During their headline performance at this year’s Mad Cool Festival in Madrid, The Killers have debuted a new song titled ‘Boy’. Check out footage of the song and our interview with the band below.
“Do you wanna be the first to hear us play a new song right now? It goes like this,” frontman Brandon Flowers told the audience during their main stage set last night (July 7). After playing the new song, Flowers asked the crowd, “Si or no?” with them responding “Si” alongside roars of applause.
Speaking to NME ahead of their set, Flowers explained how the track was a leftover from 2021’s ‘Pressure Machine‘.
“We’ve been teasing it a little bit,” he told NME. “It was the song that took me back home and was sort of the impetus for writing [2021 album] ‘Pressure Machine’. What’s interesting is that it just didn’t make it onto the record – but its absence is not a reflection of the quality of the song. It was an aesthetic decision to keep it off the record.”
He continued: “There’s an optimism to it. It’s in the dust, it’s in the gutter, and it’s looking at the stars. It’s writing in more of a new wave vehicle.”
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Flowers also revealed that the band had been working on their next album – with material to be released later this year.
“We just had a few days off and Stuart [Price, producer] came and visited us on the road,” he told NME. “We’re sending things back and forth, and ideas. I’m talking with Shawn Everett [producer] too, and it’s nice to have that combo.”
He added: “You will hear singles this year. The full record will probably be early next year, but there will definitely be more releases this year.”
Last year saw The Killers release their seventh studio album, ‘Pressure Machine’. Speaking to NME last year for a Big Read cover story, drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr said the band had already started work on a new “heavier” album that would see all four members reunite. Lead guitarist Dave Keuning didn’t appear on 2020’s ‘Imploding the Mirage’, while bassist Mark Stoermer sat out recording sessions for ‘Pressure Machine’.
“It’s a little bit more canyon rock,” Flowers said of the songs they were working on for their next record. “Maybe a little bit more traditional Killers, I guess.” Vannucci added that he was expecting something “a bit heavier and more clench-fisted” than ‘Pressure Machine’. “I could see us going in that direction: something a bit more energised.”
Mad Cool 2022 continues tonight (July 8), with performances from Muse, The War on Drugs, Black Pumas, Haim, Incubus, Alt-J and more. It’ll continue over the weekend, with sets from the likes of Florence + the Machine, Pixies, Kings of Leon, Phoebe Bridgers, Foals, Royal Blood, Leon Bridges, Sam Fender and Jack White.
Check back here at NME for the latest news, interviews, photos and more from Mad Cool 2022.
NME is an official media partner of Mad Cool Festival 2022