Post by Replicant on May 11, 2007 2:17:38 GMT
Dunno if this got posted. It's good.
Kings Of Leon - Long Live The Kings
There's more confidence and less sex and drugs involved in Kings of Leon's latest album, but there's still plenty of Rock n Roll writes Natalie Shukur
"We were only a band for like a year whe we made our first record. So since then people have got to watch us grow, kind of like marykateandashley," Caleb Followill, lead singer of Kings of Leon says as he pushes his long hair back with one hand and takes a sip of a bloody Mary with the other.
He's sitting in a swanky Sydney bar wearing his trademark tight jeans, white singlet, waistcoat and Cuban heel boots surrounded by his bandmates and family, drummer Nathan Followill and bassist Jared Followill, while guitarist, Matthew, buzzes around the place attending to other duties.
While it's hard to compare the Southern four-piece who have been the most credible rock band to emerge in recent years to the saccharine sweet mega twins, they certainly have the screaming teenage girl fanbase in common.
But The Kings of Leon fan base is more impressive than just screaming girls. "Bob Dylan told me that I write an amazing song. That's like the best compliment you can ever get from anyone," says Caleb. "And touring with Pearl Jam, I mean that was my band when I was in high school. I used to drive around the parking lot blasting Pearl Jam and now I get to play with them."
After the critical acclaim their debut Youth and Young Manhood received, their energetic sound, soulful lyrics and genuine rock n roll persona saw them escape second album syndrome unscathed, and their third album - with its pounding drums, jangly guitars and more singing as opposed to mumbling from Caleb - looks set to cement them as musical pioneers, not just boys with good hair.
"I think our confidence has built so much now to where we don't really second guess ourselves and we aren't scared to really go for it , no matter what the subject matter is or the genre of music. I think our flamboyance has grown to where we're stepping out like 'fuck yeah!'" says Caleb enthusiastically.
"Now I'm not scared to sound pretty," he adds. "I've got a good voice, I might as well let people know. As opposed to people thinking that the only white people that can sing are Justin Timberlake and all those fuckers, Kelly Clarkson. You can actually sing good without singing shit music y'know."
"I think our first [album] was a lot more storytelling and our second one was quite autobiographical and this one is a little bit more fictional. Like driving Cameros in Arizona when we've never been there... and we haven't knocked girls up," says Jared referring to the song knocked-up on the new album, which has the feel of a youth anthem and includes the line "I don't care what her mama says, she's gonna have my baby."
With the myths that surround the supposedly hard-living band who spend most of their time on the road, it's easy to imagine there are lots of Followill offspring running around, but, the boys assure me, for them life is more about appreciating the finer things like spending time at home in Nashville and playing golf than acting like characters from Almost Famous.
"Our dad was a travelling preacher so we grew up on the road our whole lives. The difference is we're in a bus instead of the back seat of a car. I think we're all gypsies. We enjoy life on the road," says Nathan, who looks like a model sans beard with his long hair in perfect waves, glowing white teeth, flawless skin and tortoiseshell spectacles (rumour has it, in the beginning they grew their beards to stop them looking too pretty).
"We're definitely not choir boys," Nathan adds. "We definitely go out and have fun and get drunk but it's not like we go out every night and are like 'yeah, I'm scoring, I'm hooking up tonight, take two girls back to the bus'."
"We don't even think that anymore, it's just a given," Jared deadpans.
"Everybody has girlfriends pretty much. Caleb's the only one who doesn't have a girlfriend," continues Nathan, while Caleb has stepped out for a moment. "We're still not sure about Caleb."
"He doesn't have a girlfriend and he doesn't have a boyfriend, but I don't know. He has a lot of guy friends. He goes to clubs...and he had a bit of leather sticking out the top of his pants the other day," adds Jared, trying to suppress his laughter.
While the whole band is a lot more slick, polished and pretty than I expected (no moth eaten vintage threads, chain smoking or Jack Daniels in sight) it's Jared who has embraced rock star style most enthusiastically. With his floppy Wham-era George Michael hair, cross charms dangling from his ears and sleek black get-up, he looks like he's just stepped out of the pages of L'Uomo Vogue.
