The Killers
Ronnie Vannucci
Sep. 28, 2005
By JJ Koczan

The Aquarian.com

It was a rainy evening in Jersey when I rang up Ronnie Vannucci, who, along with Mark Stoermer, Brandon Flowers and David Keuning, has found massive success over the past year and a half under the collective guise of The Killers.

Having a genuine radio smash in “Somebody Told Me” from their Island Records debut, Hot Fuss, the band, who had only formed in 2002, were swept up into becoming a sensation not exactly overnight, but that could hardly be said to have taken any longer than the next afternoon.

Now deer caught in the headlights of rockstardom, Vannucci & Co. are winding down a two year touring cycle in support of Hot Fuss, the synth-pop sexy playfulness of which reminded everyone why they fell under the spell of Duran Duran those many moons ago. When Vannucci and I spoke, the band was on their first extended break in all that time; a solid three weeks.

Tell me about writing a pop song in the 21st century.
For the longest time, you’d always hear hooks on the radio, but they wouldn’t necessarily have songs in them. There’d still be good songs on the radio, but it just seems like people are starting to, over the last few years, really acknowledge a good song rather than just a good hook.

We all kind of grew up in the ’80s, where you had a lot of great music. I hope I’m not pigeonholing myself here, but we heard bands like Blondie or Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, Huey Lewis And The News and all that.

‘The Heart Of Rock & Roll’ is a fucking great song. I think there was a need for that. I know music changes, but I just think we kind of go in and out of needing and wanting a good classic song. I don’t know what goes into it, really, I just think you need to be aware of how a song’s moving, and you take a riff or a line that you make palatable. It’s difficult. How do you write poetry? I don’t know.

Have you found that, since pop music goes in these cycles, audiences can be jaded?
Yeah, sure, especially when you’re dealing with pop music. Popular music. It kind of comes and goes, doesn’t it? I think jaded is kind of a general term, but if we’re talking about how fads and fashion and everything kind of comes and goes, in that way jaded, yeah, people get jaded all the time. People don’t want to look silly if they like Huey Lewis And The News. (laughs)

Certain people just don’t care. There’s so many elements to liking or not liking a rock band. Whether somebody’s got a cute lead singer, or just the general vibe of the band, the concerts they give, or the interviews they give, whatever, there’s so many different things that people cling to. It’s kind of weird, but yeah, people get jaded.

What draws you to a band then? Is it the songwriting?
I think the song is probably the most important element of a band, and it doesn’t necessarily need to be a pop song either. Lots of things attract me to a band. I still like bands who seem like one knit unit.

I went out to see a couple bands the other night, and it seemed like everybody was kind of going off in their own direction. And anybody can do that. The Who did that, but they were still this force, on stage they were just one big block of energy. That’s real attractive.

People pick up on that whether it’s real obvious like The Hives, or not so obvious, like The Who. You had the Ox, you had Moon, you had Townshend and Daltrey, and they just kind of all had their own thing, but they were still a force to be reckoned with.

What do you think you guys project when you’re on stage?
I think we’re probably more like The Who than The Hives. I think everybody is really, really different. I think we were all kind of surprised that it got off the ground the way it did, but so many times you go into a band, you go into a situation, you want to try to control it as much as you can, and I don’t think we did that at all. Nothing about the band is contrived.

You can say, ‘Oh yeah, these fuckers, they wear suits on stage,’ but who knows? That’s only for the time being and it suits the music, and I’d be a liar if I said that fashion didn’t matter with rock and roll, or an aesthetic didn’t matter with rock and roll. With us, I was surprised, because again, we’re so different from one another and our tastes vary, but we really come down to one thing, and that’s the urge to write and craft great songs. Big songs. (laughs)

We all came from other bands that fooled around with different types of music, I know I certainly did, and when it came down to it with rock and roll or pop music, my whole direction was wanting to write a big song, something that could be remembered and important, that could be played in a little club or in a stadium, could be played on the radio and all that.

It certainly worked out.
Yeah, for the time being. (laughs)

How do you feel the fashion aspect of it affects people’s perception of the band?
I wish the media wasn’t involved sometimes, because they take something that just seems so innocent and so simple and blow it up like, ‘Oh my god!! Holy shit, somebody’s wearing a suit jacket!’ They just make it into a much bigger deal than it needs to be. Obviously it would be a little difficult to go up and sing ‘Mr. Brightside’ or ‘Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine’ with jeans and a T- shirt. (laughs) It just wouldn’t really come across.

The music’s theatrical, I think, and if we were up there in everyday clothes, it wouldn’t make a connection. I don’t know, I think fashion’s played up a little bit too much. I think it’s important.

We’re obviously on stage to deliver a show, and I wouldn’t call it costumes, but we’re a fucking rock band. The people who have tried to ignore or discount fashion in rock have kind of gone out to lunch. The dudes in Grandaddy wear trucker caps and fucking beards, and I love that, but it’s still a look. You can call that fashion, can’t you? It wouldn’t work any other way with them, so that’s what they do, and that’s what we do.

The touring cycle’s almost over, right?
Yeah, thank god. (laughs)

It’s been a long one.
Yeah, it really has. It’s been two years nonstop, basically. People say 18 months or 19 months, but we were touring before we had a record out, making $20-$30 a show. (laughs) It’s time to get in and make a new record, if not for everybody else on the planet who likes The Killers, then for us.

Do you have anything planned out yet?
We’ve got tons of songs. Brandon’s got songs, we’ve all got little songs we’re working on and getting to, we’re just actually trying to find a place to rehearse. We did rehearse at my house, but now it’s like a meet and greet everyday at my door (laughs) so we can’t practice here anymore. I have too much shit out in my garage anyway. So we’re trying to find a rehearsal space at the moment so we can get in there.

We’re just getting ready for these shows and enjoying the break. We’ve only been home for 11 days. I guess it’s probably, for the sake of the tour and everything, best not to wind down completely, but just to get a breather.

I think we all want to work up some new songs and maybe some old ones for these shows. We weren’t really expecting to play these big shows like this. We’re a little scared.

It’s weird because you don’t want to do the Third Eye Blind thing and fuckin’ play stadiums one day and then go away. Yeah great, you make some loot, but the money’s way down the line, we just want to be a band able to sustain ourselves for a long time, be an important band.

I know it goes through all our minds that maybe we shouldn’t make ourselves so available. We talk to other people about that and we’re like, ‘Man, what do you think? Should we turn off the gas?’ And you really get mixed reviews. People are like, ‘Tons of people have your album, but nobody’s seen you yet.’ You kind of second guess that, because how do you know when it’s just a blur for the last two years.

You think you’ve played everywhere, but have you? Yeah, you played L.A. several times, but the venue’s only been 3,000 people, 4,000 people. Is it time? Can you do a 10,000 seater? Can you do a 15,000 seater? We go back and forth. Are we ready to? Should we? We’re gonna try and do it as best we can. I feel a little strange about it, but I think we can do it. We all believe in what we’re doing, but it just feels kind of strange. Are we giving it up too early, or are we just gonna start from here and go up?

I’d like to think we could just start from here and go up, and as long as the show doesn’t suffer and everybody’s having a good time, we’re cool. But it’s weird because three years ago, we were playing the transvestite clubs, and now we’re doing these big gigs out in New York.

It's a young band, too.
Yeah, we’ve only been around for three and a half years.

Having things come together like that is uncommon to say the least.
Yeah, it really is. We’re happy. It’s kind of taken us by surprise. We’re trying to deal with it and keep grounded as much as possible. We don’t want to get out of line. Nobody’s developing any type of weird habits yet. We’ll see. (laughs)