From hicks to huge, Kings of Leon's new album should put the fraternal American band over the top. Frontman Caleb Followill talks to SCOTT KARA about sex, love and that voice of his
KEY POINTS:
Being from wholesome southern stock, Caleb Followill of the Kings Of Leon enjoys the simple life. While he keeps a little house in the music city of Nashville, Tennessee, he'd rather head an hour out of town to the farm he owns with his brother and band mate Nathan.
"I'm not as flashy as I appear on stage," he chuckles. "But I've always been into those old Westerns and that's how I've always wanted to live my life. To live off the land with some cows and stuff."
The problem is, in the last five years the steady rise of the Kings Of Leon - made up of brothers Caleb (vocals/guitars), Nathan (drums) and Jared (bass), and their cousin Matthew (guitar) - means he's living the rock'n'roll lifestyle instead of a rural one. With the release of new album Only By the Night on September 22 they're about to get bigger and are a likely candidate for band of the year.
It's one of 2008's hotly anticipated albums following the success of last year's Because Of The Times. While debut Youth and Young Manhood (2003) and follow up Aha Shake Heartbreak (2005) earned them a solid fan base, it was Because Of The Times, with songs like Charmer and On Call, that saw the Kings Of Leon go from acquired taste to stadium act. In New Zealand they went from an afternoon slot at the Big Day Out to filling Vector Arena in the space of a year.
The first single off Only By The Night, the hot-blooded screamer Sex On Fire, has been in New Zealand's top 10 singles chart for the past four weeks which - these days at least - is almost unheard of for a rock band of the Kings Of Leon's ilk.
In the past many wrote them off as hicks, and rather than their music being the focus it was the band's story people concentrated on. You know the one, about how they were brought up on the road with their father who was a travelling United Pentecostal Church preacher.
Plus, being in their early 20s, and Jared still in his teens, the band developed a bit of a reputation for embracing the rock'n'roll lifestyle and the girls that came with it. Yeeha.
However, the inspiration and recording behind Only By the Night was different.
"It's not a record about drugs and supermodels and the rock'n'roll lifestyle," says Followill who's just got out of the shower having forgotten TimeOut was going to call. Settle down ladies.
"I feel like I tapped into something a little more tangible to everyone. It's more just about being a human, who has flaws and searches for love and drinks too much. Regular day life, that's what I wanted to write about."
Followill's tunes have always been confessional but in the past he says he lacked confidence so to disguise the contents of the songs he mumbled and rambled.
"Little did I know I was actually creating quite a unique way to write and sing songs. So I've always been able to sing but I've always tried to hide so journalists and people and everyone couldn't critique me and didn't hold me as a country guy who dropped out of high school, didn't have the best education, and so I kinda tried to hide what I was saying."
This time round he's in fine, reasonably clear voice and he lets rip. While there's not as much sex on the record ("It's just not as blatant. There's still some sex going on but they're just going to have to decode it.") his preoccupation with love and desire remains. "It's always been a thing with me that it's a constant struggle to wander if I'd ever find love," says the 26-year-old who is currently in "a great relationship with a wonderful girl".
Then there's Manhattan, with the cracking line "I like to dance all night and summons the day', where the band pay tribute to their Native American roots (the Followill brothers' great grandfather was Native American). "It's about a party but by the end of the song it's war. Death, blood and the reality of the situation. But it's just one of the strange subjects I sing about and people might think I'm singing about a nightclub [in New York] or something," he laughs.
While the 2003 debut Youth and Young Manhood, and follow-up Aha Shake Heartbreak had a rowdy, down-home, and often brazen edge, last year's Because of the Times was more polished, and Only By The Night is even more sophisticated while still delving into their southern rock roots.
"Classic music is something timeless and that's the one thing we've tried to do with our music, from album to album, is change and one day people will listen to it and they will never know what time it came from.
"Hopefully [with Only By the Night] we're on the verge of breaking through some barriers we haven't quite done as a band and getting some people to actually believe in us who at first wrote us off as a flash in the pan kind of story."
The making of the new album was a stark contrast to the arguments and fist fights during Because Of the Times when their "egos were at an all-time high".
"And when you have people stroking your ego the only thing you can do is really bring each other down. This is our fourth album and we've been doing it for a while now and I think we've all jabbed each other as hard as we can. And we all know whose got the biggest penis. But enough about me, though,' he jokes.
This time round the recording studio was more like a grown-up's rumpus room. "We were just hanging out, mixing up cocktails, playing wall ball outside and just f***ing around and then it would be like, `Oh yeah, lets go record'.
"It was refreshing because the last time we did that was when we were working on our first album."
It's also refreshing - and rare - to have a modern band who release records and tour regularly. It's something Followill puts down to the band loving what they do, and a good work ethic.
"We're pretty impatient so we don't like to sit around and let the flame die down and as soon as we finish one we seem to have five or six songs ready for the next one. But in the beginning we were just down to do whatever and to play shows and to have something so we didn't have get regular jobs."
Although their strong work ethic is puzzling for Followill because "our family are pretty lazy people and there's a lot of unemployed family members".
"I don't know where it comes from, but we're just very competitive, our whole family is very competitive, a family full of boys and everyone wants to be better than the other one and I guess that's our approach on music.
"We don't feel like we've accomplished everything we can accomplish and until we do - and who knows if that will ever happen - we'll be out there making records as often as we get an opportunity."
LOWDOWN
Who: The Kings Of Leon
Line-up: Caleb Followill (guitar/vocals), Matthew Followill (guitar); Jared Followill (bass); Nathan Followill (drums)
New album: Only By the Night, out September 22
Past albums: Youth and Young Manhood (2003); Aha Shake Heartbreak (2005); Because of the Times (2007)
