Brandon Flowers Teams With Jenny Lewis on Solo Disc 'Flamingo'

Brandon Flowers has admitted he didn't plan to release his next batch of songs on a solo record, but when the rest of the Killers decided to go on "indefinite hiatus" following the long tour in support of Day & Age, the singer decided he wasn't ready to take a vacation from music just yet.

"To be honest, I personally would prefer it if this was a Killers record. Some of these songs were originally destined to be Killers songs, but it is what it is," Flowers told the NME about tracks including "Hard Enough" and "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas." "I certainly never sat around dreaming of going out on my own, but singing songs and writing songs, it's kind of what I do, you know? And I just don't want to stop right now."

Instead of stopping, Flowers teamed up with three of the biggest producers in music for Flamingo, due this fall: Brendon O'Brien, Daniel Lanois and Stuart Price, who also produced the Killers' Day & Age. The album will also feature a duet with Jenny Lewis — who like the Killers' Ronnie Vannucci was born in Las Vegas — on "Hard Enough."

Flowers also put to rest any rumors that his first solo album would be the beginning of the end of the Killers, telling NME, "I see this as something that will only make the Killers stronger... I feel like I'm getting something out of my system with this album, but I want the next Killers album to be a wonderful collaboration between four guys who are ready to make the best record that they possibly can."

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter