Decades later, Brandon Flowers can see that it was unusual: At an age when many of his adolescent friends did everything to rebel against their parents, the future Killers frontman spends an increasing amount of time playing golf with his father.
‘Some of my most precious memories with him are on the course,’ he recalled the other day, sounding a little hesitant over the phone from his home in Park City, Utah.
Flowers, 39, thought about his father when he started playing golf with his own sons – he and his wife, Tana, have three, ages 13, 11 and 9 – while the typically tough tower killers take an unexpected break from the road thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I make up for lost time with her,” he said. “I feel guilty for not hating quarantine.”
In a way, however, Flowers has never net had his elders in mind. Since its founding in Las Vegas in 2001, the Killers – whose sixth studio album ‘Imploding the Mirage’ will be released Friday – have openly emulated pioneering rock tunes such as U2 and Bruce Springsteen with music that combines roaring guitars (remember that? ) with driving speeds and sky-high melodies. And they have collaborated with veterans including Mark Knopfler and Lou Reed.
Now, in an era dominated by hip-hop, they are one of the few current bands still able to fill arenas and stadiums: Had their tour not been postponed until 2021, the Killers Banc of California would Stadium in Exposition Park have hit new week behind “Imploding the Mirage,” with a guest spot by no less a dad-rock legend than Lindsey Buckingham.
“My kids love her, and my wife loves her,” said the former Fleetwood Mac singer-guitarist, who contributed a searing, “Big Love” -style solo to the LP’s thrumming lead single, “Caution.” “They’ve made something fresh that speaks to the boy – like the boy-ish,” he added. ‘But there is such a strong center for what they do. Their material is so well made that it cuts across many generational bands. ”
The group’s most satisfying record since ‘Day & Age’ of 2008, ‘Imploding the Mirage’ achieved for the same quality-and-broken quality – and the same iconographic lyrical splendor – that Killers classics like ‘When You Were Young’ ‘and’ Human. In “caution,” a no. 1-hit on alternative rock radio, Flowers demonstrates exactly no one, while he cries over a ‘featherweight queen’ with ‘Hollywood eyes’ who can go ‘straight from zero to the fourth of July.’
Ronnie Vannucci Jr., left, Brandon Flowers and Mark Stoermer of the Killers.
(Olivia Bee)
However, the album also reveals new wrinkles, including a rhythmic flexibility and a welcome female presence in the form of performances by kd lang and Weyes Blood.
Asked if he’s surprised himself by making something so lively 16 years after the band’s debut album, Flowers said: ‘I can show the people who have made great records so far in their careers – there are not so much. But there are some, and that’s enough for me to pursue. The singer named Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty and Peter Gabriel, calling them “People who simply produce the goods.”
He also said he found inspiration in a quote attributed to South African golfer Gary Player. “He said, ‘The more I practice, the happier I get,’ ‘Flowers said. Then he laughed in a softly snorting way that reminded George McFly of “Back to the Future.” “I always have a sports analogy.”
The Killers put the hours on the course this time. Flowers and drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr. – the two remaining permanent members of the band after guitarist Dave Keuning and bassist Mark Stoermer both retired from full-time membership in recent years – initially teamed up with producer Jacknife Lee, who had produced the 2017s – so “Wonderful Wonderful.”
The music started coming as usual, but it felt ‘too much like familiar territory,’ Vannucci said, ‘which is not what we needed.’ King’s departure prompted them to reject their approach, while Flowers’ move from Las Vegas to Utah reminded him of ideas about legacy and tradition, not to mention his perception of himself as a rock star.
“It was a kind of crisis for me,” the frontman said of leaving his birthplace. “I felt like the mountains and the lights were defining me, and so I felt like I was doing something dirty by leaving it.” In addition to breaking a certain hyper-American aesthetic bond, he resented the fact that he could no longer take his sons to the restaurants where he grew up; he likes to think that future Flowers would not learn to ride their bikes in the park where he taught his children (and where his father taught him).
