NYLON - January 2009 - (Page 126) THE KILLERS’ NEW ALBUM, DAY & AGE, HAS HOT FUSS’ NEW-WAVE SYNTHS, SAM’S TOWN ’S SLAPPING BASS, AND TYPICALLY MYSTIFYING LYRICS. AND YES, YOU DANCE TO IT. BY SAMANTHA GILEWICZ Ronnie Vannucci has a theory. The Killers’ bristly drummer is sitting on a couch, surreptitiously eyeing the European tourists who are flitting in and out of the glasswalled library of the Hotel on Rivington, in New York’s Lower East Side. With one hand buried in a bag of gummy bears, he motions with the other for me to lean in closer, and whispers, “I’ve been doing a lot of UFO research lately.” It seems Vannucci is quite certain that “Spaceman,” a psychedelic track with staticky synths and spine-chilling hand claps on the Las Vegas outfit’s new album, Day & Age, is actually about aliens. “It all started at Blockbuster,” he continues, “The Phoenix Lights Documentary. I got into this stuff for fun—I don’t have a telescope or a light saber collection or anything—but a lot of people are saying aliens aren’t from outer space, and that they live under the sea. Sooo….” Vannucci recites the song’s lyrics, “Spaceman says everybody look down,” with the gravitas of someone who’s just decrypted one of life’s more elusive mysteries. Singer-songwriter Brandon Flowers, chin just shy of a five o’clock shadow, has heard this before. “Ronnie is obsessed with sci-fi, conspiracy, E.T., Bob Lazar stuff at the moment. I’m happy he has internalized ‘Spaceman’ and I could never take his vision away from him,” he says. “I feel like Day & Age is extremely personal. But maybe that makes it more…universal.” But Vannucci doesn’t have answers for all of the quixotic lyrics on the Killers’ stunning third album proper. Take the first single, “Human.” Vannucci recites again, tongue firmly in cheek: “Are we human or are we dancer?” He pauses. “What the fuck does that mean?” “[Those lyrics] came from a Hunter S. photographed by angela boatwright Thompson quote,” Flowers explains. “He was being interviewed and expressed concern that America was raising a generation of dancers. I took it and ran.” The Killers could be accused of the same sin. Born of the smut of the Strip, Flowers, Vannucci, guitarist Dave Keuning, and bassist Mark Stoermer fashioned a sound more indebted to Britain in the ’80s—stylized post-punk with a lick of androgyny and a lashing of retro; they made you, as the saying goes, want to dance like no one was watching. “It all happened so quickly—2002 to 2005 was a whirlwind,” says Stoermer. “We went from performing in front of four people to playing big festivals. I didn’t expect this kind of success, but when we started I knew something could happen, or should happen—whatever that means.” The band’s debut, 2004’s Grammynominated Hot Fuss, whet the popular appetite with sing-along smashes (“Mr. Brightside”), as well as that of the indiedisco set, who applauded the nod to new wave (“Jenny was a Friend of Mine”). But rather than court the intercontinental limelight, the band scrubbed off the glitter for the gritty Americana of 2006’s Sam’s Town. With the sequined jumpsuit he sported on stage at Glastonbury in 2007 swapped for a waistcoat and inky denim— and his band sporting beards—Flowers became a raconteur of highway heartaches (“Bones”), name-checking Jesus (“When You Were Young”) and the devil (“Bling (Confession of a King)”) in a dusty vibrato. “Sometimes bands get stuck 126 radar death by audio
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.