Matthew, Nathan, Caleb, and Jared Followill
Kings of Leon are back with a brand new album. Set for an October release, Come Around Sundown is the Nashville band’s fifth record and follows in the long shadow cast by their 2008 breakthrough album, Only by the Night. Having recorded all their previous work in either Nashville or Los Angeles, the band chose to record the majority of their forthcoming album amid the hustle and bustle of New York City where they sought inspiration for a darker, more grungier sound. The result, they say, has been somewhat surprising.
Fans were given a taste of the new material recently when the song “Radioactive” was released as a video on the band’s website and made its radio debut shortly thereafter. The track is the first single off Come Around Sundown, an album title that continues in the five-syllable tradition of previous Kings of Leon albums Youth and Young Manhood [2003], Aha Shake Heartbreak [2004], Because of the Times [2007], and Only by the Night [2008]. Driven by the refrain “It’s in the water/It’s where you came from,” the song is catchy from first listen. It recalls the band’s earlier southern rock influences and mixes them with the slick sound of their Grammy Award-winning work on Only by the Night.
The track’s sepia-tinged video shows the Followills — brothers Caleb (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Nathan (drums), and Jared (bass) and cousin Matthew (lead guitar) — hanging out at a Southern-style summer barbecue where they fly kites, ride bikes, and run through sprinklers in sun-drenched fields with a gathering of African-American children who serve as a choir when the band hits the barn to rock out. “Radioactive” provides a glimpse into the Kings of Leon’s Southern origins. It’s a wholesome video, one band members are certain will redeem them in their grandmother’s eyes.
Although the song might be new to the public, bassist Jared Followill says the band have been kicking it around for quite some time. Written between the albums Aha Shake Heartbreak and Because the Times, “Radioactive” holds a great deal of personal meaning to the Bible-bred Followills who grew up with gospel music. Originally from Tennessee, they spent much of their childhoods traveling to various Southern churches and congregations with their father, a Pentecostal preacher. The band decided to revisit the song for the new album but were almost forced to shelve it yet again when they couldn’t get the choruses and verses to match up. It was only when Caleb went back to an old spiritual song they’d all sung while growing up that “Radioactive” finally clicked.
Despite its big city origins, Come Around Sundown isn’t without its country streak. In addition to the gospel-flavored “Radioactive,” the song “Back Down South” includes a fiddle while “Mary” has a ‘50s doo-wop vibe. MTV’s Kyle Anderson says the Kings’ new music is “a sort of Zeppelin-flavored blues romp that imports a bit of Loretta Lynn for good measure. It strikes just the right balance between melt-your-face rocking and twang-drenched beauty.” Nathan describes the album’s overall outcome as “beach-y.” That’s Followill speak for “laid-back,” not “California Gurls.”
The Kings of Leon, who first broke in the UK, hit it big in 2008 with the release of their fourth album, Only by the Night. That record, which saw the band evolve beyond their upbeat blend of southern rock and blues influences into a more alternative rock sound, included the hits “Use Somebody” and “Sex on Fire.” It earned the band chart success as well as recognition in their native United States, not to mention their first Grammy Award. Only by the Night has since gone multi-platinum. Obviously, there was pressure going into the new album, though to hear the Kings of Leon tell it, not so much.
"We've never been one to let that stuff get to us really," says Nathan. "Early on in our career I think it probably hurt us more than it helped us, but we said no to everything that the label wanted us to do, just because we were little [jerks] and young and cocky and really didn't care. But obviously there's that underlying tone of pressure from any corporate side of it, because at the end of the day, it's a business for them. And it's revenue. So you always know that in the back of your mind, they're sitting there with their fingers crossed hoping to God that they can put this new record in and have three 'Use Somebody's' on there. I mean, that's always with any label, with any record. So that's normal and expected. But for the most part we really don't let outside pressure get to us that much, because we're such a tight-knit group -- it's pretty tough to penetrate that little circle as far as outside influence or pressure."
Caleb Followill’s on-the-fly approach to writing Come Around Sundown will attest to this. Known for his fairly off-the-wall songs, he came by the lyrics to the new album organically. "We would go in there and kind of run through the song a little bit, and I would ad-lib," says Caleb. "I would say 75 percent of the lyrics on here were completely ad-libbed. And I had no idea what it was that I was saying, and I had to make sense of it all and kind of piece it together. And so in a way it was a very different album. I would keep saying 'Oh, I'm going to go back and redo the lyrics.' And by the time it came to that, everyone would just say, 'Man, don't touch it. There's something about it.' And I would try to change a certain lyric, and they'd be like, 'Where did that go, we really liked that.'”
Come Around Sundown also boasts a little variety in instrumentation with touches of lap steel guitar, trumpet and as previously mentioned, fiddle. The band have wanted to expand their sound for a while but didn’t trust that they’d be able to pull off the songs live. But success has emboldened them to try new things. “It's really gotten us excited for the future and where we can go as a band.”
Kings of Leon have been road-testing the new album all summer long while out on a tour of the US that wraps up in St. Louis for a rescheduled show on September 25th. Come Around Sundown drops October 18th in the UK and October 19th in the US. The band will be playing a string of dates this December with a brief UK arena trek that kicks off in Manchester on December 13th and will conclude with a London show on December 21st. It also includes two gigs in Birmingham and a pair of Sheffield dates. Check out the band’s website at www.kingsofleon.com for further information and a comprehensive list of tour dates.
