Not knowing what's coming next, forced to rely purely on gut instinct—that's the situation Brandon Flowers found himself in during NME's blind ranking challenge. The Killers frontman sat down with NME earlier this year to promote his solo album "Thrasher," and got roped into an impromptu ranking game along the way: five of the band's signature tracks, revealed one at a time, that he had to score in real time without seeing the full list.
First up was 2006's "When You Were Young." Flowers recalled how the band had been worried the sophomore album couldn't live up to the buzz of their debut "Hot Fuss." "The vibe in the room that day, and the way this song started heating up—I think that's when we knew we were going to be okay." The second track, "Human," was something he finished in London during the "Sam's Town" tour.
"The Man," off 2017's "Wonderful Wonderful," was something he described as having "kind of saved that album" in a way—though he didn't rank it number one. When "Read My Mind" came up, from the "Sam's Town" era, Flowers gave it a high score, but admitted: "But secretly I kind of think 'All These Things That I've Done' might be better sometimes."
The real drama came with the finale: "Mr. Brightside." "This song's connection to the band runs so deep—you've definitely heard it," he said half-jokingly, before revealing the song's origins—the writing was actually inspired by Oasis's "Don't Look Back In Anger." Flowers said that months before he met guitarist Dave Keuning, he caught an Oasis show at The Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, and the crowd's reaction floored him: "There was something different in the room that night, and I remember thinking right then, I want that too."
Flowers kicks off his solo tour this week, starting October 14 at the O2 Academy in Bournemouth, UK, before heading to Royal Albert Hall in London, Bristol, Manchester, Glasgow, and Birmingham, wrapping up October 27 in Dublin at the Olympia. His solo album "Thrasher," released in August, earned a four-star review from NME, with the outlet's news editor Andrew Trendell writing that the record marks "another signpost on Flowers' path as a songwriter, moving further away from the arena-sized grandeur of The Killers."
