The Killers 'Day & Age' album

Last November – after performing more than four-hundred gigs, and selling more that five million copies of their blockbuster debut, Hot Fuss – the Killers thought they’d take a well-deserved break. “We were going to take a few months off and have fun in the sun,” says singer Brandon Flowers. But just two weeks after they got home to Las Vegas, the Killers – drummer Ronnie Vanucci, guitarist Dave Keuning, bassist Mark Stoermer, and Flowers – were back at it, breaking ground on their follow-up masterpiece, Sam’s Town. “We realized that we’d been touring so long that we had to get going,” says Flowers. “I grew up reading about bands that put out, ten albums a year. And I have this fascination with being prolific, and it just sucks because the music business is so different now. So we recorded as fast as we could.”

The theme of “things sucking because they’re different now” – as a result of the sad demise of our old-fashioned American values -- is at the heart of Sam’s Town. There is a whimsical thread that runs through the album: On songs like ‘For Reasons Unknown”, ‘The River Is Wild” and the album’s lead single, “When We Were Young” (which is killing at radio) Flowers writes about simpler times. “I was a mistake,” says Flowers, laughing about how old his parents were when he popped out. “When I look at my dad, or through my dad’s eyes, it’s weird to see how messed up things are getting. But through him I’ve learned a lot about values that used to exist, and I think those show their face on the new album.” And while Hot Fuss – which spawned massive hits like “Somebody Told Me”, “Mr. Brightside”, “Smile Like You Mean It” and “All These Things That I’ve Done” was cobbled together from demos, with no story arc, Flowers calls Sam’s Town a cohesive set – a concept album, if you will. “Nobody makes albums like that anymore,” he says, proud of the results. The critics agree: In their fall record preview, Rolling Stone calls Sam’s Town “a luscious piece of nostalgia that gets better with every listen,” and adds, “it’s on the right side of the divider between retro and timeless.” British music mag NME says that on Sam’s Town,“The Killers reject their mantle as The Best British Band to Come From the U.S., and stake their claim to the less confusing title of The Best Band To Come From Anywhere, Ever.”

Armed with songs that they’d written on the road -- like “My List,” “Why Do I Keep Counting?” and “Bones” (for which Tim Burton recently directed his first-ever music video) -- the Killers entered their Vegas rehearsal space to write. In just three weeks they created an arsenal of potential album cuts, and, as Vegas’ prodigal sons (and the most beloved band to ever rise out of the Nevada desert), the Killers got the virgin run in the brand-new, studio in Vegas’ Palms Hotel & Casino. “There have been a lot of live albums recorded, but this is the first studio album made in any casino,” says Flowers. “We thought we deserved that title.” With legendary producers Flood and Alan Moulder (who had previously combined their talents on U2’s Pop, and the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness) at the helm, the band was inspired to new musical heights. “The songs are smarter, musically and lyrically,” says Flowers. “And Mark, Ronnie and Dave are better players now. I think we sound really strong and confident.” While working on a track called “Little Angela”, the production duo wasn’t satisfied. “We could see them through the glass in the control room, and I could tell that Alan was upset,” says Flowers. “I heard Alan say, ‘We’re trying to make ‘Peggy Sue’ into ‘With or Without You.’ That was a real blow to me because he was basically saying my lyrics weren’t good enough to match the production.” Flowers rewrote the lyrics and came up with a stronger melody. A new song, “Read My Mind,” was born. “It was a thrill to have that whole thing come out of Alan getting upset,” says Flowers. “It’s the best song we’ve ever written.”

With all of their accolades – five Grammy nominations, two Moon Men from MTV’s VMAs, and -- and rave reviews for Sam’s Town streaming in, the Killers are still out to prove. They’re the first to admit that their musical journey has just begun. And what better place to go than Sam’s Town, named after real-life casino that sits directly between Flowers’ hometown of Henderson, Nevada, and all the bright lights of Las Vegas. “Sam’s Town [was/is] on the very edge of Vegas,” says Flowers. “It was always exciting to get there, because you knew you were finally getting somewhere. You were almost in Vegas. I think it’s a good representation of where we are now.”

