Brandon Flowers: Vampire Weekend inspires The Killers like The Strokes used to – Tone Deaf

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The Strokes were once the bastion for The Killers, but it seems like Vampire Weekend is the bands new museaccording to Brandon Flowers.

Imploding The Mirage, the latest album from The Killers, sees the band exploring new musical territory while still retaining that distinct pop sound theyre best known for.

Having said that though, The Killers frontman Brandon Flowers says the bands new record was more inspired by Vampire Weekend than their previous creative benchmark, The Strokes.

Chatting toNME about the inspiration behind Imploding The Mirage, Flowers said how The Killers were in a deep creative hole for their latest album and were only able to dig their way out after listening to Vampire Weekends 2019 album, Father Of The Bride.

That really helped to propel us into the right direction and realise that we couldnt just phone in The Killers record, recalls Flowers. We had to do better. I told Ezra [Koenig, Vampire Weekends frontman] that. Im grateful for people like him.

When asked if this helped fuel a sense of healthy competition between The Killers and Vampire Weekend, Flowers responded with an enthusiastic Yeah! and said how it was similar to when The Strokes releasedtheir seminal album,Is This It, in 2001.

Flashing back to 2016, Flowers recalled how he felt depressed after listening toIs This It. We threw away everything [we were working on] and the only song that made the cut and remained was Mr. Brightside. he tells NME.

For what its worth, The Strokes also saw The Killers as some sort of creative rival back in the day. In Lizzy Goodmans book about the rise of indie rock in New York City during the 2000s, Meet Me In The Bathroom, The Strokes guitarist Nick Valensi revealed how the band had conversations that went along the lines of Gosh, I think our songs are better than Mr. Brightside by The Killers but was baffled people were listening to The Killers instead of them.

Given the creative impact Vampire Weekend and The Strokes have had on The Killers, perhaps well see these two contrasting bands be combined together in the bands purported new album thats penciled in for 2021.

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Brandon Flowers: Vampire Weekend inspires The Killers like The Strokes used to - Tone Deaf

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero