The Killers are without a doubt one of the hottest bands in the world right now. I begged for over a year for an interview. I all but finally had to ambush Brandon Flowers down at Studio 58 where they were rehearsing for their new album, to nail down a confirmed interview time. Brandon apologized for the confusion and gave me his phone number to remind him of our planned interview the following Monday.

Having Brandon's phone number was indeed a score, according to my 13year old daughter. She warned of an impnding divorce and threatened to become an emancipated minor if I did not take her out of school to tag along for the coveted interview with the heart throb of Las Vegas himself, Mr. Flowers.

When I originally saw the Killers back in October I saw and amazing perofrmance with a confident, powerful frontman. Imagine my surprise when I showed up at 1:30 on a Monday to find a very humble, soft spoken, sweet shy young man who stood the entire time far awayy from my intimidating tape recorder, behind a microphone stand with no micropphone as I probed for answers to my many questions about the Killers' meteoric rise to fame.


VR: Are all of you from Las Vegas?

Flowers: Three of us are from Las Vegas.


VR: Are you?

Flowers: Yep. I'm from Henderson. I still live in henderson. I love Henderson.


VR: Cool. So that must have been quite a trip when you guys played in the Hard Rock parking lot for your homecoming recently for hundreds and hundreds of people...

Flowers: Thousands. (Laughs)


VR: Yes, thousands. Were you nervous out there in front of all of your friends?

Flowers: Uh, well I think we were more nervous when we used to play at bars around town. When you're first starting out, it seems like the spotlight is on you more than it'll ever be again and crowds are hard. And we were really different when we first started. We just wanted to play gigs and me and Dave had songs and it was really frustrating. We had 20 songs and you just want to play. We had the fire. It wasn't just a spark, it was a fire. So we just took a drummer that could keep a beat and so that was good enough for us to go play. I knew that it was a stepping stone. You just dont sign a record deal and all of a sudden you're this thing. I understood that we weren't ready. We thought the songs were great, but I'd never even played a gig before. So you gotta do that (laughs)


VR: So it was hard to put an original band together, or did you play covers?

Flowers: No, it was all our own songs. It got to the point that we had so many and it was time to play that we just got whoever we could. We auditioned and we met people and nobody was into what we were playing. At the time, imagine five years ago if you said you were playing music and you were into David Bowie, Duran Duran and Oasis. There was nobody. They thought we were crazy.


VR: Did you always want to be a rockstar growing up?

Flowers: Not to be a rock star, for us it's about being able to say that the way music had impacted us and is what we would've liked. We really appreciate the we are in a position now but in the beginning it was to get to that position to make a dent.


VR: But you wanted to be able to make a living with music?

Flowers: Absolutely.


VR: My impression when I saw you in concert was I really liked the Frank Sinatra into. You had c;ass with a scarf and shiny patent leather black shoes. Are you italian? Is that where the Sinatra influence comes from?

Flowers: I'm not Italian. Ronnie, our drummer, is. Ronnie Vannucci. No, I've always... It's a Vegas thing. I love it. I don't just live here. You go to any of your hip coffee shops or bars and you're gonna hear kidsw bitching about living in Vegas, and how there's no culture, and I realized I was different right away. I love it. I lived in Utah for awhile and that's probably where the Sinatra thing kicked in as I used to listen to him a lot, and it reminded me of where I grew up. It made me want to come back.


VR: I also commented in that article that you probably grew up in a well-to-do family and your parents made you practice piano while all the other kids played outside.

Flowers: (Laughs) Well, partially true. When I first started taking piano lessons, my mom definitely pushed me towards that. But I'm actually from a very POOR family. I had four sisters and one brother.


VR: How did you start playing piano?

Flowers: It was just an accident, really. I mean, I'm the baby, and everyone else was grown up and out of the house basically when I was growing up.. I won't tell the entire story.


VR: Go ahead, I'll edit.

Flowers: We had a piano that my great grandma gave us, and my mother watches soap operas, and I was tinkering around one day and learned the music to the soap that she watched every day.


VR: Which one?

Flowers: The Young and the Restless. It's really easy. (he starts singing it)


VR: Hey, my son's a genius!

Flowers: Yeah, that's what she thought, so I started taking piano lessons.


VR: How old were you?

Flowers: Six or seven. I took lessons til I was about twelve and then it became very un-cool when I was thirteen to just play the piano. But I loved learning Elton John songs and seventies songs.


VR: How did you guys get signed?

