The Killers frontman Brandon Flowers has announced a new solo album, THRASHER, with an unexpected twist: it’s a Country-Western record.
Due out August 21st from island Records, the effort was recorded at the historic RCA Studio A in Nashville alongside producers Shawn Everett and Jonathan Rado. Bringing true Music City cred to THRASHER are a number of local stallwarts: guitartist David Rawlings, pedal steel player Bruce Bouton, and the 85-year-old Charlie McCoy, who played harmonica across Bob Dylan’s Nashville records like Blonde on Blonde and Nashville Skyline.
The first THRASHER single, “Plans,” arrives Friday, June 26th, but our first tease of the LP comes in the trailer. “Gold and silver/ God and glitter/ Lights that flicker on hubcap chrome,” goes the cinematic track. “On the road to heaven/ Is Strauss and Stetson/ Swimming pools of horsepower/ Take me back, take me back home.”
Filled with images of Americana and some in-studio footage, the trailer also finds Flowers explaining the shift in sound. “The fact that I love new wave and rock and roll has been well-documented,” he begins. “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.”
It ends with an assurance to longtime Killers fans: “This is not me running away from rock and roll. I don’t want to replace my old songs. I simply found room for more.”
Watch the trailer below, and then check out the cover art and tracklist for Brandon Flowers’ TRASHER below. Flowers will presumably be playing the new tunes when he appears at this year’s Newport Folk Festival in July (where Rawlings will also be performing a Grateful Dead tribute set with Gillian Welch) and Austin City Limits in October.
THRASHER Artwork:
THRASHER Tracklist:
01. Does It Ever Cross Your Mind?
02. One of Us
03. Tiger’s Blood
04. Plans
05. Paradise
06. Miss America
07. Angel
08. The Red Ground
09. In a Heartbeat
10. An American Dream
