Killers frontman Brandon Flowers joins Rock & Roots host Joe Conkwright for a conversation about songwriting and the new Americana Country album Thrasher, which is released August 21st.
BRANDON FLOWERS INTERVIEW 08/14/26- WITH WUKY’S JOE CONKWRIGHT
JOE CONKWRIGHT: Through the miracle of Zoom, welcome Brandon Flowers to WUKY.
BRANDON FLOWERS: Hey, thanks for having me.
JOE CONKWRIGHT: Very, glad to be speaking with you. I don't typically do Zoom, so it's nice to be able to see the artists. I don't do phoners and stuff, but it's nice to be able to see the, a person and to be able to connect that way. Congratulations, as of this recording, your song plans number one on the Americana charts. I know you've had many successes over the years. But this is your first solo album in over a decade. What does it feel like, as a songwriter, to have achieved a number one song after all this time, and what does it mean? Because I always think about how it feels to know you're number one. What does it feel to you?
BRANDON FLOWERS: Well, you know, there's no real…
it's tough. In the creative world, you know, there really should be no winners or losers. So, for the times that I wasn't number one, I might have, you know… when I was… if I was self-conscious, I don't know, I would have felt… I didn't… wouldn't have felt good about it, I don't know, I don't… it's a tough one to tackle. It feels good - to have this recognition for plans. I love this song, and I'm happy to be embraced in the Americana community, so I'm happy for it.
JOE CONKWRIGHT: Lexington: Let's talk a little bit about the song. I know that this new album, Thrasher, which comes out on August 21st, is kind of a concept album, and You play both kinds of music on it, country and western, but where does this particular song come from? Plans?
BRANDON FLOWERS: This was… it's funny how this works. This was the last song that we recorded. And… it was basically…
we ran out of songs, and the clock's ticking, so we've already paid for studio time, and they're like, you got anything else? And it's like, well, I have this song, but it's not country, you know, it's not… and so we… I basically…played the chords, and sang the song for the music director, and we slowed it down, and I sang the verses an octave lower, and we made it country, and it ended up just being you know, heads and shoulders, you know, above some of the other songs. And it was a pleasant surprise that I was carrying around on my, you know, on my phone and my voice memos. And so, it was interesting to watch it transform, and how well it sat in the genre, and how great everybody sounds on it, particularly a harmonica player Charlie McCaw is sort of the star of the show on this one. I love his solo before the last chorus, and it's just, yeah, I'm really, really happy with how it turned out.
JOE CONKWRIGHT: I love how you mentioned Charlie McCoy in there. I was gonna ask you specifically about that, because I'm a harmonica player, and Charlie McCoy is, like, the legend. And it's amazing, to have him all over the album and playing such great harmonica after all the… he's 85, I guess, so that's pretty impressive. So, your love of country music, where did that come from?
BRANDON FLOWERS: Yeah, it was more of a… I think it started off as an appreciation for country music that I… that… from hearing it from my father, and hearing it in the rural town that I grew up in in Utah. Like, I was… I had chosen my path, you know, and that was, like, Britpop, and New Wave, and… so… but I couldn't help it. I was… I was always…
listening and absorbing this country music that I was hearing. And so it does come through in the killer's music sometimes. You know, you really hear it in the storytelling in particular, I think, which you don't always hear in a lot of pop and rock music… that kind of storytelling. So I was… I think I was getting an education and even applying it to this other, form of music that we were doing. And then it wasn't until I got older and had life experience that I just have gravitated a lot more towards country western and Americana music.
JOE CONKWRIGHT: Your storytelling as a songwriter, I think, is one of the things that sets you apart from many other artists, and I know country music is pretty much famous for bringing the stories, and one particular songwriter, Johnny Cash, I know has had some influence over you. Can you give me a… maybe a favorite Johnny Cash song, or… it doesn't have to be your favorite necessarily, but the first thing into your head?
BRANDON FLOWERS: Oh, man. The first one into my head is I… they did this record called Out Among the Stars… of unreleased music, and lyrics and things like that, that… and they had other people record them, then they put an album out. And he had this song called I Came to Believe.
And somebody else had chosen the song, who I think was… in my… I'm just… I'm bearing too much now, maybe. I think it was, like, an atheist, this guy that I know who's an atheist, and I just happened to be a religious person, and I said, I will do it, but I will not do it. If that guy does, I came to believe. And… and so they let me do what I came to believe.
JOE CONKWRIGHT: Oh, well, that's cool.
BRANDON FLOWERS: And because… and it's just so beautiful. I came to believe in a power much higher than I. I came to believe that I needed help to get by. It was just like, yeah, so… I love people like him that… that… that were, you know, they were imperfect, but they…
believed, and they… that spirituality, and they were Christians, and anyway, so that's a weird… sorry, just a weird sidestep of Johnny Cash, but I love Johnny Cash.
JOE CONKWRIGHT: Johnny Cash sang many great spirituals, and he did believe them. Like, when he sang a song, he believed it, and he wouldn't sing it otherwise, that's for sure. Earlier in 2026, you performed in Philadelphia as part of the non-comvention… the annual music industry celebration of the non-commercial music for public radio. In your experience, how important is it for public radio music and how it connects to artists like yourself, and stations like WKY, where we play new and vintage and local and national and international music, and feature independent artists as well. What does it mean to support public radio?
