In a recent press release for the Kings Of Leon new album Because Of The Times, drummer Nathan Followill stated, “I think people tend to expect a certain sound from us. But on this record, we tried to throw them for a loop”.
Indeed, it is not business as usual on the Nashville-based quartet’s ambitious, eclectic new album. Where as both the album’s predecessors, 2003’s Youth And Young Manhood and 2005’s Aha Shake Heartbreak served to testify to the band’s raw, gritty and adrenaline charged garage rock, Because Of The Times, sees the band exploring a much darker and expansive direction. Joe Matera caught up with Kings Of Leon lead guitarist, Matthew Followill for this interview for UG to talk about the new album, rock and roll excess and Bob Dylan.
Ultimate-Guitar: This record signals a change in musical direction. It is a lot more expansive in scope and experimental in spirit?
Matthew Followill: Yeah I think it is because we just evolved a little bit. And I think it comes a lot from us playing in a bunch of big arenas where we really liked the way that playing those arenas sounded. Because we toured with U2, Bob Dylan and Pearl Jam, there were a lot of big open rooms with a lot of reverb and we liked the way that it sounded. So we thought that the next record we made needed to sound like we’re playing in a large arena with a huge sound. And that is how it all worked out.
Kings Of Leon opened for U2 during a two month stint, what was that like?
It was amazing. I only knew a couple of U2 songs prior to going on tour with them, so I wasn’t a fan. But by the end of the tour, man, I had become a huge fan. Their live shows were amazing and they’re definitely a really good band to look up to and the sort of band you want to strive to be one day.
Your guitar sounds are very Edge-ish, obviously the U2 influence permeated your approach to the guitar sounds?
Yeah and I wanted to go through a reverb unit for every sound. But at the core of my approach it was really because I wanted to do something different for this album rather than the same old sounds I had. So I went out and shopped for effect pedals and ended up getting pedals that gave me the type of reverb-ey sound I was looking for. But the Edge influence wasn’t a conscious thing. I was only thinking about it after the record was done when I listened back to the record and it just struck me in how my guitar sounded like The Edge.
A lot of the sounds on the album are very keyboard-esque and synthesized?
Yeah that was all due to my effect pedal, an Octave-Reverb-Delay a pedal that takes the sound and puts it up an octave and delays it with reverb.
How did the song writing process differ this time around from the band’s previous efforts? Did you have more time?
I don’t whether we spent more time writing this album to the other two, but we definitely wrote the album differently compared to the others, where usually Caleb would come up with ideas and we would write around stuff that he had. But on this record, all of us came with ideas and stuff that sounded cool. Like if I came up with a guitar part, we’d all write a song around that guitar part. So that was different to how we did it before, though Caleb still writes all the lyrics and we all do the music. When it came to recording, we’d never start a song with say, Nathan playing the drums and we’d try to get a drum track then try and get a guitar track and so on. We would all go in live and then whatever we could get from that performance that was good we’d keep.
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| "I listened back to the record and it just struck me in how my guitar sounded like The Edge." |
You recorded Because Of The Times in Nashville where the sessions were more focused rather than in LA where, it’s been stated in previous interviews, the distractions proved at times to be detrimental to the sessions?
Yeah this time we had the comfort of sleeping in our own beds. And it was cool because you could drive to the studio in your own car and listen to the songs you just did giving you the chance to figure out whether you wanted to add or change anything to the song. It was definitely a big thing to this record of just feeling comfortable and being able to do whatever we wanted to do with the songs.
Co-producer Angelo Patraglia is like a fifth member of the band and has played a very big important part in the band’s success?
Yeah totally man he is awesome. He is one of our best friends. It started out he kind of co-wrote a lot of those songs with Caleb and Nathan on the first record. Then on the next record, he just kind of help arrange the songs and Caleb pretty much wrote the lyrics and we wrote the music so Angelo didn’t really write any songs but he was the producer. And on this record, he kind of did the same thing again. He kind of fell off a little bit more where he was just in the studio producing the record helping us get the songs together and getting them completed and done. He’s great and I don’t know what we would do without him.
