Waiting to take the stage at Toronto's Mod Club, Brandon Flowers is visibly exhausted. "I got up at four this morning, so I'm tired," he acknowledges. "But tomorrow, I'm playing with Morrissey."
This is a bigger deal for Flowers than it would be for most 22-year-olds. Spending his formative years in small-town Utah at a time when anything with a synthesizer sounded a decade out of date, he was the kid listening to the Smiths, New Order and Duran Duran. Now he finds himself front-and-centre in an '80s art-rock revival.
The Killers haven't quite reached the Franz Ferdinand level of retro hotness, but they're getting close. British audiences have lapped up their debut album, Hot Fuss, with the Las Vegas foursome receiving a heroes’ welcome at this summer’s Glastonbury and T in the Park festivals. Now, they're starting to win over audiences on this side of the Atlantic -- and their soft-spoken frontman isn't shy about how they're doing it.
Others would cringe at any mention of the p-word; Flowers embraces it. "We're definitely not afraid of pop -- I love pop music," he says. "I understand a lot of the indie thing, but you ask me what my favourite bands are, and I'd say the Beatles and U2 and bands that were not indie bands. They sold records and wanted people to hear their music, and that's what we want. So I'd say we're a rock band that has pop sensibilities."
No argument there. In the same way as the Strokes, Interpol and Franz Ferdinand, the Killers are winning over critics and pasty-faced mods by plundering the best of a past era and putting their own spin on it. But they've also mastered the art of ear candy, luring mainstream radio audiences with sing-along anthems that belie Hot Fuss's dark tales of murders, stalkings and jealous fantasies.
If others question their artistic integrity, Flowers offers that they're part of a broader movement saving their genre. "I mean, it was hurting," he says. "What people considered rock 'n' roll - it just wasn't real. You'd see these guys in their videos and photo shoots ... They'd have on brand new clothes, and their hair just got perfectly highlighted ... We're getting away from that. We all dress ourselves and write our songs.
”And the songs are better. They're more classic. Even it sounds more '80s, there's great chord changes and great structures and that's what was missing."
Tonight's sold-out crowd appears to agree. The band is a little stiff, its 50-minute set surprisingly brief, but polished musicianship and Flowers' earnest charisma carry it through. By the time they close with the astonishing All These Things That I've Done, which barely suffers from the absence of the gospel choir that accompanies its studio version, the Killers have the assembled twentysomethings eating from the palms of their hands. They may not know much about Morrissey, but they're learning fast about his disciples.
Read the rest of the interview with Brandon Flowers here.
