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Brandon Flowers
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Brandon Richard Flowers (born June 21, 1981) is the vocalist and keyboardist of the Las Vegas-based post-punk band The Killers.
Flowers, the youngest of six children, was born on June 21, 1981inHenderson, Nevada (outside Las Vegas) to parents of partial Scottish and Lithuanian ancestry.[1] He has one older brother and four older sisters.[2] Flowers's family lived in Henderson until he was eight and then moved to Nephi, Utah.[2] Brandon lived in Nephi until his junior year in high school, when he moved back to Las Vegas. His mother was a homemaker and his father worked for a grocery store.[2] His parents raised Brandon and the rest of the family as active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Flowers remains a devout member of the faith.[3][2] He has since attributed his fashion sense to his doting sisters.[4]
The person most responsible for Flowers's musical development is his brother Shane, 12 years his senior, who showed him Smiths videos and U2's Rattle and Hum movie.[2] His older brother also introduced him to the Cars, the Beatles, Morrissey, and the Cure.[2] Musically, Flowers identifies as an anglophile and also as a fan of the bands New Order, the Smiths, and Pet Shop Boys. He credits the latter's song "Being Boring", especially the lyrics "I never dreamt that I would get to be/The creature that I always meant to be", as a major life influence.[3] He has stated that "It was really weird because other kids were buying Tool and Nirvana and I was buying the Cars and the Psychedelic Furs. I was pretty alienated as a kid."[2]
Flowers once used a Ouija board and gained a fear of the number 621, which relates to his birthday, June 21. Flowers is convinced he is going to die on that day. He said: "It's just stupid, it is not a way to live. Once I had to fly to Glastonbury on my birthday; that was a real mess."[5]
Flowers, after dropping out of college, was a bellhop for a while at the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.[citation needed] In 2001, he was abandoned by the first band that he was in, a synth pop band known as Blush Response, after he declined to move with the rest of them to Los Angeles, California.[citation needed] Shortly thereafter, Flowers attended an Oasis concert, and realizing that he wanted to make the transition from a keyboard band to a true rock band, began searching for a guitarist.[citation needed] He responded to an ad that Dave Keuning had placed in the paper that listed, among other bands, The Cure and Oasis as influences. Keuning later stated that his first impression of Flowers was "I thought he had weird shoes... He had the same shoes Oasis had - Clarks!".[3] After several short-lived bassists and drummers, Flowers and Keuning were joined by bassist Mark Stoermer and drummer Ronnie Vannucci and they became the Killers in August 2002.[3] Vannucci later said that, even with songs like "little dwarf versions of what we have now, Brandon wasn't afraid to just get up there and just do it. You need that when you're trying to get something off the ground. As far as the drive goes, Brandon was never half-assed."[3]
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, his parents have always supported his decision to become a rock singer, and were often the only people in the audience at The Killers' first performances in the band's early days.[citation needed] Although primarily a vocalist and keyboardist, Flowers plays bass guitar live in concerts for the song "For Reasons Unknown".
Flowers was known for initiating feuds between The Killers and other bands, such as The Bravery, Fall Out Boy, and Panic at the Disco.[citation needed] On July 14, 2006, however, he apologized to the bands in an interview to AOL Music, saying "I'd like to take it all back. These people are just doing what they want to do, just like I am...I'm actually a nice person and I love people. I just am opinionated, and sometimes jealous. It's not something I'm proud of." Frontman Sam Endicott (of The Bravery) and bassist/frontman Pete Wentz (of Fall Out Boy) reportedly received, and accepted, telephone apologies prior to the article's publication. With regard to the criticisms leveled at Panic at the Disco, Flowers said "I don't even know what their music's like, or if I would even like it...That made me feel even worse, to think they could have been fans of ours and I hurt their feelings. That's just stupid."[6][7] Flowers has also criticized Green Day for what he sees as their calculated anti-Americanism. Specifically, Flowers found the video of Green Day performing the song "American Idiot" in the UK distasteful. The taping of the concert, featured on Bullet in a Bible, shows thousands of Europeans singing along to "American Idiot". He said, "I just thought it was really cheap. To go to a place like England or Germany and sing that song - those kids aren't taking it the same way that he meant it."
Canadian-American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright wrote a song about Flowers called "Tulsa" for his fifth album "Release The Stars". Wainwright has stated in numerous interviews that it was inspired by their first meeting in a bar in Tulsa, Oklahoma. According to Wainwright, Flowers has yet to contact him and reply to the song.[citation needed]
Flowers also had a feud with Tom DeLongeofAngels & Airwaves after Tom called him a "boast biter". This remark came when Flowers was quoted saying Sam's Town would be "one of the best albums in the past twenty years". DeLonge made a similar remark before the release of his band's debut album, We Don't Need To Whisper.[citation needed]
Flowers won NME magazine awards in 2005 for "Best Dressed" and "Sexiest Man."[8]
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