The Killers

Las Vegas

In 2001 Brandon Flowers left the synth-pop band Blush Response and answered a newspaper advertisement placed by the guitarist Dave Keuning, who was looking for players who liked Oasis, the Smashing Pumpkins, David Bowie and Radiohead. Keuning already had a riff, Flowers supplied words and a chorus, and Mr. Brightside was among the first songs they wrote. They recorded a demo that November and played their first show, at an open mic night, in January 2002, billed as Killers. The name came from the bass drum of a fictional band in New Order's video for Crystal.

Drummers came and went until Ronnie Vannucci Jr. played his first show in August 2002, and the bassist Mark Stoermer joined that November. In 2003 their demo, posted on a local music website, reached Braden Merrick, a Warner scout who became their manager. Warner passed, but another scout, Alex Gilbert, heard the demo at SXSW and championed it in Britain. That summer the band signed to the British label Lizard King, and later to Island Def Jam in America. Mr. Brightside came out as their first single, in a limited pressing, on 29 September 2003.

Hot Fuss

Flowers said the band threw out most of its early songs after hearing the Strokes' Is This It, and only Mr. Brightside survived. Hot Fuss, recorded through 2003 with the producer Jeff Saltzman, mostly in Berkeley, California, kept many of its original demos. It came out in June 2004 and reached number one in Britain in January 2005, seven months after release, then stayed on the chart for 254 weeks. Mr. Brightside became a sleeper hit in America, peaking at ten in June 2005, and the album collected five Grammy nominations. In July 2005 the band played a single song at Live 8 in Hyde Park: All These Things That I've Done.

When we put it on in the car, that record just sounded so perfect.

Brandon Flowers on Is This It, 2012

Sam's Town and Day & Age

Sam's Town (2006), made with Flood and Alan Moulder in Las Vegas and London, split the critics, but it went to number two in America and number one in Britain. In 2007 the band headlined Glastonbury, won the BRIT Award for best international group, and gathered B-sides and rarities on Sawdust.

For Day & Age (2008) they turned to Stuart Price, who had remixed Mr. Brightside as Jacques Lu Cont. Flowers called it their most playful record, Sam's Town seen from Mars. Its first single, Human, went to three in Britain, and the album topped the British chart and reached six in America. The tour that followed ran until February 2010, and two nights at the Royal Albert Hall in July 2009 were filmed for Live from the Royal Albert Hall.

Break and return

In January 2010 the band announced a break. Flowers' mother died the next month, and he released his first solo album, Flamingo. The Killers came back with Battle Born (2012), their fourth British number one in a row, and in June 2013 played their biggest show, to 90,000 people at Wembley Stadium. Stoermer stopped touring in 2016, and Keuning went on indefinite hiatus in August 2017, weeks before Wonderful Wonderful topped the charts in both Britain and America.

Imploding the Mirage (2020) was made without Keuning. He returned for Pressure Machine (2021), a concept album about Flowers' childhood in Nephi, Utah, which Stoermer missed because of the pandemic. In 2019 they headlined Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage with Johnny Marr and the Pet Shop Boys as guests, and in 2022 Bruce Springsteen joined them at Madison Square Garden. In August 2024 the original four reunited to play Hot Fuss in full at a Caesars Palace residency in Las Vegas. Mr. Brightside, meanwhile, became the first song to spend 260 weeks on the UK singles chart and has now passed 500. In August 2026 Flowers said a new album was under way with Ariel Rechtshaid, Shawn Everett and Jonathan Rado.