Yet Las Vegas was “basically a ghostly place for my wife,” he said, referring in horror to an unhappy family background. “Getting her there has been great for her,” added the singer, who was raised in the Mormon Church. “It’s become a great blessing for my family.”
Flowers wanted to get his arms around all this in the music of the Killers. That he and Vannucci tried to start a series of producers in a process that compared the drummer to speed-dating. Nobody cared about her imagination until the duo of Jonathan Rado, of the SoCal psych-rock band Foxygen, and Shawn Everett, who worked with the War on Drugs and Kacey Musgraves (and who was recommended by Flowers’ pal Ariel Rechtshaid).
“They were just super-spontaneous and took care of everything,” said Vannucci, who shone ‘years of danger’ after years of dating many of the same people.
Everett said that because the Killers’ identity is rooted in a feeling more than in a specific voice – he likens it to “the excitement of the freedom you get at the end of a long journey” – they could be liberal think with textures and arrangements, as in the funky “Fire In Bone.”
The musicians followed much of the album on a few closed LA studios, Vox and Sound City; Flowers especially enjoyed cutting out “Blowback,” what he called “perhaps the most heartbreakers of all our songs,” in the last room, a regular spot for Petty throughout his long career. Buckingham got involved after Flowers and Vannucci decided that, minus King, “caution” required some “magic guitar juice,” as Vannucci put it.
‘I was kidding when I introduced him – like,’ Oh, do you know who would be great at this? ‘, The drummer reminds him. To her surprise, Buckingham ‘rode to Vox and got his hands dirty with us,’ Flowers said.
Both members admit that they do not like the situation with Keunig and Stoermer, who described creative frustrations and exhaustion by touring to explain why they chose them for the recording and performance with the Killers. However, neither member has officially left the band, and Flowers said he probably will not force the issue.
“I have a kind of little brother because everyone in the band is five years older than me,” he said. ‘If someone took their stand and they were five years younger than me, would it be the same? I do not know it would be. “
Vannucci is a bit generative. “I want to leave room for them if they want to come back,” he said. “And it seems like it’s going so far, where they’ve had enough of a break, and they feel refreshed.” He hopes the guitarist and bassist might join the Killers in time for next year’s dates – assuming those dates actually happen, of course.
The summer of their tour write-off took a major financial toll for a band whose business largely relies on selling concert tickets. It was also an artistic disappointment: Flowers said that since “Sam’s Town” – the 2006 album by many critics as an overburdened mess – he was often thought of by the Killers as a band that is at its best stage.
“Because the album got so bad, I wanted there to be a critic every night, and I wanted to show them that these songs were better than what was written,” he said. “And I think our band could live in a new way.”
Brandon Flowers
(Olivia Bee)
However, “I did not think about winning the race” to get back on the road, said Flowers, who shows that real deal touring will not start again until a fax machine is widely available. If that happens, the band plans to use a third-party service provider, Vannucci said, to dispel accusations such as the one recently made on social media by a former Killers sound engineer who said other crew members had discussed about a woman behind the scenes in 2009. (This month, the band’s legal team said it had investigated the allegation and found that the discussion of assault was likely an ‘attempt at a joke as a’ hazing ‘by a since- fired crew member; Chez Cherrie, the engineer, responded by saying that such behavior “reflects the bigger problem in this sector – that ‘hazing’ towards the only women on the technical crew was normal, expected, accepted and not questioned by one, including myself. “)
Until then, Flowers will be the proud family man at home in Utah doing “typical daddy” things with his sons, he said, which in addition to golf also includes another activity that reminds the singer of his own childhood.
“I remember my dad breaking a stack of targets at home during Desert Storm with Saddam Hussein’s face on her, and we were going to shoot BB guns,” he said. ‘The kids, they love that story. Now we’re shooting Red Bull cans and Perrier bottles. ”