"We're starting to get into fashion a lot more, just for the fact that it feels good," he says. "I don't want to be one of those people that only wears [high fashion] stuff, but I hate people who try to cover up the fact that they're wearing something nice. I spent my whole life trying to make my poor clothes seem like they're expensive and I don't want to spend the rest of my life trying to make my expensive clothes look poor. We definitely wear a lot of Dior [Homme] and stuff like that and we care about the way we look definitely."
As the band (who are all still in their twenties) matures, so does their music. "I wanted to write a record for a young man and I'm not talking about a guy who's trying to go and have sex with every girl, I mean like literally an old man like in the old cowboy days, when you had to fight for your woman and have children and fight to survive and put food on the table every night," says Caleb earnestly. "We're in a generation now where you don't see that any more and divorce is inevitable. And I wanted to write about the complete opposite of that. I wanted to write about trying to be a grandparent y'know?"
"I was just lonely," Caleb says when I tell him I think the new album has a romantic quality to it. "I was sitting at home with nothing to do, no-one to hold on to, so I thought I'd make up some stories. Now I find it almost impossible not to write songs that at least have a little hidden moment about myself. If you actually take all the moments from the record that are about myself and put them all together, it's probably like a code or something. "
"I mean when I was younger I liked [touring] a little more because I was a fuck-up and loved being in different towns and getting drunk every night, but now we quit doing drugs and stuff like that. So now there's a lot of time to sit in your hotel room, with your head and nothing really to do. We play golf and drink fine wine, and girls are still around y'know," he says with a grin. "But touring I mean it's good. When I'm at home, I'm living with my demons so I might as well at least take them on a journey."
"With this record it evolved in the sense that we knew what we wanted and as musicians we could actually pull stuff off that on the previous records we couldn't dream of because we were scared to death," says Nathan of the new album. We definitely wanted to go for a bigger sound. It worked, we're happy with it. It's a big enough step forward from the last record to get a new audience but it's not so different that Kings of Leon fans will be like 'oh my god they sold out'."
"Our stage show is definitely quite a small production right now," says Jared. "But if you guys start deserving it, we'll bring out the pyrotechnics, big lights, unicorns and we'll show you guys some shit."
Kings Of Leon - Long Live The Kings
There's more confidence and less sex and drugs involved in Kings of Leon's latest album, but there's still plenty of Rock n Roll writes Natalie Shukur
"We were only a band for like a year whe we made our first record. So since then people have got to watch us grow, kind of like marykateandashley," Caleb Followill, lead singer of Kings of Leon says as he pushes his long hair back with one hand and takes a sip of a bloody Mary with the other.
He's sitting in a swanky Sydney bar wearing his trademark tight jeans, white singlet, waistcoat and Cuban heel boots surrounded by his bandmates and family, drummer Nathan Followill and bassist Jared Followill, while guitarist, Matthew, buzzes around the place attending to other duties.
While it's hard to compare the Southern four-piece who have been the most credible rock band to emerge in recent years to the saccharine sweet mega twins, they certainly have the screaming teenage girl fanbase in common.
But The Kings of Leon fan base is more impressive than just screaming girls. "Bob Dylan told me that I write an amazing song. That's like the best compliment you can ever get from anyone," says Caleb. "And touring with Pearl Jam, I mean that was my band when I was in high school. I used to drive around the parking lot blasting Pearl Jam and now I get to play with them."
After the critical acclaim their debut Youth and Young Manhood received, their energetic sound, soulful lyrics and genuine rock n roll persona saw them escape second album syndrome unscathed, and their third album - with its pounding drums, jangly guitars and more singing as opposed to mumbling from Caleb - looks set to cement them as musical pioneers, not just boys with good hair.
"I think our confidence has built so much now to where we don't really second guess ourselves and we aren't scared to really go for it , no matter what the subject matter is or the genre of music. I think our flamboyance has grown to where we're stepping out like 'fuck yeah!'" says Caleb enthusiastically.
"Now I'm not scared to sound pretty," he adds. "I've got a good voice, I might as well let people know. As opposed to people thinking that the only white people that can sing are Justin Timberlake and all those fuckers, Kelly Clarkson. You can actually sing good without singing shit music y'know."
