Kings Of Leon are on the road promoting their third RCA album, “Because of the Times,” which came out April. But the quartet is already looking down the creative road.
“We’re ready to start the next record, to be honest with you,” drummer Nathan Followill tells Billboard.com. “We’re touring all the way ’til the middle of January, then hopefully we’ll by in the studio by Valentine’s Day.”
Followill says the group has about eight songs already up and running, and he suspects to pile more on sooner rather than later. “We do a lot of our writing on the road,” he explains. “Ninety-five percent of our writing is done during soundchecks. We’ll play on an idea for a couple of weeks, and after 10 shows or so we’ve got a song formed out of it.
As far as a sonic direction, the oldest Followill notes that “man, the world is our oyster,” particularly after the experiments the band attempted on “Because of the Times.” “We can go in any direction we want to,” he says. “We’ve changed in-between all three records, so (the fans) will expect everything and be surprised by nothing. We like a challenge, so we’re gonna try and go in there and make a record that blows people’s minds.”
Kings Of Leon hasn’t discussed who they’ll make the album with, however. The team of Ethan Johns and Angelo Patraglia worked on its last two releases, and Followill says that “I definitely see Angelo being involved, for sure. We’ve done all three (albums) with Ethan and only done two with Angelo, so we might have to get him another record to even things out. But mostly we’re just gonna try and wait and see what direction this record takes before we decide.”
Followill says the band is also thinking about making a new live DVD from this tour, but no firm plans have been made yet.