Flowers: There's a website called lvlocalmusicscene.com here. I think it's still around. They let you put a short bio about yourself and your demo and a picture for $50 or something. We put "Mr. Brightside" "Under the Gun" and another song on there. A man from Warner Brothers saw it and he told us he liked our name and "Mr. Brightside". He then came to Vegas and it took off from there.


VR: So he came here and put a contract in your face and that was it?

Flowers: He came here, it was funny because we had this gig set up at Cafe Roma and we drew seventy people - it was a good night but he couldnt make it, so we played our huge breakthrough gig, and then the next day for him and nobody came. It was my mom and a couple friends. About six people. He took us to the label and they kept asking to hear more. Record labels are really afraid to pull the trigger. So Warner Brothers turned us down. They said I didnt ahve enough sex appeal.


VR: They said that? Are you serious? Amazing! That's almost as bad as when Twentieth Century Fox fired Marilyn Monroe for that reason!

Flowers: Yeah. We didn't know what to do. They offered us a development deal and we said no. We knew there were more record labels, so we ended up with an indie label in England. You can get radio airplay on an indie label over there. We Went there and played for a week and got a really good write-up in "New Music Express." Once you get in NME and they say tha they like it, it's like gold. Then every label in America wanted us, so we signed with Island.


VR: Did you guys ever think you would make it this big? Does it blow your mind when all these people are out there screaming your name?

Flowers: Yeah, it does. We are the happiest people in the world and we don't take it for granted. I dont know if we knew that we would make it this big. It's hard to say. We knew our attitude was different.


VR: Speaking of this "No Sex Appeal" of yours, are you uncomfortable being a teen heart throb of teen idol?

Flowers: I don't know. I would like to be an idol to everyone. Not just teens.


VR: You don't mind if girls or other people have you all over their walls?

Flowers: No, because I had people all over MY walls. I just took my posters down. It was a sad day. I just bought a house and I had to take down my Depeche Mode and Morrissey posters. I felt strange doing that.


VR: Well, you just got married and I understand that it was in Hawaii, wasn't it?

Flowers: Yes.


VR: Did your lawyers make you sign a pre-nup?

Flowers: (laughs) No, I didn't do it. I knew this one before we even played a gig, so she's been around. We just made our first demp when I met her. She's not in it for the money.


VR: Love at first sight?

Flowers: Yeah.


VR: How sweet. Speaking of love and money, I saw Paris Hilton at your show. I hear she's a real man-eater. Did she ever try to put the moves on you?

Flowers: (laughs) She's got a crush on Dave, I think.


VR: I thought for sure she would've gone after you.

Flowers: I think she stopped after I got married.


VR: So she didn't try?

Flowers: (laughs) We won't go there.


VR: The song that really did it for me was "All these things that I've done." Whose idea was that with the cowboy thing in that video? That was cool.

Flowers: The director, Anton Corbin. He's done some of our favorite videos for Depeche Mode, U2 and Nirvana. He's got great style..


VR: How much artistic control did you have for that song?

Flowers: We write everything. That's another wonderful thing that, because we had so many labels after us in America, after our little fling in England. You have so much more power when they're all after you. You can get more money and more creative control.


VR: I'm so proud of you because that song, to me, really set you apart and nobody else sounds like that.

Flowers: That song in particular almost didnt make it onto the album. We had all the songs recorded and had some time off and we were going to record a couple more. We wrote "Change Your Mind" in the studio but "All these things that I've done" just wasn't there yet. So it almost didn't make it.


VR: How is the new record different from the last? Is it more of the same or completely different?

Flowers: No, it's similar. We get a lot of comparisons to English music, which is good. We love English music. English rock has killed American rock but now I've become a fan of American music. I've started listening to Tom Petty and others and I think it's kind of making our way into some of the new songs. A lot of people would've just spit one out right way and tried to ride on it, but I think we're the working men of music right now.


VR: Is this new record going to make you all Millionaires? (Note: I know one of their attorneys, and he estimates the band to be worth $140 million already, so this question makes no sense)

Flowers: (laughs and pauses) I don't know. Yes! we feel it's going to shut the mouths and open the ears of all and be our imperial album.


VR: That's what I want to hear!

Brandon is so adorable. I wish the Killers the best with all of their future endeavors. Vegas Rocks will be watching and waiting with the rest of the world.

Conquer on, Killers!

-Sally Steele, Vegas Rocks Magazine (feb '06)

thanks one30six at TKN