When Brandon Flowers was growing up in Utah, his childhood wasn’t defined only by the rock & roll influences that would come to shape the Killers. He also had a father who loved country music, like Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings. That rootsy, Americana sound often made its way into his band’s music, most recently on their 2021 LP Pressure Machine and 2006’s Sam’s Town, but it’s never been the sole artistic focus until now.
On Aug. 21, Flowers will release his first solo album in over a decade, Thrasher, recorded last July in Nashville at RCA Studio A with contributions from David Rawlings, Bob Dylan collaborator Charlie McCoy, and more. The first single, “Plans,” is out this Friday, June 26.
“I unlocked a room that I feel that has been waiting for me all along: country western music,” Flowers said in an album trailer, which finds him traveling through the desert so foundational to the Killers, clad in western wear. “It has offered itself to me and the stories I have to tell at the moment with a breezy enthusiasm.”
On Thrasher, Flowers was able to connect with the stories and people that littered his early years by tapping into the sounds that fueled him then: tales of his family, his childhood friends, and the triumph and tragedies of suburban American life. Thrasher was produced by Shawn Everett and Jonathan Rado, and aims to act alongside the Killers’ catalogue, rather than divert from it.
“This is not me running away from rock & roll,” Flowers says. “I don’t want to replace my old songs. I simply found room for more.”
Thrasher track list:
- “Does It Ever Cross Your Mind?”
- “One of Us”
- “Tiger’s Blood”
- “Plans”
- “Paradise”
- “Miss America”
- “Angel”
- “The Red Ground”
- “In a Heartbeat”
- “An American Dream”
Matt Collyer of The Planet Smashers