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 kings of leon interview
 to access audio and video on collective you need real player.The Deep South’s royalty can’t wait for you to hear their second album. “I wore these pants everyday that we recorded,” says Caleb Followill, gesturing at his tight, flared jeans. “I’ve washed them though,” he adds, in his distinctive drawl. The Kings Of Leon, three brothers and a cousin from America’s Deep South, have just put the finishing touches to their second album, Aha Shake Heartbreak, recorded very simply in California.“It was all live. There was no vocal booth. There was a microphone in the middle of the room and all of us standing around playing and singing,” explains Caleb, the recently clean shaven frontman. “So it’s very much like our live show when we’re playing real good.” The record is a progression from their explosive debut, Youth And Young Manhood, while still being very much Kings Of Leon. Once again, each track is short and punchy with the 12 songs coming in at a neatly packaged 35 minutes. But there is an air of maturity about this collection, the sound of four young men oozing confidence about what they do. “We’ve had a lot more time on the road playing and we’ve kind of grown up between these two albums,” reckons Caleb. “Not in a bad way, not getting old. There’s a lot of growth in this album.” “We thought about it a lot more than we did the first one,” explains Jared, his kid brother, the bass player and the youngest member of the band. “With the first one it was very spur of the moment. We had songs and we went into the studio and put it together. We thought about it a lot more this time, so it came out better.” “It has more character,” agrees Caleb. “There are flaws on this record that we couldn’t fix because of the way we recorded it. They stay there or you record it all over again, so we were like, ‘Well, f**k it.’ And now those flaws are beautiful to us, there’s a lot of character to it. I hope the way we talk about it doesn’t come across as cocky – we’re just really excited.”  So how is fame treating them? “It’s not too bad. I shaved my face and now nobody knows who the f**k I am,” says Caleb. And what do they miss from their old life? “We miss home, but there isn’t really a home,” ponders Jared. “You miss something, but you don’t know what it is. When you get home, you miss being on the road.” “I miss cigarettes,” says Caleb wistfully. “I quit smoking cigarettes for the album. I feel good, but I would like a cigarette. We wrote this one song and it’s pretty high, but I really just loved the song. And one day I had a little trouble singing it. I’ve smoked forever and I’ve never really had trouble singing. But I decided I liked the song better than I liked cigarettes, so I quit.” The Kings Of Leon are clearly passionate about what they do and excited about their latest work. “I can’t wait for people to hear the record,” says Caleb. “We know the record we made and we know how proud we are, we just want to tell the f**king world. We’ve got a secret.” And it won’t be a secret much longer.
Matt Walton
Kings Of Leon – Aha Shake Heartbreak, released 01 November 04 on RCA/BMG.
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