Here at The Current, we have been huge fans of the Las Vegas band, The Killers, since pretty much the start of The Current.

We had to wait a little bit for The Killers to put out their new album. Brandon Flowers has been busy in the meantime making some awesome solo music, but the last time there was a full-length of new music from The Killers, it was with Battle Born back in 2012.

For those of you who have been waiting for new music from The Killers, Sept. 22 is a big day. That's when Wonderful Wonderful, the new album from The Killers, is released.

The Killers' frontman Brandon Flowers joined me by phone to talk about the new album.

Interview Transcript

After five years, what was it that pulled you back to the Killers for a new record?

There wasn't ever really a plan for it to take this long. We've got a couple guys in the band that needed a big break after touring. I'd made a solo record and was in the middle of touring when I realized what year it was! And I called everybody up, I sort of had to round the troops up and say, "It's been a while since Battle Born came out. If we're going to do this thing, we should get going."

When you were putting together Battle Born, you said in an interview that the first couple of weeks, it was a little bit — not tense, necessarily — but you guys had to get used to each other in that spirit again. What was the feeling like when you guys got back together this time?

If we go on tour, we're so familiar with these songs, we've played over a thousand shows together, we've played a lot of these songs that we've written a lot. That's second nature. That's like riding a bike. But when it comes to being creative and four people having to maneuver around the song together, a chord progression or whatever it is, that always takes some getting used to. It can be frustrating. It can be complicated. It's not always cotton candy. It took a while, but we finally got to where we wanted to go.

What was the moment that made you feel like, "OK, everything's clicking again, this feels right, we're right on."

There's a song on the record called "Rut." It was sort of a cornerstone laid. It was an obvious thing that we could feed off of and something that was a direction that we saw that we could go. It was a new territory, but it felt very natural — it felt very Killers — but it also felt like we were going into some new waters. That was an exciting song.

Was that sort of self-referential, then?

A little bit. I was definitely feeling like I was in — I would call it a slump. And they say the best way out of it sometimes is just to face it head on. Lyrically, it may have been a turning point for that song. But the band, there's sort of a new sound pm that song for us. That was what was really exciting, and it just came together really quickly and we realized, "Hey, this is something."

Speaking of new direction, you brought in Jacknife Lee — he's worked with The Cars, U2, Snow Patrol. Why did you bring him in?

On our last record, we used a lot of producers. That never really was the goal. You want to have a team together and have everybody working for the common good and the common goal, but we just couldn't get everybody locked down; people had different commitments. It was nice to settle on one person and just climb the mountain with him. That ended up being Jack Knife. We were fans of some of the other things we had done, and then we finally went and met him in his studio in California. We just got along really well, and he was familiar with where we were coming from and where we wanted to go. It just ended up working out really great.

There are a lot of new sounds going on at least in the couple of songs that I've heard from the new album. I heard you say that this is kind of you not only being a little more personal but maybe taking more of a tender look back. Can you talk about that a little bit?

I was struggling with what to write about and I realized it was OK for me to be more personal on this record. I've always been very aware of the fact that I'm up there with Mark and Dave and Ron, and representing all of us, and so I haven't always borne my soul as much. And I've made two solo records, and I felt more comfortable to do that when I was making solo records. So I realized I had to give myself permission to do that with The Killers, and that was sort of another turning point for this record and a step in the right direction, and I guess that that kind of became the calling card for this record.

Was it strange for the other guys in The Killers to hear such personal lyrics?

Yeah, it was strange. We also had to have different types of conversations that we'd never had before. I may have felt very strongly about a song because of the lyrics, and the other guys may not have been as on board with it. And then when I explained to them why this song needed to be on the record — I didn't used to have to go through that process of explaining what these lyrics were about. I guess it opened up some lines of communication within the band, which maybe was a good thing because we're not the greatest communicators. It made it more personal for everybody, I think.

Speaking about the actual lyrical content, I know a lot of people look at "the Man" and immediately wonder if it's sarcasm or if it's something else going on there. Can you tell us a little bit about "The Man"?

I really wanted to inhabit my 36 years on this record, and so I made a conscious effort to really capture where I'm at right now, and I realized toward the end of the record that I really couldn't put all these pieces of the puzzle together without having one last hurrah with my 22-year-old self, and that's how "The Man" was born. It's scary how quickly I was able to call upon that man! The lyrics just sort of oozed out. It also brought a little bit of levity to the record. It was fun. It was fun to record.

Along those lines, when you're looking back on your career, are there any particular moments that really stick out to you?

In the early days, there were a lot, because it was all so new and it felt like anything was possible and things were really exciting. Things were happening all the time. There were just highlights coming from every angle.

I remember a real highlight for us, we were still touring in a van and we were driving across the United States, and our manager got a call. It was from Morrissey's manager, asking if we wanted to open some gigs for Morrissey. It felt like we were flying, it was so exciting! He's always been someone that I admire; I was one of the crazy Morrissey fans growing up. And to have him not only be aware of us but seem to like us enough to reach out and have us open, I can't express what that felt like. I was like, 23 years old or something. It was a great moment.

Those kinds of things would happen, and it was so surreal. It was so fun.

You guys are a Las Vegas band, if not the Las Vegas band because I can't really think of that many others. Is there ever a part of you that kind of wished you had grown up in a scene, if you had been with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and LCD Soundsystem and the Strokes in New York, or something like that?

There's something romantic about that, for sure. The New York scene was obviously really cool in the late '70s and then there was a resurgence in the early 2000s. That's just great. And there's obviously been some great scenes in London and Berlin and Seattle and L.A.

We weren't ever a part of anything like that. It's very romantic, I love the idea of it, but it also I think helped make us who we were and separated us. We always felt like individuals coming from Las Vegas, and I think that that made us what we are.

The new album Wonderful Wonderful is coming out Sept. 22. I want to ask you about "Run for Cover." It was nine years in the making, but it feels like it could have been made last week.

It's one of those weird things where a lot of these lyrics I wrote about eight or nine years ago, and a lot of it has come true. And so it's kind of strange to have a song that you wrote so long ago and all of these instances in real life actually can sort of fit themselves into the song. That's just, I don't know, it's a coincidence, I guess.

But it sounds fresh. We've only played it two or three times live. I just can't want to take it on the road.

Resources

The Killers - official site