Kings of Leon may be comprised of four young guys you´ve never heard of, but the boys aren´t any kind of newbies when it comes to the music business. Despite having only reached superstar fame this past year in the USA after their release of the album Only By Night, Kings of Leon have been eating at the big kid´s table for a while now, it just took awhile for the US to sit up and take notice.

 

The group, comprised of three Southern brothers and their cousin, have all been playing music since they were kids, though Kings of Leon´s origins are a little bit surprising to anyone who only knows their drug and alcohol marred past and reputation for fist fights as an early band. Their father, Leon who the band is named for, was a minister who caravanned the kids around with him as he preached all over the South, enlisting their musical talents to aid in delivering the gospel. ¨We weren´t allowed to watch TV and couldn´t listen to Rock ´n Roll,¨ Lead guitarist Matthew Followhill describes their strict religious upbringing, ¨I didn´t know who Bono was until I was 18.¨

 

 

Their religious beliefs aren´t something the boys have said goodbye to, even during their worst periods of drug and alcohol abuse. Frontman Caleb Followhill even describes getting strung out on cocaine, followed by heated arguments about the existence of God, quoting scripture the entire time. The Kings, who have more or less turned down the volume on the hardcore drug abuse, apologizing for their bad habits, attribute their crazy days to a combination of being both so young, and so new on the scene. All too easy to understand when you consider the rapid rise they experienced during their early album releases.

 

Kings of Leon´s first two albums garnered the group more than just moderate fame, particularly in the UK.  2003´s Youth and Young Manhood, the title taken right from the father´s bible, earned the family rockers the euro press´s dubbing as the ¨driving forces behind the new rock revolution,¨ and got them started touring with big bands like The Strokes and U2 (I´m assuming that´s when they figured out who Bono was). In 2005, the release of their album Aha Shake Heartbreak only increased their European fame, and they spent the years after that playing with the likes of Pearl Jam and Bob Dylan.

 

 

Caleb describes the whirlwind of being thrown in with such major groups, at the beginning of their career, as being ¨thrown to the wolves.¨ Recognizing early criticism the band received for not owning their own potential, particularly with their third album release in 2007, Because of the times, Caleb admits in more than one interview that the band wasn´t always very confident in their abilities. ¨All these bands we were touring with, some of them were 30 years old, and here´s my little brother Jared, aged 15, on the bass. And so, night by night, we would do something a little closer to being, you know, a confident band.¨

 

Because of the times is considered their most pivotal album, the first where Kings of Leon really played around with their own sound, and received mixed reviews for doing so. Entertainment Weekly called it their ¨crowning achievement,¨ while other critics, such as Dave Hood of Artrocker responded with comments like "Kings of Leon are experimenting, learning, and getting a bit lost." Still, the group had certainly come a long way from their first UK show at a strip club, selling out venues like New York City´s Radio City Hall and London´s 02 Arena (which seats 20,000) in a matter of hours. Whether people liked Because of the times or not, nothing could prepare for the success that would follow with their 2008 release.

 

 

¨After three records and touring for 5 years straight, we knew what we were capable of,¨ drummer Nathan Followhill says on the band´s site, describing the 2008 release of their monumental achievement Only By Night, ¨We just had to put our money where our mouths were.¨

 

With Only by Night, Kings of Leon reached international success incomparable to the loads of fame they had already achieved in the UK and the rest of the world, finally breaking into the US audience base, and reaching #5 on the US charts. The album entered the UK charts at #1, maintaining the spot for 4 weeks, going on to become the 3^rd highest selling album of 2008 in the UK, beating out Brit´s own Coldplay. In 2009, the Kings of Leon and the album Only by Night went on to win Best International Band and Album at the Brit Awards.

 

Caleb describes the album as, the Kings of Leon being, ¨back not only as a band, but as a friends.¨ He goes on to say the title, which references Edgar Allen Poe, was meant to describe the ¨family vibe¨ of ¨every night after recording going to a bar together and talking about what we were going to do the next day, rather than all of us going to our separate homes.¨

 

 

Here on Red Karaoke we have finally debuted two of these bands singles from Only by night. Sex on fire, the song that turned the band into superstars, was a bit of a surprise hit for the group, in the end winning them a Grammy. Caleb suggests just how ready people were for some less serious music, ¨People were tired of hearing about war and politics, and Sex on Fire is a song about sex and young kids.¨

 

The second Red Karaoke debut is Use Somebody, a song Caleb wrote while on the road about being far from home. Kings of Leon performed Use Somebody deliciously well at the MTV Movie Awards, conquering even the Twlight and Highschool Musical fanbase, and the single has reached #19 on the Top Modern Rock Charts.

 

Check out the new Kings of Leon songs on Red Karaoke and see if you can own this bands sexy sound.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 at 0:05 and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.