Kings Of Leon’s Caleb Followill has said that the band’s forthcoming album has left him “completely fulfilled”.
Followill made these comments as the band sat down with Dan O’Connell of Radio X to discuss this new album, ‘Can We Please Have Fun’, which arrives on May 10.
The album which was previewed by the Kings Of Leon last week, can also be pre ordered here.
On the album, Caleb Followill shared this statement.
He said, “It was the most enjoyable record I’ve ever been a part of,” while bandmate Nathan Followill agreed, adding: “It’s like we allowed ourselves to be musically vulnerable… I love it when a rock band is not embarrassed to admit that every song doesn’t have to be on 11″.
Along with previewing this album, Kings Of Leon also announced a new world tour, which will also include a show at Dublin’s Marlay Park in June. More on this here.
“Whenever the title came about there was, like, this conversation happening between the people that work with us and the people at the label and stuff”, Followill replied when asked by O’Connell if the album’s name was a statement of intent, rather than a question.
“And they were like, ‘is it like a question, is it an exclamation mark, what is it? And for me, I didn’t really know, it was really just a frustrating request”.
“enjoy the process”
On the title, Caleb Followill explained that the name epitomises the enjoyment that the band felt when putting this album together.
“You know, ‘can we please have fun?’ And I meant that, like, as in can we enjoy this process and not overthink it and just get back to going in there and making music that made us happy, and never consider the outcome, you know?”, he said.
“Let’s not think about what we’ve done in the past that was successful – or what we’ve done in the past that wasn’t successful – let’s just think about right here, right now. What makes you excited? And that is what we did. We went in there, and to the point of the end of the album, we just like, ‘man, we still have more”.
“we did have fun”
He continued, “We just wanted to keep going, it was like we just kept beating out the stuff and every song just kept getting better and the song would just get ticked off the list. But in the process, we did have fun. I know people… That word, you know, people are really latching on to ‘fun’ and it has been a positive thing”.
“Like, all of the press that we’ve done and everything that’s been like a little bit of a lightness to it that you don’t get when you have, like, an album title with seriousness hanging over it”.
Concluding, Caleb Followill stated, “But yeah, we went in there and it was a very selfish album for us; it was like, ‘this is only for us.’ We didn’t have a label at the time, we were free agents, if it failed it was on us; if it was successful, it was on us. Luckily, after we were finished, then we did get a record deal”.
“And then it was like, ‘well, jeez.’ I’m glad it wasn’t one of those records that they came in and were like, ‘alright, now I need you to write some hits”.
Sharing news of this album last week, Kings Of Leon released their new single ‘Mustang’. Check that out here.