BRANDON FLOWERS: Yeah, it's really important, and it was something that I didn't appreciate until I got older. But yeah, you know, just getting a different view of things… and a voice, different voices, and different angles, and different music, not just the music that's getting shoved in your throat. I still have a… I have this memory that comes to mind when you say this, is I… of course I know who Randy Newman was. But I was in… I was listening to public radio once, and… and Louisiana came on. I'd never, I never would have sought this song out, you know, I never would have heard it on pop radio, or rock radio, modern rock radio, or anything like that, or even on classic rock, you know? And I just… my family was… got out of the car, and I stayed in. I was like, I had never heard this song before. And I just turned it up, and I can still remember what the driveway and… and… and what the house looked like, and the day looked like, and it was… I was floored by this song. We went on to cover it later on, when we played in… when we played in New Orleans. But just, that's… that's what, you know, my… I have a tenderness for public radio for that.
JOE CONKWRIGHT: In public radio, we call those moments driveway moments, where you sit in your car and you listen and it can happen with a news story, it can happen with music, but music is great, and I love that you remember where you heard that song for the first time. That is one of those things that we love to be able to provide for people with new music and old favorites, because a lot of times songs fall through the cracks. And of course, generationally, you're always going to have new listeners, people that haven't heard those songs.
As a songwriter, where do you find that you are writing songs most? Do you have a specific place in your home where you like to go? And if you do, can you describe that space?
BRANDON FLOWERS: Yeah, it's a… it's just a family room. I have a… I have a piano in there, and
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Jon Eyre: I, man, it's just, well, the kids… while my kids are at school, I make sure to go to work, and that's where I… that's where I work. I know some people like to go and get out of the house a little bit, and that's… that can… that can be nice too, I guess, but for me, it's predominantly on… on the piano at home, and I have, Yeah, that's about… that's the gist of it. It's just the old family room.
JOE CONKWRIGHT: When is a song finished?
BRANDON FLOWERS: Oh, man. I think… I guess it's gotta be… you may… it's gotta be after it's recorded, you know? Because I might have a finished song, a finished lyric and melody, and the cords and everything, but until it is, you have to allow for it to evolve in the studio, and so, I guess there's two fin… you know, there are two endings, yeah, and that's… when you've got a song lyric done, and the bones of a song, it is finished, but it really can take on a whole new life when you take it to the studio.
JOE CONKWRIGHT: Do you find yourself, when you listen to that song for the first time. That maybe you want to go back and change something, or is it something that you're like, that's done, I'm ready to move on to the next thing?
BRANDON FLOWERS: Yeah, some people are like… some people can really just accept it, as it is. And I… I'm not usually one of those people. I might wanna… I might wanna tweak some things after. But, with this record that, that, that we're promoting now through Asher, is, it was very different, because of the players that we had, and because of the way we recorded it, it was like, you know, the stakes were high, you are in the room recording together, and so when we went back to listen, what, you know, what you heard, like, that's it. Like, and you don't dare
mute people, or add to people, because these guys are so good at what they're doing, and so it was just about… You know, turning up the best moments at the right spots, but in the mix, but it was really a fun experience.
JOE CONKWRIGHT: What are you most proud about with this new album, Thrasher?
BRANDON FLOWERS: I don't know, I think I never… I never… if you would have told me… when we wrote the first Killers record, that 20 years from then, that I'd be making a country record. You know, like, I just… I don't know if I would have even understood it. I could… I don't, you know, I wouldn't have even… I can't… I couldn't have foreseen the… the trajectory that my life would take, or where… where… where this…
where songwriting would take me, or what appreciation that I would have for this tradition would take me, and and it's been a beautiful thing to be a part of, and so this is sort of the culmination of all of that with this record, and yeah, I think that's what I was… surprised by.
JOE CONKWRIGHT: So, what about your favorite midnight snack?
BRANDON FLOWERS: I'll tell you right now… though, I have a specific one, because my wife… She's never made this before, but she started making a pistachio cake?
JOE CONKWRIGHT: That sounds good.
BRANDON FLOWERS: It is… it is, like, it's so addictive…
JOE CONKWRIGHT: Dangerously addictive it sounds like.
BRANDON FLOWERS: Yeah, no, I'm trying to get ready for tour, and I'm just like, we finished one, and then she made another one, and I'm like…
But yeah, pistachio cake, man.
JOE CONKWRIGHT: That's a good one. Alright, here's a real off-the-wall question, though. Ghosts or aliens? Which is more interesting to you, and which one may be more likely?
BRANDON FLOWERS: I think ghosts are more likely… But aliens are more interesting.
JOE CONKWRIGHT: Okay. Have you ever had a paranormal experience, or seen an alien, or anything you might think could be? I mean, you've been out there in Nevada and Utah both, you know.
BRANDON FLOWERS: No, My Dad, in the early, you know, in the 80s, Before stealth bombers were released. I remember him saying that he had… him and his buddy had seen something out in, you know, flying around that looked, you know, like a UFO or something, and I think it was the stealth, probably.
JOE CONKWRIGHT: Yeah, absolutely. Brandon, thank you so much,
Good luck… you're gonna be touring this new album, I guess. Are you… you're playing some different kind of venues than you would play with The Killers, I imagine?
BRANDON FLOWERS: Yeah, some smaller venues.
JOE CONKWRIGHT: How is that playing the smaller venues with this new music?
BRANDON FLOWERS: I'm looking forward to it, because, like, it's… one of the things that I love about this tradition of country music is the storytelling, and I'm gonna try to… I don't get those… many of those opportunities in these big rooms with… so I'm looking forward to that.
JOE CONKWRIGHT: Brandon, thank you again, and hopefully we'll see you around Kentucky sometime soon.
BRANDON FLOWERS: Thank you.