They’re a markedly different group from the wild garage band who showed up on British shores in 2003: “Branded,” Jared remembers, “as the new rock revival: us, the Strokes, the White Stripes, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.” They’re different, too, from the arena-rockers who had huge hits with Sex on Fire and Use Somebody a few years later.Ĭaleb’s alcohol-induced meltdown in 2011 brought on a period of reflection for the quartet. This mid-life peace and wisdom is at the heart of that eighth album, the excellent When You See Yourself. But that’s all in the past and this is how progress is now measured by Kings of Leon: not in streaming figures, Grammys or ticket sales, but whether they made a record without lamping each other. ” The fighting, he says, would often be the result of a day off on tour spent drinking too much, as innocent squabbles took a sinister turn.

Matthew grimaces when he remembers some of the brawls he’s witnessed over the years, when he would be hunched up at the back of the tour bus thinking to himself: “Oh my God, there is no way we’ll ever play music again after what he just said to him. “We leave the fighting to the duelling eight-year-old girl cousins.” “We have kids now,” says Nathan, the eldest. “So there’s no punches being thrown.” Drummer Nathan and guitarist Matthew are joining us from their respective houses a few miles away, with bassist Jared checking in from a holiday in Florida. “Our bodies don’t work like they used to,” says singer and guitarist Caleb, speaking over Zoom from his home in Nashville. For the first time ever, the four Followills – brothers Caleb, Jared, Nathan and their cousin Matthew – got through the recording sessions without any fistfights. S omething remarkable happened during the making of the eighth Kings of Leon album.

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