Brandon Flowers tells us about making his most personal album yet: “I’m finally ready to do this”

Brandon Flowers has spoken to NME about revisiting his formative years to give more of himself away than ever before on new solo album ‘Thrasher’, as well as tackling the “loneliness epidemic” for an incoming “sister record” and what’s next for The Killers. The frontman of the Las Vegas band will release his third solo album this Friday (August 21), drawing from his early childhood years and country music like Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings that his father would play to him while driving around rural Utah. It carries the Americana thread launched by The Killers’ classic 2006 album ‘Sam’s Town’ and picks up where their last record, ‘Pressure Machine’, left off with its “South Western” leanings. “I enjoyed making ‘Pressure Machine’ so much that I didn’t want to leave,” Flowers told NME as we met in his record label offices in London. “I didn’t think that this should be a Killers record, so I zeroed in even more. Where ‘Pressure Machine’ was centred around Nephi, Utah, and all those stories were taking place within the town, this one is even more personal. I’m zeroing in on my inner circle. That’s how I see it.” And why now, at the age of 45 and with such a vivid songbook already und...