Kings of the road

Kings of Leon's third album is another strange, kaleidoscopic truckstop along the way to immortality. Matthew Followill talks Mick Jagger, beards and the road less travelled with Kevin Courtney

It's like something out of an old sitcom - the Beverly Followill-billies, perhaps. Four country boys from the sticks gain entry into the gilded palace of rock'n'roll stardom, where the rock intelligentsia are queuing up to see them play, and mighty fine-looking ladies are queuing up to show 'em a real good time. It's all too good to be true - something's got to sabotage it. But who'd have thought it would be the Followills themselves who would try to throw away every chance of becoming household names?

The Followills have always resisted taking the path of least resistance. In their adopted hometown of Nashville and in the US at large, they're still an obscurity, and few in the wider world are quite sure what to make of their rip-roaring, country/indie/punk sound.

Their debut album, Youth and Young Manhood, says Matthew, "we liked for about 10 minutes, even when the cool reviews started coming out. It was great that people liked the album, but we didn't like that southern thing that everybody latched onto. So we tried to change that for the second album."

Aha Shake Heartbreak was the sound of a band eager not to rest on their laurels, but to push beyond the boundaries of their southern roots and make music that showed a more worldly wisdom. They liked that one, says Matthew, for "about 30 minutes".

For their third album, Because of the Times, the boys decided they weren't going to take the well-trodden trail, but struck out for the swamplands to create a dense, uneasy record that will have listeners scratching their scraggly beards in bemusement.

They're shooting straight from the hip with such songs as Charmer, McFearless, Black Thumbnail and The Runner, and bypass the usual verse-chorus-middle-eight route on such beaten tracks as Knocked Up, On Call and My Party.

It's not the most immediately accessible album on the rock CD racks, but give it more than one listen and you'll quickly see the light - the Followills have their eye on the long road, and Because of the Times is just another strange, kaleidoscopic truckstop along the way to immortality.

For the Followills, the road stretches out through 2007 and well into 2008, as they gear up for the extended tour schedule built around the new album's release. Having criss-crossed the Deep South in the back of their preacher dad's truck, the prospect of months in the tour van holds no fear for the Followills.

"We've been making the new record for almost a year now, so we're good and ready to go out on the road. I'm looking forward to it," says Matthew.

When Matthew joined his three cousins in Kings of Leon, he was just 17; now, at 23, he has clocked up more miles than a globetrotting veteran, as his band have played support slots to the likes of Bob Dylan, Pearl Jam, The Strokes and U2.

"When I joined the band I didn't even know how to play - the other guys called me and said 'do you want to play?'," says Matthew. "Caleb and Nathan were playing country music at the time - they wanted to make some money, and knew it would be easy to write a few country songs and get gigs on the local circuit. But then Jared and me came along and showed them some rock stuff, Velvet Underground, The Clash. Even the Rolling Stones came into it, and soon we were listening to nothing but rock'n'roll non-stop. They felt like real bad boys doing that, 'cos growing up they weren't allowed to listen to rock'n'roll."

Since Mick Jagger came to one of their gigs, there's been a steady stream of rock'n'roll legends turning up to check out this band of brothers with a neat line in southern fried punk.

But the Kings have an on-the-road rule: nobody is allowed to tell them who's in the crowd before they go onstage - it'll only make them more nervous. "One time, Jimmy Page asked if he could come onstage and play a solo. But I was just way too nervous, so I told them to say anything to him, but don't let him come up. I just couldn't get my head around it - Jimmy Page wanted to come up on stage and trade licks. Now, I'm sorry I didn't let him."

Nowadays, the foursome are based in Nashville, but don't expect to find them hanging out with the elder lemons of country music. Even when their music had a pronounced southern twang, it was far too out-there for your typical Charlie Daniels Band fan; the new album puts them way outside the pale, and even rock fans may find it hard to wrestle with the heavy monster sounds emanating from its grooves.

Collaborator Angelo Petraglia (see panel) has largely taken a back seat for this outing, leaving the boys free to explore. The music, says Matthew, is fuelled by Joy Division and Interpol, but also by the Cure and U2. While the reviews have been largely positive, the feeling is that, while the band's fans will follow them down this darker path, not many more will attempt the perilous journey.

"I try not to read into reviews too much," muses Matthew, "and I never worry about losing fans. If we lose 1,000 fans cos they don't like the album, we'll gain 5,000 more who will like it. I have huge respect for bands like Arcade Fire and The Killers who take a risk. I really loved The Killers' first album, and while I'm not as big a fan of their second one, I wouldn't have wanted them to just repeat the same formula."

Oddly enough, as the band's music matures, the guys in the band are looking younger than ever - they've either made a pact with the devil (very plausible, given their almost eerie onstage chemistry) or (more likely) they've shaved off the beards to reveal the fresh, youthful faces beneath the bumfluff. "We were just starting to feel a bit too scruffy, so we lost the beard," explains Matthew. "We got tired of watching Jared looking clean-shaven and getting all the girls."

Power behind the throne

When the band signed to RCA, they acquired two mentors - producer Ethan Johns and songwriter/producer Angelo Petraglia - who introduced them to a smorgasbord of classic rock and showed them a few sonic tricks. Petraglia also co-wrote the band's songs, leading to accusations that Kings of Leon were a manufactured band. For the Followills, this was like calling Brian Wilson a fake because he used a lyricist. "He was like the fifth member of the band," says Matthew.

"He'd put a record on and say 'listen to this guitar sound', and he'd introduce us to stuff we hadn't heard. We trusted his opinion. But It's not like Angelo would come to our house and tell us what to play. We would come in with half of our song done and he'd maybe suggest to put a bridge there, or say, 'try this'. It wasn't like he was writing our songs for us."