Brandon Flowers of The Killers Releases Alternative Country Single ‘Plans’
Rather than try to top The Killers’ wildly successful legacy, Brandon Flowers sets his sights toward a famously stressless goal: impressing his father.
Brandon Flowers releases lead single ‘Plans’ in promotion of alt-country record, ‘THRASHER’, which releases August 21st on Island Records. If the rootsy and roofless single is any honest indicator of the rest of the project, ‘THRASHER’ will be a modernized yet faithful corroboration of the early alt-country essentials - Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson - that were passed down to him by his father during his early-90s Utonian upbringing. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found my way back to my father’s music; ‘Country-Western’ (as he called it) and discovered that the stories I carry really feel most at home in the skin of this beautiful American tradition”, Flowers shared in an Instagram announcement post for the upcoming record.
For a vocalist whose romantic warble already drew comparisons as a reworked version of Bruce Springsteen, it follows that Brandon’s technique sounds even more parallel to Bruce’s earlier style in the single; still, while his lowering register sounds more country-Springsteen than ever before, the track still lives closely enough to his own set of accumulated technique to evade overly direct cross-comparison. Maintaining many of Flowers’ favorite proclivities in song and songwriting - grandiose declarations followed by a subsequent tail-tucking and a knack for a sweeping anthemic scope - ‘Plans’ is perhaps best described as a peeled, pre-electric guitar-pile version of a Killers’ demo at their most fleshy and expository.
The album will be produced by longtime collaborators Shawn Everett and Johnathan Rado at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A. Other notable names on the project include harmonica decorations from Charli McCoy, who worked on all four of Bob Dylan’s Nashville records, David Rawlings (musical partner of Gillian Welch) on guitar, and Bruce Bouton on steel pedal.
In promotion of ‘THRASHER’, Brandon will be embarking on a 27-date tour throughout the United States, the United Kingdom, and Dublin from September 1st to October 27th. Important dates include October 15th in London and October 20th in Manchester.
‘Plans’ is available to stream now via Island Records.