Last night, Caleb and Jared Followill of Kings of Leon joined The Evening Show with Dan O’Connell on Radio X.
Speaking to Dan O’Connell at length on Radio X, the Followill brothers discussed Kings of Leon’s legacy, and detailed the ‘lofty goals’ they still have on their band bucket list to tick off in the future. Caleb Followill also revealed that, despite it reaching over a billion streams, their 2008 mega hit ‘Sex On Fire’ feels ‘small’ compared to the new, exciting material the band have recorded for their new album, Can We Please Have Fun.
Key
Caleb Followill – CF
Jared Followill - JF
Dan O’Connell – DOC
Despite reaching a billion streams, Kings of Leon say that ‘Sex On Fire’ feels ‘small’ compared to new material
DOC: “Have you had a chance to road test some of these new songs?”
CF: “Just one, just ‘Mustang.’ But at our studio at home, we've been slowly working them up. And it’s different, it’s definitely different. They feel special. The one song that we played in the live show, we didn't know where to put it because it was, first of all, it was in Mexico. And we’re like, no one really knows the song.”
JF: “Festival.”
CF: “Yeah, it had just come out. So it's like, we didn't want to do the thing that we did at Glastonbury and open the set with a song that no one had ever heard. But anyways, we put it at the end of the set before ‘Sex On Fire.’ And we played it, and we broke into ‘Sex On Fire,’ and ‘Sex On Fire’ felt small. It felt like a tiny song next to ‘Mustang.’ And I think that’s there’s excitement from us, but also every new song that we’ve played, it feels like ‘oh yeah, not only does it belong, it’s kind of starting to kick some stuff off the list.’
DOC: “And that sends me nicely into this, because I was going through some of the stats of some of the oldest songs in terms of your back catalogue. I know lots of people, and yourselves, talk about ‘Sex On Fire’ going across a billion streams, which is more than that if you add it all up. It’s crazy, because if you add it all up, ‘Use Somebody’ is well over that as well, which is crazy, you know? Did you ever think that would happen with ‘Sex On Fire’ as an example? Could you imagine that?”
CF: “No.”
JF: “No, no. And ‘Sex On Fire’ is a weird one. It was almost grown in like a cult fashion since it came out. It was pretty big, and then ‘Use Somebody’ was even bigger. And then now I feel like ‘Sex On Fire’ is the biggest one. So yeah, we didn’t expect that. We are still blown away.”
CF: “Yeah, it’s one of those songs that we used to kind of… You don’t dread playing it, but it was like one of those things where you would just see how much bigger of a response it got than everything else and it made you feel bad about the rest of the songs.”
DOC: “Haha! You feel sorry for the other children.”
CF: “But then you get to a point of pride, where you’re just like, ‘man, we did this, we wrote this song, let’s go out there and enjoy it.’ And we always know that we have it in our pocket. And between that and ‘Use Somebody,’ I really feel like there aren’t many places in the world that we couldn’t break into those songs and people wouldn’t be like, ‘oh, I know this.’”
DOC: ‘Was it something different that you did that day? Were you in a different place mentally, emotionally, spiritually? Were you in a different setting physically?”
CF: “No. I feel like there was such a – from the word go on that album, very much similar to this album – there was just an energy. Like, obviously we had never seen that kind of success, so we weren’t expecting it. But there was something different. Like, when. We were working the songs up – I remember the first time we played ‘Use Somebody’ in our rehearsal space. And a guy, a colleague of ours that works with us, he stopped everything and was just like staring and kind of teary-eyed a little bit. And afterwards he was like, ‘what was that?’ I was like, ‘ah, you know, it’s just something new we’re messing around with.’ And then obviously later on I realised like, the impact of the song and then it’s like, ‘oh yeah, that much have been a pretty weird moment for him,’ because he had seen us from the very beginning. And it was the first time that he was like, ‘okay, this thing might take off.’”
Kings of Leon want to go for ‘another 25 years’ and still have ‘lofty goals’ in cementing their legacy as they share their bucket list
DOC: “Is there anything left on a bucket list that Kings of Leon still want to do, or places you want to go, things you want to do? Stadiums you want to fill? Do you have things like that left to do? Or have you kind of ticked off all the boxes by now?”
JF: “There’s always new boxes. I mean, I think that we probably all have lofty goals. But I mean, without ignoring the fact that we have hit a lot of, you know, really awesome milestones. But yeah, I think that respect is a big one, and just kind of creating a legacy and going down as a band that was important and meant something and did, you know, good things.”
CF: “Took advantage of their opportunity and, you know, made the most of it.”
DOC: “Do you think you’ll still be doing this in another 25 years?”
JF: “I hope so, because I’ve got all my money tied up, and most of it Bitcoin.”
DOC: “Haha, you’re doing well right now then? It’s good times right now. But you know, are you going to be a [Rolling] Stones? So, are you going to be at that level? A U2?”
JF: “That’s the dream.”
CF: “I mean, I feel like you have to be at a certain level for that to make sense. To be playing shows at their age in a small venue doesn’t make as much sense. If you're at the level where you know, you're playing those big places, and people are coming out, you know, just to celebrate your catalogue, I don’t know. I mean, I feel like we talk about it a lot. Like, what, you know, is the last bit of it? And every time we think it’s getting close, when it gets here, we’re like, ‘oh yeah, not yet. Let’s keep going.”
Radio X DJ Dan O’Connell tells Kings of Leon how they ‘changed his life’ by recommending the bar where he took his now wife on their first date
DOC: “Okay, so how did Kings of Leon, specifically these two, Caleb and Jared, change my life? Well, we’d done an interview and we talked about the best bars in the UK. And you talked about little spots in Glasgow and Manchester that you liked. And then you said, ‘I really like this bar, it’s actually at our hotel.’ So, let me put the mics down, I'll say where it is just in case you're saying that, because I don't want to, you know, cause a problem. And you said to me, you said, ‘it's a great bar, you can go on dates there. Take someone there.’”
JF: “It is an incredible bar.”
CF: “I mean, I wouldn’t go on a first date unless you’re loaded. It’s about $50 a drink!”
DOC: “But yeah, this is how you change the course of my life. So the next person I took on a date, I took them there. Listen, 50 per cent off for me, I don't drink, so it's fine. Anyway, I got married to that person. So that is how you change the course of my life. Thank you very much.”
CF: “Wow!”
JF: “I mean it’s a very classy place, I can see why she’s like, ‘oh yeah, I’ve got to lock this one up.’”
CF: “What did you do for your second date?”
JF: “Nandos?”
DOC: “Kind of, actually, yeah. And she hated it. Nando’s might have been third, actually. We never been back. I got to go Nando's by myself now!”
