As they took the stage of the Comcast Center on Friday night, the Followill boys, known to the world as explosive rock powerhouse Kings of Leon, ambled from the wings to the solemn, soaring crescendoes of “Lacrimosa” from Mozart’s Requiem.  The shadows remained as the Kings grabbed their guitars and swung the straps over their lanky shoulders, but within seconds the Mozart was cut and the crowd was blasted with a wall of sound and light as the family act from Tennessee  growled, wailed, beat and ferociously strummed the mortal strings of their electric guitars underneath jarring washes of blue and red.  Kings of Leon are a band whose look is as distinct as their sound: Sure, you can thank their genetic makeup for the brooding good looks that have teenage girls and their mothers alike lusting after the four Followills, but the intensity with which Kings of Leon approach their music is apparent in their set jaws and fierce, steady gaze.  Looking at Kings of Leon frontman Caleb is like taking in a rock and roll interpretation of American Gothic: Focused, unfazed and with instrument firmly in hand, you wonder what’s happening behind this famous face when he belts these lyrics, which are being chanted back at him by thousands of people, as his family plays by his side.

Before they had thousands of screaming, soaking wet fans singing along with their VMA-nominated, radio-standard hits in Mansfield that night, we somehow found ourselves backstage in a warmup room sitting across from Jared Followill, who had taken a seat behind a practice drum kit.  He seemed exhausted and worn from the non-stop touring schedule that Kings of Leon have been subject to since the release of last year’s Only By The Night, but it didn’t stop him from gushing about the special connection KoL has with their Boston fan base and the songs he looks forward to playing each night.  As he nervously fiddled with a pair of drumsticks and a guitar pick left on the table in the makeshift practice space, Jared caught us up with what Kings of Leon have been listening to on tour, what the future looks like for one of America’s hottest bands at the moment, and what the hell he plans on wearing to the VMAs tonight if Kings of Leon wind up showing up at all.

-Hilary Hughes

Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia

So!  Hi, Jared!

Hi!

You stayin’ dry?

(Laughs) Yeah, absolutely.

Let’s just jump right into this.  How’s this tour going?  This is the second time Boston has seen Kings of Leon in the past couple of months, huh?

Yeah.  We’ve been – it’s hard for me to remember really. It just kind of gets jumbled up into my memory.  We did the first half of the tour on the West Coast and Canada, and we did that with the Whigs.  Then we went to the UK and played festivals in Reading and Leeds, and now we’re doing the East Coast leg with Glasvegas and White Lies.  It’s been great.

Sounds like you’ve been all over the place.  How does it feel to be back in Boston?

It’s great.  I love Boston.  It’s a really fun city.  I mean, we played here when we were just a small band and we played the Avalon.  We have a great fan base here.  The shows are always crazy and people are always enthusiastic.

Got any crazy stories from the Kings of Leon tour bus for us, Jared?

Not really (laughs).  We don’t even have a bus anymore.

I know that you’ve got a lot of plans and releases coming out over the next couple of months.  Which future projects for Kings of Leon are you most excited about?

The remix album is really awesome.  We’ve got a lot of cool, good bands doing things for us like M83 and CSS and Lykke Li and the Presets, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell… it’s really, really cool.  It’s a different take on the same songs that people have heard before, and it’s interesting to hear our music with an electronic side to it.

Jared Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia

How does it feel to have other notable artists expressing interest for your music through their own interpretations of it?  It must be pretty surreal.

I love it.  I’ve always been into electronic-based music and I was very excited about the whole idea.  It started with a few people making some remixes for us.  We talked about maybe just doing a five song EP, but then everybody else started sending in their remixes and cuts of our songs so we just decided to make a record.

Let’s talk about the creative process of Kings of Leon.  How do you guys work together when it comes to your songwriting, and how does that process change once you hit the studio?

