New Killers Album: Brandon Flowers Speaks

The Killers’ singer Brandon Flowers has confirmed the band will “definitely” release a new album in 2012.

Interviewed by the U.K.’s BBC Radio 1, Flowers revealed the band had already recorded some songs. “It’s just whether it’s [released in] the summertime or the wintertime,” he said.

One song looking certain to appear on the album is called “Battle Born,” with Flowers describing it as a “killer.”

The Las Vegas band’s last release was their 2008 album Day & Age and they’ve been on hiatus since early 2010. Flowers released a low-key solo album called Flamingo in 2010, but said he’s enjoying being back with the four-piece.

“It’s just exciting getting everyone in the room to make some noise. It’s quite a bit louder than with my solo thing, so I’ve got to get used to that.”

Flowers insists The Killers are not looking to “throw a curveball.”

“I think the consensus within the band is to take those things that we’ve done well and really hone in on that,” he said. “We don’t want to make Hot Fuss 2 or Sam’s Town 2, or Day & Age 2. We’ll maybe take all that stuff, the best of all of it, and do what we know how to do.”

The Killers played the Lollapalooza festival and a show in London’s Hyde Park in June 2011, but this is the first news of new recordings.

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Johnny Marr, Matt Bellamy, Brandon Flowers Pick the Song that Changed Their Lives

To mark this week’s prestigious Ivor Novello Awards for songwriters, held in London on Thursday, the Independent newspaper asked several top songwriters to name the song that changed their lives.

Matt Bellamy of Muse picked Tom Waits’ “Blue Valentines,” saying that the song has “some of the greatest lyrics ever written. “ He explained that the “song says it all about how I feel about the past. Dom [Howard, Muse’s drummer] and I went to see Tom Waits in New York and it was immense. He’s a huge influence on Muse in the way that he uses sounds and textures to create atmospheres – even if you can’t directly hear it in our music.”

Johnny Marr nominated “Metal Guru” by T. Rex as the song that changed his life. “I would have been about 11 when I first heard this,” he said. “T. Rex were the first band I was a fan of and Marc Bolan was my hero at the time. As a song it’s quite nonsensical, but that doesn’t matter; a great record doesn’t necessarily have to be a great song. Once you’ve been affected by any art in such a powerful way, it stays with you.”

Brandon Flowers of The Killers not surprisingly chose a David Bowie track, “Changes.” He said: “I still remember when I heard ‘Changes’ for the first time. I thought it was Bob Dylan because of the way he sings the verses. I found out it was Bowie and it was from this album called Hunky Dory. It’s the most important record to me, ever. I appreciate that he’s still able to write songs, because even when there’s a rough album, there will always be that one song on there that grabs you. But Hunky Dory is the pinnacle – there’s not one song I skip past.”

It’s hard to ignore Lennon and McCartney in any songwriter discussion and Phil Collins recalled the powerful impact that The Beatles’ “She Loves You” had on him as a kid. He said: “The harmonies sounded like nothing that you’d ever heard before, the way it was produced, the way it was performed; it was genuinely a joyous sound. The very last chord they sing in harmony is quite a complicated chord. I think this is probably George Martin, the producer. Those kinds of moments still sound like they were recorded yesterday.”

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