Brandon Flowers is a little bit rock’n’roll and a little bit country.
The Killers frontman has announced THRASHER (out August 21), a new solo album that will see him set aside the synthesizers for some twang.
For this “country/western” album, as he calls it, Flowers travelled to Nashville to record at the historic RCA Studio A with producers Shawn Everett (Kacey Musgraves) and Jonathan Rado (The Killers, Miley Cyrus), as well as legendary Nashville studio vets like guitarist David Rawlings, pedal steel player Bruce Bouton, and harmonica player Charlie McCoy, best known for his work with Bob Dylan.
In a trailer for the album, Flowers explained this genre pivot, saying, “Two things can be true at one time. The fact that I love new wave and rock and roll has been well-documented,” he says. “But a life is long enough to allow for more. Walt Whitman said it best, ‘I am large, I contain multitudes.’ Well, I’m larger now than I was 20 years ago, and I’ve unlocked a room that feels like it’s been waiting for me all along: country western music, my father’s music. It has offered itself to me and the stories I have to tell at the moment with a breezy enthusiasm.”
“This is not me running away from rock and roll,” he added. “I don’t want to replace my old songs. I simply found room for more.”
The first single, “Plans,” will drop this Friday.
Watch the trailer below.