What sort of gear are you playing?
The only guitar I use is an Epiphone Sheraton and that I play through a 2 X 12” Ampeg Reverberocket. And I just have way too many pedals, a bunch of reverb pedals, delay pedals, octave pedals and overdrive pedals and they’re all running into this pedal board system and they’re all setup behind me and all turned on at all times and I just hit the pedal that turns on whatever combinations of pedals I want on. Caleb uses a Matchless amp and plays a Gibson 325.
So you only use one guitar, you don’t have a spare in case of string breakages?
I do have another guitar, a Gibson Les Paul Custom but it’s not as good and really I don’t know whether if I did break a string, I would use it for a song or two. The reason I use the Sheraton so much is because it is a hollow body guitar and I get a lot of great feedback from it. Because a lot of our songs now use feedback, I can’t get the feedback that I like from the Sheraton with the other guitar or any other guitar. The Sheraton doesn’t give you that shrill feedback, it kind of gives you that nice humming feedback.
Kings Of Leon have been noted for living the excesses of rock and roll so was that largely due to your religious background being so restrictive that rock and roll allowed you to in some ways, catch up on those lost years of youth?
I don’t know, man. I think we caught up for all those lost years in our first couple years of the band. When we started out we had been so sheltered and stuff that we kind of went crazy for the first couple of years and we kind of ripped our way through with a kind of rebellion so we could get that all out of our system. Now we’re kind of pretty chilled, we don’t really do anything but drink. I’m sure why went crazy was because we were so sheltered. But we’re way more, low key these days. And I don’t want to sound like we’re now pussies or anything, as we still like party and stuff, but it just not as bad as it used to be or as good as it used to be.
So have any of the band members got girlfriends now?
Jared the bass player has got a girlfriend and so has Nathan but the rest of us are still single.
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| "We're way more, low key these days." |
How important is your religious faith today?
It’s still important but it’s not as extreme as it was at one point like going to church all the time and stuff. But you know, I still believe and I keep what I believe in the back of my mind. I know what’s right and wrong.
Each time the band tours the UK scenes of hysteria amongst fans ensure?
I don’t know why. We just went over to the UK having never been there so didn’t know what to expect. We were selling out our EP and some radio stations and magazines were talking about us. So we went there and it was crazy and at our shows people were freaking out. We had never seen anything like that before. We were used to playing bars to about 20 people back home but over in the UK it was different. Here in the US we’re definitely getting bigger now, and our shows are seeing a growing audience. In the UK we can play to something like 6,000 people per night. And we’d definitely like to be that same way here in America as it would be great. Maybe with this record it will happen.
What is it like being out on the road with family members in the same band?
It’s kind of weird. Sometimes it’s great because you can talk to your family about stuff and have someone to hang with at three in the morning when you can’t sleep because your brother or cousin is also still awake. But then, there is the other side to that too. Like when you’re with your brother or cousin you tend to say whatever you want so there is no common courtesy like you have when you’re with someone other than you’re family member. You don’t hold back saying stuff like “your hair looks stupid, go fix your hair” where it can piss off the other and it can be tough at times. But for the most part, it is pretty cool.
What was it like touring with Bob Dylan?
It was great and an honour. We were pumped each night going out with Bob and did our best to put on a good show. We’d walk out there and you hear these golf claps, you know, barely audible as they didn’t know who we were but we came out and played our stuff. By the end of the tour, the claps were getting louder and more frequent as they became familiar with us.
Did you get to hang out with Bob much?
We had only spoken to him once during the whole tour and that was when he told us that he really liked our last song that we played called Trani. That was the only time we had talked to him. But then at the end of the tour he invited us backstage to say bye and stuff. So here were shaking hands and doing the hug thing and when it came to my turn to shake his hand and hug him I knocked his hat off! I mean here is a real old fragile man surrounded by all these security guards and I knock his hat off. I felt very awkward so I just put it back on and said bye.
2007 © Joe Matera
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