Just Listenin to Kings o’ Leon to the Beat

I’m eleven years old, on holiday through Europe. My dad is driving to Pompeii and I’m in the back seat. On Call from Kings of Leon’s third studio album, Because of the Times is playing through the speakers. I’m watching the rain splatter across the window as we fly down the highway.

I’m sixteen years old, getting ready to go to a house party. It’s Summer, I’m close to finishing school. I wear winged eyeliner. In my earphones, Soft from Aha Shake Heartbreak is playing. I wish I had a top that said ‘Aha Shake’, just like Lily Aldridge.

I’m nineten years old, on my way to a date. My stomach churns sweetly, my car stinks from too many sprays of Chanel Mademoiselle. I turn the music up in my car to calm my nerves. It’s Supersoaker from Mechanical Bull.

Kings of Leon made their debut with an album called Youth and Young Manhood. Yet, they have been the soundtrack of my womanhood. What is it about Kings of Leon that makes them resonant for women?

My infatuation with KOL was born from my mum’s adoration with the borderline maniacal runs of frontman Caleb Followill. I had never known a voice like that: this totally unique hyper-masculine sound which seemed to conceal deeply feminine visions of women, love, revelry and longing.

Here were these four men, emerging with serious faces and voluminous 80’s shags from country towns of America, following their travelling preacher father and spreading their alt-rock sound. True rockstars with skinny jeans, cropped t-shirts, cross necklaces and leather jackets, spilling sensual, almost Sappho-esque sonnets about being infatuated with the lips, eyes, nipples of women and succumbing to reveries of drinking and sex.

There is something very sensitive in the lyrics of these songs, almost as if they are confessionals portraying the duties manhood demands of them which they struggle to live up to. There is an openness; a surrendering that occurs in these songs: a femininity that lies beneath the masculine exterior of KOL. Perhaps this is why I was not at all surprised to hear their feature on Lana Del Rey’s White Dress: “When I was a waitress wearing a tight dress, handling the heat. I wasn’t famous, just listening to Kings of Leon to the beat”.

The appeal of Kings of Leon can be attributed to the seamless blending of their more masculine exterior with their tender handling of subject matter. Caleb’s voice is undeniably passionate, slurring, deep, cracky and twangy. His lyrics are cryptic yet simple when they need to be: see “I won’t ever be your cornerstone” (Pyro, Come Around Sundown). Matthew’s guitar riffs strike a chord (literally) somewhere between melancholy and bliss. This gives songs a feeling of anticipation and excitement, but also despair and longing. Jared’s bass follows these sensations like a subconscious shadow, like lingering thoughts. Nathan’s drums often come crashing hard and fast, giving a weight to songs while making them easy to lose yourself in.

Their most recent release, When You See Yourself, is an extension of this feminine-masculine balance. Though their style has changed, each song still contains uncanny glimmers of who they were during the times of Youth and Young Manhood: sensitive rockstars.

The concept of the album largely revolves around what you think when you take a look at the person you are and who you’ve become. This translates beautifully into the videos and visualisers for this album where creative director Casey McGrath duplicates, reflects, highlights, conceals, blurs, cuts and superimposes digital effects on silhouettes of the men. I feel this album is maybe the ‘softest’ of their discography, and for this reason it strikes me as particularly introspective. It reminds me of moving through the mundanity of life while you’re simultaneously undergoing a budging emotional transformation which is subtly changing your perspective on the things you thought you knew. It feels familiar, synthy, paced, hopeful, sombre, reflective, dreamy and blissful, yet somehow this cohesive Kings of Leon country-infused rock style is also threaded through each note.

You smile
Your lips beguile
You look impeccable
Cutting through the room like a knife
Sharpened leather fastened tight
Oh, so insatiable

Golden Restless Age

I remember seeing Kings of Leon live when I was about 18. I sat next to my friend who I would later start dating. He was always very masculine by nature: independent, strong-willed, assertive, protective. He had a strong personality, arrogant sometimes. We conflicted a lot when we first became friends. But that concert brought out another side to him. I remember turning to him under the soft shadows of the concert lights, as Caleb began the first lyrics of Use Somebody, and I watched as a tear fell silently down his cheek.

Kings of Leon kisses the most vulnerable parts of you when you lest expect it, when you’re buried in a rock ballad or lost in the charm of a guitar riff.

My mum always used to say my ex-boyfriend looked like Caleb Followill.