Kings of Leon, a band that climbed a steep staircase to stardom in the past two years, has been unstable for quiet some time and the image they have built up in the limelight is just now crumbling.
Not long after lead singer Caleb Followill walked offstage in the middle a Dallas show Friday night, the band has announced that they are cancelling the rest of their U.S. tour. Going strong since 2009, with the unexpected popularity of the 3-minute-long song Sex On Fire, it seems that the Followill boys have been running nonstop; playing festivals and selling out arenas…and maybe just plain selling out along the way.
As some may or may not know, the band has been around since 1999 and, skepticism aside, most bands don’t last a decade. Even considering their run, it is apparent that this group was not ready for overnight superstardom.
Recently, the three brothers released a documentary, Talahina Sky, about their dysfunctional family and childhoods, for which they blame their drug and alcohol abuse. Living with a Pentecostal preacher for a father who spoke out saying his sons would burn in hell, in regards to their rockstar lifestyle, surely couldn’t have been easy. Then again, it is not something to be broadcast to the rest of the world without some sense of either the brothers’ masochism or self-indulgence.
Sure, this band is more than just power chords and brooding. Recently they have opened their closet full of skeletons – now it’s just a matter of keeping their beloved audience’s curiosity. Coming full circle with lyrics from 2003’s Youth & Young Manhood‘s most honest song:
Everybody says this place is beautiful / and you’d be so crazy to say goodbye / but everything I see in this town is pitiful / and I’ll be getting out / as soon as I can fly / Life goes by / on a Talahina Sky / And all the boys are lookin’ for their trouble
to the opening track of 2010’s Come Around Sundown:
I wanna be the one to give ’em all the world / and give ’em all the feeling of it / just a little taste of it / this could be the end.
But their sound has, in fact, changed over the years; the words becoming more and more inward, angry, and passive-aggressive; like the freeing line from Come Around Sundown‘s No Money:
And we’re all just pissing around / cut loose in this f***ing town / I ain’t coming back
Only time will tell…
Mimi
Mimi's blog 