The Killers press quotes
"This luscious piece of nostalgia gets better with every listen....it's on the right side of the divider between retro and timeless.”
-Rolling Stone

"This album....sees The Killers reject their mantle as The Best British Band Ever to come From The US, and stake their claim to the less confusing title of The Best Band To Come From Anywhere, Ever.”
-NME

“This epic album shows their range and ambition, merging their signature synth-pop with surprising echoes of Bruce Springsteen and U2. It’s one to listen to over and over.”
-People

"When You Were Young"...manages to intricately intertwine a hard-driving, drum-laden rock beat with harmonies that even the toughest rock critic or radio programmer couldn't shoot holes through.”
-Billboard

"First single from October's new album, which sees Brandon Flower’s pop nous backed by an enormous, glittery wall of sound. Fantastic."
Q Magazine

“You’ll get choruses so big you could put them on Broadway, lyrics memorable enough to yodel on the bus home from Wembley and an album infused with an unstinting; peculiarly American belief that humankind can fly to the stars on the power of rock music alone.”
- The Observer

The Killers Interview
The Killers have revealed that their forthcoming third LP is set to be a more stripped down affair than 2006's stadium-friendly concept album Sam's Town. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, bassist Mark Stoermer explained: "This record is stripped down in a lot of ways. Each instrument has its place, and things aren't clouding anything up. We're not trying to be bombastic. It's our most poppy record but also our most experimental."

Their third album, called Day And Age (Island) will be out November 25th, produced by Madonna collaborator Stuart Price and features the pick of a mammoth three-month writing stint by frontman Brandon Flowers, during which he penned around 30 new songs.

"Everything is at stake on this album," says Flowers. Everything. I live through these songs. People make such a big deal about the second album but I feel like the pressure to produce something great will always be there."

"It's our job, after all. We learned that you can't please everyone, but we've got faith in what we do, faith in our fans and faith in the soon-to-be- album."

Flowers also commented on a number of song titles that could appear on the LP; such as "Goodnight Travel Well," "Joyride," "Neon Tiger," "I Can't Stay" and Flower's personal favorite "Losing Touch." Other songs that the band has played or mentioned in interviews over the past few months that could end up on Day and Age include a song titled "Tidal Wave," and one that goes by the name of "Spaceman."

The record sees the band experimenting with loops and drum patterns for the very first time. "To be honest, every time we make a record, I just hope I can write another 'When You Were Young' [the band's 2006 mega hit], says Flowers. Does this record do that? That's not for me to say, but there are songs on there I do think are pretty... special."

"I grew up being a fan of the great rock'n'roll bands," Brandon says. "Now we know something great is in our grasp, and we want to get it right."

The first single, "Human ," debuted #16 on the Mediabase Alternative chart before the September 30th impact date.

biography
Inspiration has never eluded Las Vegas’ The Killers, and it’s a damn good thing it hasn’t, because their newest record, their third studio album entitled Day & Age, is full of their finest songs to date. "I think about moments when we were coming up with 'When You Were Young,' or, in this case, 'Spaceman,'" Flowers says. "If we'd decided at that moment, 'Let's go to the park,' they might not have happened. It's scary. It almost makes me not want to stop because I could be missing out on these wonderful songs. They're out there for the taking—you've just got to grab them."

Together with bassist Mark Stoermer, guitarist Dave Keuning, and drummer Ronnie Vannucci, Flowers helped to mold the album into 10 songs that work best together as a whole, each individually describing an evolution of the Las Vegas band's sound. "We're always pushing ourselves," says Stoermer, "and there's a lot of diversity here—from anthemic rock to dance songs." Flowers adds: "We felt like Sam's Town was a continuation of Hot Fuss, and we feel like this is a continuation of Sam's Town. But at the same time, Day and Age is totally different from both of them, while still sounding like us. It's kind of looking at Sam's Town from Mars."

Those familiar with the band's oeuvre will recognize their signature in the synth-heavy "Human," four minutes of sweeping, epic rock, on which Flowers sings: "My sign is vital/ My hands are cold/ And I'm on knees, looking for the answer/ Are we human, or are we dancer?" He says the lyrics were inspired by a disparaging comment made by Hunter S. Thompson about how America was raising a generation of dancers. But the song also had some help from album producer Stuart Price (aka Jacques LuCont), known for his work with Madonna and Missy Elliot, and who'd previously remixed "Mr. Brightside.” "He was the icing on the cake,” says Stoermer.

