Kings Of Leon have spoken about their need to record live, after the success of ‘Come Around Sundown’.
Kings Of Leon have always been a deeply old fashioned band. When the rest of the world was going crazy over garage punk and the New Rock Revolution, the Followills were citing country and Creedence as important influences.
Returning with their new album ‘Come Around Sundown’ the band have enjoyed enormous success. Kings Of Leon scored the highest first week sales of anyone in 2010 so far, smashing into the charts at number one.
Yet the album was recorded in one quick burst, as close to live as the band could manage. “There’s a lot of vulnerability on this record and that is the fact that a lot of it wasn’t rehearsed and, I mean, back in the, back when people were making real music, that’s what you loved when you could hear a pop here or a crack here, a door opening” said Caleb Followill.
“I remember when we were doing ‘Youth and Young Manhood’, I forget which track it is, but if you listen closely, and we’re probably the only ones that can hear it, but while the track is being played, you can hear someone playing pool in the background. You can hear the balls cracking. And you know, it’s like, “that’s awesome,” you know, it’s got to stay.”
Meanwhile, Matthew Followill recognised the immediacy of the recording process. “There are definitely a couple of songs on this record that were almost completely live. ‘Mary’ was for me, every single bit of the song is live, even the solo” he said.
“I wanted to redo the solo so badly and they were like, “No, just leave it. It’s really good.” So I was like, “Fine.” But yeah, that one was completely tracked live for me.”
Read the entire interview HERE.
‘Come Around Sundown’ is out now.
