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rolling stone france september 2021

edit: translation now available thanks to the wonderful @likemonstersinlove!

- INTERVIEW -

THE KILLERS

America afterwards

DEEP DIVE INTO THE KILLERS’ AMERICA

Pressure machine depicts the daily life of a small american town in a springsteenian style deftly taken on by their singer, Brandon Flowers. The band tell of their reunion with guitarist Dave Keuning and consider their return to the scene with prudence.

At the onset of the pandemic, when it became obvious that the Killers 2020 tour would not happen, Brandon Flowers started thinking back to his childhood spent in the small isolated town of Nephi, Utah. “There was a nostalgia in the air and a little bit of sadness too, " says the singer, "all those stories resurfaced as I was thinking back to the place where I was in the 90s.”

These “stories” make up the fertile ground for the Killers’ new opus, Pressure Machine, released August 13th, a concept album about life in Nephi told from the point of view of several of the town’s inhabitants, that broaches varied topics: [from] prescription drug abuse to poverty, by way of criminality, drugs, homophobia and depression. Despite the dark tone of the record, there are strokes of hope and joy sprinkled along the album.

“When I was writing these songs, I was thinking among other things of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, or of John Steinbeck’s The Pastures of heaven, says Flowers, where multiple short stories all take place in the same setting. For some reason, I dared to try it myself. Once I realised they were going to take place here and they would be true stories, everything became obvious to us.”

Brandon Flowers wrote the lyrics before the music was composed, scattering pictures of Nephi around his [computer] keyboard to get inspiration. When they were ready, the band gathered in their studio in Cotati, California, with producers Jonathan Rado and Shawn Everett,

|| “BRANDON FLOWERS WROTE THE LYRICS BEFORE THE MUSIC WAS COMPOSED, SCATTERING PICTURES OF NEPHI AROUND HIS KEYBOARD TO GET INSPIRATION.”||

the same team who worked on Imploding the Mirage the year prior. It was early 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic. “It was hard, says Flowers, Shawn has a penchant for hypochondria. He would wear glasses, a protective visor, and three masks in the studio. It was crazy. The bassist Marl [Stoermer] also had a hard time, and he could not get into the studio. But we would wear masks as well and get tested regularly. We were quite diligent.”

The album opens with “West Hills”, which tells the story of a desperate Nephi townie who gets arrested for “oxy” possession. “They got me for possession of them hillbilly heroin pills enough to kill the horses that run free in the west hills”, sings Flowers. The record turns even darker with “Terrible Thing”, which focuses on a gay teenager contemplating suicide. “There were kids I grew up with and only discovered years later that they were gay, recalls Flowers, it must have been so hard on them. I think the world is progressing in a more positive and more inclusive direction, but it was still the 90s and people would keep such things to themselves.”

Most of the songs are pulled from Flowers’ own memories in Nephi or things he read these past few years, but in “Desperate Things”, he chose to write the fictional story of a cop falling in love with a victim of domestic violence and ends up murdering her husband. It’s a story that would have easily found its place in Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, and that is unlike any other song from the Killers’ repertoire.

“I chose a story that caused a scandal in town when I lived there, and I took a few liberties in the third verse to turn it into a murderous ballad, explains Flowers. In a typical pop or rock song, there are only two verses. It’s only when you start looking into Springsteen and [John] Prine, for example, that you find a third or fourth verse. But it only serves to flesh out a story.”

“In Another Life” and “In The Car Outside” linger over disappointed dreams and bitter regrets of middle age, but the album ends on a true hope with “The Getting By”. “But maybe it's the stuff it takes to get up in the morning and put another day in, son that holds you 'til the getting's good…”

The album includes appearances from Joe Pug, Sara Watkins and Phoebe Bridgers, and marks the return of the Killers guitarist Dave Keuning. He did not take part in Imploding the Mirage or the last tours because of personal problems and the exhaustion from the long years spent on the roads. He was not involved in the entire creative process, but “In The Car Outside” and “A Pressure Machine” both start off on his guitar lines, and he plays on other songs from the album. “It was cool that he came back, declares drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr. You always realise what someone brings to the table the moment he comes into or out fo a room. It was nice to have his input again in the studio. We’ve been playing together for about 20 years. It felt good.”

They had almost finished recording when they decided to send an NPR employee to Nephi to record interviews with the inhabitants. He came back with incredibly personal stories, so lively that the band decided to open each song on the album with excerpts from those recordings. “We were right in the mastering phase, but to us, it was the last ingredient we needed to complete the project," says Vannucci. It gave us a better grounding in reality than our interpretations through songs and music… They were people with their accents and their stories. It’s what allowed us to put the project together and strengthen it.”

The band gave a virtual concert at the end of June for the Splendour in the Grass festival in Australia, with Keuning and Stoermer back on stage with the band for the first time in years, but they aren’t planning to launch an official tour before next March when they go to New Zealand. They will perform in North America in August 2022. But first, they performed on August 21st at the We Love NYC concert in Central Park, along with Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, LL Cool J, Elvis Costello and many others.

They will also be playing the Firefly Festival in Delaware on September 24th, and the Sandjam Music Festival in Florida at the beginning of October. For now, according to the band, Keuning is planning to join them on the road, but Stoermer will stay home. Tour bassist Jake Blanton will take his place again.

“We will play a trial concert in Terminal 5 [in New York] before the Central Park concert, " declares Flowers. We’ve had incredible concerts at Terminal 5. I cannot stop thinking about the song we’re gonna open the set with. I hope I’ll keep my cool. Playing live is a part of our identity and it’s something that we missed, this connection to the people of this community.”

Many bands are currently on the road, including Dave Matthews Band, Phish, and Green Day, but the Killers are being very careful by accepting no major concert as headline act before 2022. “We don’t want to be a band that spreads Covid or the K variant, " explains Vannucci. There are a lot of unknowns related to touring and questions of responsibility. And just out of respect for the people and so that everyone stays healthy, we wanted to remain prudent in that regard and not jump the gun too fast.”

Even if they will have two full albums filled with songs they have never played live when they get back on the road, they’re already considering another record. The band is at the very early stages of conception. “We had meetings for a week in San Diego notlong ago, at Dave’s, says Flowers. We were together the four of us, it was the first time we were doing that in years. But we must rehearse in January for the tour. I don’t know if we’ll find the time [to finish another album], but we will certainly meet again before Christmas.”

In the meantime, Flowers is eager to share Pressure Machine with the world. And working on the album finally gave him the opportunity to see Nephi in a very different light. “When I was a teenager, I wanted to leave. It’s only way later that I developed a better understanding and another view of this town’s beauty. I was so free there. People didn’t even need to lock their doors. I had a different upbringing there. I can appreciate that now.”

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page 4

GLITTER

On stage, Brandon likes to call to mind his hometown of Las Vegas, Sin City. And has great fun with it. Here at the Bonaroo festival in 2018.

page 6

MEMORY

The Killers spent the lockdown recording their new concept album.