pop, hip-hop and dance music.

"In America, it seems like anything other than Hillary Duff or Fall Out Boy is going to be frowned upon, so I don't know," Nathan said. "Over here ... we just do what we do, and we have a blast. As long as there's a houseful of kids who are excited ... and digging the music we're playing, we don't care if there's 700 or 7,000 of them."

Kings of Leon certainly rock hard, but there's something immediately different about the band's creative chemistry. Rhythms are tight-knit but offbeat, and the songs are peculiarly original. This material has been shaped and branded by common DNA and a shared well of experimentation Because the Followells were so isolated from pop culture for so long, they didn't have time to soak up influences. So they basically made it all up, learning instruments along the way.

"When family members put their minds together - I don't wanna say things necessarily come easier, but there's a comfort level where you're not scared to try anything or do anything," Nathan said. "What's the worst thing that's gonna happen? Your brother's gonna tell you you're stupid? I mean, you hear that every day of your life anyway, so it really doesn't matter.

"That's the main thing - the comfort level. I can punch my brother in the face on a Friday night and we'll still be up there playing Saturday. One of us might have a black eye and the other a broken knuckle, but we're still brothers at the end of the day. I think that really helps us out a lot."