It depends, honestly.  Sometimes Caleb will have a guitar part and a vocal idea ready; sometimes he’ll just have a guitar part or I’ll have a bass part.  Each and every song always starts from one musical part.  We all just get the music together first, and I’ll play my bass part and Caleb will play his guitar part and Nathan will come in with a drum beat.  Then, we just write around that musical idea during sound checks until we get the musical idea first.  Then, once we have the basic musical arrangement done, Caleb starts to think up a vocal melody.  Sometimes that comes naturally and quickly while we’re writing the music, and sometimes it takes a little bit longer.  When it comes down to it, the steps of our creative process are music, vocal melody and then lyrics.

Are there any songs in the Kings of Leon catalog that stick out to you, especially?  What’s your favorite song of yours?

There are tons that are favorites.  My favorites are usually not necessarily the ones that come from me.  I feel connected to the ones that came from an idea I came up with, but there are a few that I like, like “Crawl.”  I like “Manhattan.”  I like a lot of the songs that aren’t big songs, like “Seventeen”.  The songs that people aren’t necessarily fans of tend to be my favorites.

Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia

Does the writing continue when Kings of Leon heads out on tour?

We stopped sound checking for two or three tours because we just really didn’t need to, and that’s where we wrote most of the stuff.  We just started sound checking again, and we’ve been coming up with new songs every day now.

How is this new material a departure from previous songs we’ve heard from Kings of Leon?

It’s more of a continuation.  Everything sounds completely different from when we first start writing it to where the song ends up, because you over-think things.  That’s why we like to record things quickly and early into the process: Songs tend to get a little too polished when you over-think them, and we like the ideas to be more raw and off-the-cuff.

What are you listening to right now?  If we were to swipe your iPod and look at your “Recently Added” or “Recently Played” playlists, what would we find?

I’ve been listening to this song called “Sweet Disposition” by Temper Trap a lot.  I’ve been listening to a song called “Velvet” by The Big Pink, too.  I like Crystals Castles. I’m a big song guy; I don’t have that much faith in too many albums.  I like listening to Glasvegas and The White Lies and I especially love listening to the bands we tour with.

So, at the beginning of the summer you played the MTV Movie Awards, and now Kings of Leon are one of the nominees to look out for at the VMAs.  How does it feel?  Did you ever think in your wildest dreams that you’d be up for a Moonman?

No!  Not at all.  It actually makes me feel really nervous (laughs).

Do you have an outfit picked out?

No, I have no idea!  I’ll probably just wear a leather jacket or something… I’m trying to talk the guys into going.  They don’t want to go, even though it’s already been announced that we’ll be there.  I think Paramore is going to win the category we’re in anyway because of Twilight, but I’d like a Moonman.  I think it’d be cool.  I’m more nervous about the red carpet.  It’s nerve-wracking.

Matthew Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009.
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia

So after the VMAs, what’s up next for Kings of Leon?  Where do you see yourself a couple of months down the line?

Probably on the beach somewhere.  I might go to Mexico for a little while or something.  Six months from now?  I don’t know.  I don’t know where we’ll be.  We could be writing the new record at that point, so we’ll see.

Are you gonna record the next record in Nashville?

I don’t know where we’re gonna do the next one, actually.  There are a couple of ideas floating around, and we were thinking of maybe going to an island somewhere and do it.  I’d rather do it in Nashville or LA or somewhere familiar, you know?

That’s interesting, because I wanted to talk to you about place and how it’s affected you as an artist.  We spend a lot of time talking with Boston bands about how our city has treated them or played some part in the cultivation of their creativity.  How have your surroundings or the cities you’ve called home impacted you as a musician?  Has where you come from really made a difference in your sound?

Possibly.  We don’t really feel at home anywhere; Nashville never really accepted us, which is totally fine because we never really accepted them.  As far as the Nashville music scene goes, they hate us, so we don’t feel connected to Nashville at all which is totally cool with us. Well, the thing is, our fans in Nashville are great and they treat us as though we’re from Nashville, but the whole music scene there is really fickle.  If you don’t play certain bars for five nights a week, you’re not a Nashville band.  We literally formed in Nashville and started playing in a garage there.  We don’t really feel like we’re connected to any particular spot and we don’t really have a home base.  No matter where we are, we never really feel like we’re playing at home.

Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center in Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009.
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia

Caleb Followill, Nathan Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009.
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia