Excitement over Kings of Leon’s three Grammy nominations (Best Rock Album, Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance By A Duo or a Group with Vocals) hasn’t yet waned, and already the Nashville rock band has revealed that they’ve begun writing songs for their fifth album.
Concurrently, lead singer Caleb Followill made the bombshell announcement in this month’s Q Magazine that he suffered from anorexia as a teenager. “I always thought I wasn’t good enough,” Caleb said. “I’d do anything to keep my hands and mouth busy without eating.”
The singer said he struggled with the disease before becoming famous, and that now he wants “to look like I can defend myself … I want a guy to look at me in a bar and know he can’t talk to me or run me over ― even though he probably could.”
Released just this past September, KOL’s Only By The Night debuted at No. 1 in the U.K., where the Followill brothers (and one Followill cousin) have been all the rage since their debut in 2003. With this newest album, the Followills have also made a splash stateside; their song “Sex On Fire” now holds the No. 1 spot on America’s Modern Rock Radio chart.
Drummer Nathan (who is the eldest Followill brother) recently told BBC 6 Music that Kings of Leon are “four or five songs into the next record,” with the majority of the songwriting happening during sound checks on the band’s sold-out U.S. tour this past fall.
“You can get up there and at least work on ideas and kind of pick the direction you want to go in for the next record,” Nathan said, adding that further progress will be made during sound checks on the band’s forthcoming European tour.
The new material, said Nathan, sounds “a little more rhythmic, a little more fun not as, I don’t want to say depressing, but not as droney, not as anthemic, or dramatic melodies. It’s more like just us up there, having fun, just playing fun stuff.”
Nathan forecasted that the new album might be released as early as 2009.