Kings of Leon

Preachers' sons

Kings of Leon are the brothers Caleb, Nathan and Jared Followill and their cousin Matthew Followill. The brothers grew up in Oklahoma and Tennessee with their father, Ivan Leon Followill, a United Pentecostal Church preacher, and their mother, Betty-Ann. Matthew was raised in Mississippi. When their father resigned from preaching and their parents divorced in 1997, Nathan and Caleb moved outside Nashville, where they met the songwriter Angelo Petraglia. He helped them hone their songwriting and introduced them to Thin Lizzy, the Rolling Stones and the Clash. Jared and Matthew followed to Nashville in 1999, and the band took its name from their grandfather Leon.

By 2002 Nathan and Caleb had signed to RCA Records, which at first wanted to put a band together around them. Nathan said they answered that they would buy their little brother a bass. Caleb said they brought Matthew up from Mississippi. Nathan said they locked themselves in a basement for a month and by the end had Molly's Chambers, California Waiting, Wicker Chair and Holy Roller Novocaine. The EP Holy Roller Novocaine followed on 18 February 2003, co-written and produced by Petraglia.

Two garage albums

Youth and Young Manhood came out in Britain in July 2003 and in the United States that August. Rolling Stone's Greg Kot heard a band that knew when to lay back and let things simmer. The Guardian's Betty Clarke called them "the kind of authentic, hairy rebels the Rolling Stones longed to be." Pitchfork was unimpressed. The record reached number 3 in the UK, but in the US it sold about 100,000 copies against 750,000 abroad. Its promotional single was Red Morning Light.

Aha Shake Heartbreak followed in late 2004 in Europe and in February 2005 in the US. Recorded with Ethan Johns in Los Angeles, it was made live in the studio with no overdubs, Rolling Stone's David Fricke reported. The Bucket went to number 16 in Britain. In 2005 and 2006 the band toured with U2, Bob Dylan and Pearl Jam.

Arenas

Because of the Times arrived on 2 April 2007 and went straight to number one in the UK and Ireland. Only by the Night, recorded in 2008 at Blackbird Studio in Nashville with Jacquire King and Petraglia, made them a much bigger act. Its opener, Closer, was praised by NME, and its first two singles, Sex on Fire and Use Somebody, carried it. The album entered the UK chart at number one with more than 220,000 sales in its first week, and it reached number four in the US after 48 weeks on the chart. It was the third best-selling album of 2008 in the UK and the best-selling album of 2008 in Australia, and the band says worldwide sales exceed 6.2 million.

They headlined Glastonbury in 2008, won two Brit Awards in 2009 and took the Grammy for Record of the Year for Use Somebody at the ceremony of 31 January 2010. Reviews were divided. The Guardian's Alexis Petridis wrote that much of the record was made with arenas in mind, and Pitchfork gave it 3.8 out of 10. Rolling Stone's Christian Hoard praised the effects-laden Zeppelin stomp of Crawl.

Since then

Come Around Sundown (2010) debuted at number one in the UK and number two in the US. In July 2011 Caleb left the stage in the middle of a show in Dallas, the band ended the concert, and the rest of the US tour was cancelled. A hiatus was announced that October. Mechanical Bull (2013) reached number two on the Billboard 200 and number one in the UK, and Walls (2016) reached number one on the Billboard 200. With When You See Yourself (2021) the band became the first to sell a newly released album in the form of a non-fungible token. Can We Please Have Fun came out on 10 May 2024 on LoveTap Records and Capitol Records.