"It's time for a party and I'm pretty drunk already!" exclaimed Caleb Followill in his thick Tennessee drawl on the first night of Kings of Leons double header at Hyde Park last Wednesday. Well I was there mate, and it was pretty fucking from where I was stood.
A set that spanned their 5 albums, which was loyal to old fans whilst pleasing to the new crowd, which was bursting to the seams with hits from Spiral Staircase to Closer, Mollys Chambers to Back Down South. It's too early for talk of a greatest hits album, but KOL have more than enough material should their record company come knocking.
I put myself firmly in the "old fan" camp. Now I'm not saying I foresaw them becoming the most important band of their generation back in 2003 when they released Youth and Young Manhood: I remember seeing a young Kings of Leon at Glastonbury in 2003 and I liked what i saw, but back then there were so many good bands around that I didn't expect for one minute that in 8 years time the Kings would be top of the pile whilst most of their contemporaries fell by the waist-side.
The Strokes took a break from each-other whilst the Libertines almost killed each-other. Craig from the Vines had a nervous breakdown and The Thrills, well, what did happen to the Thrills actually?!
Still, it is KOL that now feast at the top table of rock, stroking the neatly trimmed facial hair of fellow mega-bands U2, Coldplay and Foo Fighters. From scruffy Southern American garage band, to stadium filling heart-throbs in the space of half a decade, they might tell you they've done "alright", such is their modesty and laid-back demeanour.
But its not all peace, love and bananas where their "loyal" fan base is concerned. Their last 2 albums have been met with mixed reviews, mainly from those who remember them playing in the sweaty clubs on the UK circuit with affection, yearning for a return to those good old days.
Some fans claim KOL have sold out and adopted a more commercial sound to gain more mainstream success, sacrificing their original, edgy sound for a more radio friendly one, for increased album sales and for more bums on packed-out stadium seats.
Well, have they got a point?
Firstly, let's look at the subject matter of their songs. KOL are unashamed advocates of the "rock out with your cock out" cliche, and always have been. It's a recurring theme throughout their first two records; so many of their early songs are literally about sex and drugs and rock n roll, and their early fan base could relate to that, because that's all they were interested in doing as well, right?
But you can't write about that for the rest of your life, can you? Eventually shagging groupies in the toilets at Shepherd Bush Empire becomes tiresome (apparently), so what do you write about after that then?
And its not as though their songs are completely clean-cut now. Back Down South from their latest album, Come Around Sundown talks about "Pretty Little girls, naked to their curves laying in a coffin" for Christ's sake!
Every artist wants to develop. Only Oasis would have been happy churning out 10 replicas of their first album, Definitely Maybe. Kings of Leon have endured because they have developed as they have written more material. Instead of only wishing to repeat past glories, they have strived create new ones. If their subject matter has evolved it is just a sign that they're growing up and evolving as people and as musicians, rather than selling out.
Then there's their sound, which is undoubtedly more polished then it was on Youth & Young Manhood and Aha Shake Heartbreak. KOL started life as a garage band. They recorded their albums live, that's to say they all played in the same room, with each instrument individually micced up. As a result, you get "spillage", i.e. each instruments microphone picks up the background noise of the other instruments. This gives a warmer, liver sound to the recording, but as a result it's harder to mix as you can't treat one sound without affecting the sound of another. What your left with is a recording that is true to the bands live performance and very raw. No studio effects. No gimmicks.
Some might say this is a preferred sound for a band, and for this band in particular, staying true to their garage roots, but what you gonna do? Kings of Leon are worth millions now, they're hardly going to record in primitive conditions when they've got state of the art studios at their disposal. If someone buys you a Ferrari, you don't keep it in the garage and drive your old Rover Metro around do you?
You can see the fruits of the high-tech studio work on tracks like Closer and Crawl on Only By The Night: Elaborate effects which sound more like keyboard loops than they do guitar riffs. In addition, songs like Sex on Fire, whilst maintaining that rockier feel of their earlier records, also sound like they were recorded with the instruments split out and recorded separately. The recording style and post-production is more clinical, hence the cleaner sound.
The final thing I'd like to mention is Caleb's fantastic voice. I read an interview once in which he stated that up until Only By The Night he had never really "sang" on a KOL record, just screamed or shouted. When you listen to their early albums, he employs a strained yelp almost, that fits perfectly with the bands sound at that time. Listen to Spiral Staircase off Youth and Young Manhood and you'll hear an archetypal Caleb vocal for the early years.
Nowadays there is more melody to his voice. He caresses the melody rather than rips it apart. I'm not saying I prefer the latter, I personally love his vocal on songs like Charmer, where each lyric is proceeded with a high pitch scream, but there are two distinct styles there. The change in vocal delivery shows an increased maturity to the singer I guess, perhaps its not as rock n roll, but whatever, he's got a great voice that suits a number of styles; there's no point him screaming out the lyrics on a track like Revelry now is there?
All this is sung to a backdrop of perhaps the finest rhythm section rock n roll has seen since Nirvana and a guitarist that is so diverse in style that it fits any song Kings choose to write. He can play slide, as on Back Down South, fantastic solos, a la Mollys Chambers, and out and out riffing, as displayed on most of Because Of The Times.
On Sunday 26th June at Glastonbury Beyonce covered "Sex on Fire" by the Kings of Leon. The boys from Tennessee who played the New Bands Tent at the 2003 Glastonbury festival are undoubtedly mainstream now, but they've not sold out. They've grown up a bit, and are driving fast cars and using high tech gear in the studio, but that doesn't mean they've abandoned their musical philosophy.
The Kings of Leon could easily go down as our generations Rolling Stones, we should celebrate that rather than put them down for making something of their lives.
Good luck boys. Enjoy the ride.
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