The Killers are back… and confusing everyone in the process.
Laying down the path for their forthcoming album
Day & Age, the Las Vegas rock group have returned with lead single 'Human' that not only boasts some puzzling lyrics (“Are we human, or are we dancer?” - Huh? WTF are they talking about?), but also an explicable new sound that takes them down a cheap and flimsy pop/dance route. Be warned, this isn’t the cool rock/dance fusion that appeared effortlessly on their 2004 album
Hot Fuss, but it seems like a much more contrived approach which is completely out of sync with The Killers as a rock band. Whilst the hands-in-the-air single may give them a short-term hit, it will surely throw audiences off the scent of their new album - which apparently was the plan - despite the fact that elsewhere on the album, there are some strong rock efforts on hand.
Teaming up with UK producer Stuart Price (aka Jacque Le Cont, Les Rhythmes Digitale, Thin White Duke, Zoot Woman, and the man who has produced the likes of new order, Seal and Madonna), The Killers decided that innovation was the most important prerequisite for the sound of their new album. But how much did they actually know about Stuart Price – we asked drummer Ronnie Vannucci.
“Nothing – I didn’t really know who he was,” he shrugs, when Groupie catches up with him in London recently. “Actually I was familiar with Zoot Woman and Les Rhythmes Digitales, but I didn’t know that was him. I remember when we recording
Hot Fuss we always liked that song 'Living In A Magazine', but we just had no idea who it was.”
“Stuart is one of the most musical people I’ve met, and I’ve been around a lot of musical people in my life. We’re the same age, and our connection was really immediate – we definitely share a likeness as far as musicality goes.”
So, no glowsticks and hands-in-the-air for Ronnie? “No, I’ve never been a part of that,” he says plainly. “I grew up on Stax record collections, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Booker T & The Green Onions – I went to sleep to that stuff. That was my dance music. For me it was like a challenge. There were a lot of cool challenges with that – how we do make a cool record that’s as dancey as hell, but have a live band play it? We went through several different ways of doing that, and ['Human'] was probably the hardest one to find a balance to.”
If
Hot Fuss was influenced by the synth sounds of the 80’s, and
Sam’s Town was influenced by late-70’s rock, what era is
Day & Age influenced by? “You’re asking me to put a date on it?” Ronnie asks with a laugh.
“In a lot of ways it reminds me of being akin to a couple of different Bowie records,” he says, which probably explains the over-styled art-school-esque photo shoots the band have been doing lately. “Sometimes I’m thinking 'Young American', sometimes I’m thinking
Low, sometimes I’m thinking… different songs, different albums. We wanted to dig deep and experiment with our style and sound for this album, and I think we’ve found growth as a band.”
Day & Age is out November 22.
Sasha Perera from groupie.com.au