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Kings of Leon
may be available for your next special event!
Kings of Leon is a rock band from Tennessee. They consist of three brothers - Caleb (lead singer, rhythm guitar), Nathan (drums), and Jared (bass) Followill - plus Matthew Followill (lead guitar), their first cousin. As the music on their "Kings of Leon" EP debut for RCA Records showed, their songs teem with primal emotions and rangy rhythms – noise sensed as
sanctuary, friction felt as release, honesty jumped on for all it's worth because it's the only bankable road to salvation.
 Kings of Leon - so-called because "Leon" is the name of both the Followills' father and grandfather - is, in general, a hauntingly unusual, yet dead classic band.
Kings of Leon's history is the epitome of a mythological rock & roll story. The Followill brothers are sons of a preacher man who were raised on the road throughout the South, traveling from one Pentecostal church service to the next. They were shattered by a divorce, transformed by illicit substances and the stoner music of
Led Zeppelin and rewarded with a Nashville record deal
for their grinding garage-boogie sound and raw, Southern gothic lyrics.
 The Followill boys - Nathan (born June 26, 1979), Caleb (born January 14, 1982) and Jared (born November 20, 1986)
- grew up watching their father Leon, a Pentecostal preacher, instill the fear of God in parishioners across the heartland. Forbidden to listen to secular music, they spent their early childhoods being home-schooled, watching church choirs and occasionally banging on drums during services. The boys' fates as followers of fundamentalist Christianity seemed sealed until 1997, when Leon Followill resigned from the
church and divorced his wife. The divorce rocked the Followills' world, and
afterwards, the two eldest brothers moved to Nashville, hoping to break into
music. They quickly ran into Nashville songwriter and former new waver Angelo Petraglia, who turned the brothers on to the secular music of
The Rolling Stones
and Johnny Cash. In 2000, the two met a singer who helped them find a manager.
Kings of Leon, named for their father, were formed when younger brother Jared and
a cousin, Matthew Followill (born September 10, 1984), came into the fold. At
first, Nathan and Caleb's musical influences were few. But Jared, who briefly
attended public schools, had learned about the music of
The Pixies and Velvet
Underground. The boys began woodshedding, and by 2002 Kings of Leon had interest
from nine labels. A bidding war ensued, with the band ultimately choosing RCA
Records.
The group's debut EP, Holy Roller Novocaine, and album, Youth and
Young Manhood - both produced by Petraglia and Ethan Johns (son of Led
Zeppelin and Who producer Glyn Johns) - came out in 2003. The band's retro-chic
look - long hair, mustaches, Seventies-style clothing - and blend of Southern
boogie with gritty garage rock inspired comparisons to both
Lynyrd Skynyrd and
The Strokes.
Kings of Leon were hailed by the British press as the second coming
of rock & roll, being named everything from 2004's "Best New Band"
to "the kind of authentic, hairy rebels
The Rolling Stones longed to be." But the band failed
to make much of an impact in the United States, where reviews were generally
lukewarm and the modern rock audience generally disinterested. In the U.S.,
Youth sold only 100,000 copies compared with the 750,000 copies it moved
elsewhere. When Kings embarked on a tour, the band became the cliché of rock &
roll excess and the British press went along for the ride. Stories of sex, drugs
and sightings with models followed the home-schooled boys, who just a few years
earlier hardly knew what sex, drugs and rock & roll meant.
The group's highly anticipated second album, "Aha Shake Heartbreak", came
out in 2005, debuting at Number Three on the British charts. Kings added more
experimental touches - the angularity of British art-punk band Wire - to their
still-very-raw aesthetic. A tour supporting U2 upped the band's profile in the
U.S., and the album reached Number 55 on the Billboard 200. In late 2006, just
before release of Kings' third album, "Because of the Times", the band
opened for Bob Dylan at some shows. Times, released in April 2007, found
the Kings moving even further away from their short songs with immediate hooks,
but the general sound and substance remained the same, with lyrics about
pregnant girlfriends and black Camaros, and the album reached Number 25.
Hit songs include --
- Radioactive
- Notion
- Use Somebody
- The Bucket
- Fans
- On Call
- Four Kicks
- Sex On Fire
- Crawl
- Revelry
- Pyro
- Pony Up
- Pickup Truck
- No Money
- Mi Amigo
- Mary
- Birthday
- Beach Side
- Back Down South
Kings of Leon may be available for your next special event
Watch videos
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Genre: Rock 3
Styles:
.Alternative Pop/Rock. / AlternativePopRock
.American Trad Rock. / AmericanTradRock
.Southern Rock. / SouthernRock
.Alternative Country-Rock. / AlternativeCountryRock
.Alternative/Indie Rock. / AlternativeIndieRock
Years active:
x00s, x10s
Formed: ..in Tennessee / formed nTennessee
Formed: ..in
Nashville / formed NashvilleTN
Formed: in 2000
Based: ..in US
Based: ..in Tennessee / based nTennessee
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