Brandon Flowers: Is fame worth it? I'm not sure anymoreThe Killers frontman asks big questions on his third solo album, which takes a detour into country.11 hrs agoCulture

Brandon Flowers: Is fame worth it? I'm not sure anymore.

Key points

• He created $25, 000 a year and barely secured by but he's 82 and he paints, and he goes to garage sales, and he's, like, pumped for that.
• The answer was to write a new song, Does It Ever Cross Your Mind, that reframed the argument.
• To put it another way, Flowers can't imagine pretending to be the 20-year-old who wrote Mr Brightside in his friend's bedroom for the rest of his life.
• This person died suddenly a number of years ago and, on Miss America, a critique of the opioid crisis that hit his hometown.
• But as he approaches his 21st wedding anniversary, he notes that periodic absences from home can have unexpected benefits.

For the last 25 years, he's been the frontman of The Killers, channelling his love of stadium rock and British new wave on songs like Mr Brightside, When You Were Young and Human.

But in the back of his mind, there's always been an alternative soundtrack.

"You know, a lot of guys in my line of business develop drug addictions, " he notes.

It began when he was a kid in Nephi, Utah. His dad would play Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and John Conlee on the car stereo. School dances, held at the local golf club, would always feature country and western slow dances.

So when Flowers moved back home and began revisiting his childhood haunts, his passion for country was rekindled.

You can hear the results on his third solo album, Thrasher, recorded in Nashville's famed RCA Studio A – home to Dolly Parton's Jolene and I Will Always Love You – with a group of veteran musicians that included pedal steel legend Bruce Bouton, 85-year-old harmonica player Charlie McCoy, and Americana musician Margo Cost.

"I sang live with them and I think they really appreciated that, because it's a very romantic way of doing it, " he notes.

"It's not something that individuals do anymore. To actually obtain that energy down on tape is a different thing." It's an album he couldn't have produced in his 20s.

Flowers once remarked his "experiences weren't interesting enough" to be turned into lyrics. Now, he's excavating his diary to write regarding his rural upbringing and experiences of working in Las Vegas casinos.

There's additionally a tribute to his brother-in-law. This person died suddenly a number of years ago and, on Miss America, a critique of the opioid crisis that hit his hometown.

"It's a sad thing, you know? It's basically doctors prescribing individuals heroin, and it took so numerous lives unnecessarily."

Prescription painkillers are chemically similar to but not the same as heroin.

He adds: "Even just in my graduating class in that little town, so plenty of of the kids are gone. It's kind of staggering. Such a dirty business." BBC Radio 2: Brandon Flowers picks The Tracks of My Years.

For context, the album additionally finds Flowers taking stock of his own life. On American Dream, he fantasises regarding gathering Elvis Presley (in a flying Tesla, no less) and asking him whether fame and fortune is all it's cracked up to be.

Elvis just laughs – but it's a question that's plagued Flowers for years.

"Sometimes I wonder, what am I trying to achieve, and what am I trying to prove, and who am I trying to prove it to, and what have I gotten from it?" he notes.

In practice, the song came from a conversation he had with his three teenage sons, "because I worry about them comparing themselves to my success".

Flowers has always been careful to isolate his family from the effects of fame. "We don't talk regarding it much. There's no gold records hanging in the bathroom or anything like that." And he emphasises that success doesn't automatically bring contentment.

My dad didn't have that, but is he less happy than me? He may even be more happy than I am.

"So yeah, I don't know if it's worth it. I don't know anymore."

It's straightforward to understand his ambivalence. Flowers is not your typical rock star. He's quietly spoken and self-effacing. Although he's better at making eye contact than when we first met in the Killers' heyday, his anecdotes are punctuated with nervous laughter.

In those interviews, he talked regarding battling stage fright, and the difficulties of balancing touring commitments with family life.

"There's a danger you could grow apart, but there's also this great rediscovery that can happen, and a freshness it can bring, when you return."

He takes commitment seriously. So seriously, in fact, that he's desperate to create amends for a lyric on the last Killers album, called In Another Life, that produced some fans question their relationships.

"In the song, the man is concerned about his situation, and he's asking his wife, 'Am I the man of your dreams, or just a guy from your hometown?', " he explains.

He's wondering if their proximity is the only reason they're together. And I noticed it was making individuals look at their relationships in a negative light.

"At one point someone said they got divorced because of this line, and I thought, 'How can I fix this?'".

In practice, the answer was to write a new song, Does It Ever Cross Your Mind, that reframed the argument.

" Of all the corners of the universe / We wound up hand in hand, " he sings over a twangy banjo. " Some may call it a coincidence / But I prefer design."

It's one of 23 songs he recorded in Nashville over a period of just three weeks.

Only 10 created the cut for Thrasher. The other 13 are being mixed "in the slowest, slowest possible way" for a separate album, maybe next year.

Although he admits, "I don't know what the future holds" for the band, all this solo activity doesn't mean the end of The Killers.

"We're still together, we're still going to make another record there's something beautiful about ageing gracefully, " he notes.

Meanwhile, a student of music history, he knows that longevity requires evolution – and this new batch of country songs could even signpost The Killers' next incarnation.

"It's a shame when you see people doing that and trying to hold on, " he notes. "I always bring up John Lennon or Tom Petty as great examples of inhabiting their age."

There's a curious sadness to his predicament. Falling in love with music is a radically different proposition to making it your career; and, like plenty of middle-aged rock bands, The Killers feel beholden to their earliest hits.

In short, brandon Flowers: Is fame worth it? I' m not sure anymoreThe Killers frontman is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.