"I think our first [album] was a lot more storytelling and our second one was quite autobiographical and this one is a little bit more fictional. Like driving Cameros in Arizona when we've never been there... and we haven't knocked girls up," says Jared referring to the song knocked-up on the new album, which has the feel of a youth anthem and includes the line "I don't care what her mama says, she's gonna have my baby."
With the myths that surround the supposedly hard-living band who spend most of their time on the road, it's easy to imagine there are lots of Followill offspring running around, but, the boys assure me, for them life is more about appreciating the finer things like spending time at home in Nashville and playing golf than acting like characters from Almost Famous.
"Our dad was a travelling preacher so we grew up on the road our whole lives. The difference is we're in a bus instead of the back seat of a car. I think we're all gypsies. We enjoy life on the road," says Nathan, who looks like a model sans beard with his long hair in perfect waves, glowing white teeth, flawless skin and tortoiseshell spectacles (rumour has it, in the beginning they grew their beards to stop them looking too pretty).
"We're definitely not choir boys," Nathan adds. "We definitely go out and have fun and get drunk but it's not like we go out every night and are like 'yeah, I'm scoring, I'm hooking up tonight, take two girls back to the bus'."
"We don't even think that anymore, it's just a given," Jared deadpans.
"Everybody has girlfriends pretty much. Caleb's the only one who doesn't have a girlfriend," continues Nathan, while Caleb has stepped out for a moment. "We're still not sure about Caleb."
"He doesn't have a girlfriend and he doesn't have a boyfriend, but I don't know. He has a lot of guy friends. He goes to clubs...and he had a bit of leather sticking out the top of his pants the other day," adds Jared, trying to suppress his laughter.
While the whole band is a lot more slick, polished and pretty than I expected (no moth eaten vintage threads, chain smoking or Jack Daniels in sight) it's Jared who has embraced rock star style most enthusiastically. With his floppy Wham-era George Michael hair, cross charms dangling from his ears and sleek black get-up, he looks like he's just stepped out of the pages of L'Uomo Vogue.
"We're starting to get into fashion a lot more, just for the fact that it feels good," he says. "I don't want to be one of those people that only wears [high fashion] stuff, but I hate people who try to cover up the fact that they're wearing something nice. I spent my whole life trying to make my poor clothes seem like they're expensive and I don't want to spend the rest of my life trying to make my expensive clothes look poor. We definitely wear a lot of Dior [Homme] and stuff like that and we care about the way we look definitely."
As the band (who are all still in their twenties) matures, so does their music. "I wanted to write a record for a young man and I'm not talking about a guy who's trying to go and have sex with every girl, I mean like literally an old man like in the old cowboy days, when you had to fight for your woman and have children and fight to survive and put food on the table every night," says Caleb earnestly. "We're in a generation now where you don't see that any more and divorce is inevitable. And I wanted to write about the complete opposite of that. I wanted to write about trying to be a grandparent y'know?"
"I was just lonely," Caleb says when I tell him I think the new album has a romantic quality to it. "I was sitting at home with nothing to do, no-one to hold on to, so I thought I'd make up some stories. Now I find it almost impossible not to write songs that at least have a little hidden moment about myself. If you actually take all the moments from the record that are about myself and put them all together, it's probably like a code or something. "
"I mean when I was younger I liked [touring] a little more because I was a fuck-up and loved being in different towns and getting drunk every night, but now we quit doing drugs and stuff like that. So now there's a lot of time to sit in your hotel room, with your head and nothing really to do. We play golf and drink fine wine, and girls are still around y'know," he says with a grin. "But touring I mean it's good. When I'm at home, I'm living with my demons so I might as well at least take them on a journey."
"With this record it evolved in the sense that we knew what we wanted and as musicians we could actually pull stuff off that on the previous records we couldn't dream of because we were scared to death," says Nathan of the new album. We definitely wanted to go for a bigger sound. It worked, we're happy with it. It's a big enough step forward from the last record to get a new audience but it's not so different that Kings of Leon fans will be like 'oh my god they sold out'."
"Our stage show is definitely quite a small production right now," says Jared. "But if you guys start deserving it, we'll bring out the pyrotechnics, big lights, unicorns and we'll show you guys some shit."