"We had just put 'Human' together, and we wound up shooting over to his house after dinner [in London]," Flowers recalls of his first time in the studio with Price. "A few hours later, we had something very close to what you hear now. I was on cloud nine." He continues: "When we walked into his flat, the first thing I saw was picture of the cover of The Man Who Sold the World, and further down the stairs there was a picture of Eno in his Roxy Music days. I just kind of felt that we'd found our man."

That he'd find comfort in the signifiers of those artists shouldn't come as a surprise: The band's made no secret of their admiration for both art-rock and stadium giants (collaborating with the likes of Lou Reed, who guested on "Tranquilize," a single from Sawdust, 2007’s collection of B-sides, rarities, and new songs). Formed in Las Vegas in 2002, the band belongs to the lineage of high-energy rock bands that manage to be both commercially successful and critically acclaimed (both of their studio albums have received endless column inches bursting with praise), and it’s almost mind-blowing to consider that without the classifieds section of a local paper, they might have never been.

Flowers first met guitarist Keuning while perusing said classifieds for fellow musicians; when Dave’s ad mentioned The Beatles, Oasis and more, Flowers knew he was on the right track. They claimed the name The Killers (taken from the bass drum of a fictional band in a New Order video), and eventually recruited Stoermer and Vannucci into the fold, all of them agreeing that there seemed to be an intangible something to the music they were making, as well as the response they were generating from people who saw them play. And as these performances became bigger and bigger, and praise for the band began to spread rapidly, A&R men came from the UK and the US to see them, eventually leading them to sign with Island Records in America. Their debut, Hot Fuss, catapulted them onto the global stage upon its 2004 release, selling millions of copies around the world. The band toured for two years straight behind Hot Fuss, playing more than four-hundred shows, and eventually returned to Vegas to begin to work on the follow-up album with legendary producers Alan Moulder and Flood. The result, a love letter of sorts to their hometown entitled Sam’s Town, was released in 2006 and spent forty-two weeks on the Billboard Top 200. In between all of this, the band managed to fit in two appearances on Saturday Night live, in addition to performances on The Tonight Show, The Late Show with David Letterman and more. One might think this would produce a generous amount of pressure as the band began to work on their newest collection of songs, but this was not the case. "We're confident together, comfortable with the way we work as a live band," Stoermer says. "So when we were writing this record, there was less anxiety, not that we're resting on our laurels.”

This comfort in their work together is apparent on Day & Age. The album sees The Killers experimenting with different instruments: "I Can't Stay" has a tropical sound—thank the saxophone and steel drums—and, as the singer says, "could be the most perfect pop song we've ever written." "Losing Touch," meanwhile, is a gorgeous uptempo track with bright horns and grim lyrics ("impending doom, it must be true/ I'm losing touch") that lend it an ominous vibe. "Spaceman," an unabashedly arena-sized glam-rock number whose associative lyrics reference, among other themes, alien abduction. ("We've been playing it between 'Read My Mind' and 'Mr. Brightside,' and it feels like it's been there forever," Flowers says.) More than anything, The Killers are excited for their fans to hear what they’ve been creating, though, says Stoermer, “We're always a little nervous about whether people are going to like it."

The people have in the past. Besides the sales figures—including moving 4.4 million units of Sam's Town abroad—the band has received seven nods from the Grammys, and won a variety of MTV, BRIT, and NME awards. They’ve headlined some of the biggest festivals in the UK and Europe, including Glastonbury, the Reading and Leeds Festival and Pukkelpop, and have sold out prestigious venues such as Madison Square Garden in America. The attention has, at times, made it difficult for them to keep their composure, but this time out the band is trying to remain more level-headed.

"We got thrown up to the position very quickly that we're in now —the test is to retain it," says Flowers. "I want us to be a positive force. People think that we're overconfident and cocky, but it comes from excitement. It's not 'I'm better than you,' it's that I can't wait till you hear this song because I know what it does to me physically. I'm able to listen to our songs and not think 'this is us playing,' I'm able to allow the music to affect me and I know if it's good or not. Sometimes people think I'm running my mouth, when I'm truly excited."

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