If you'd consider asking somebody a question and them answering it a 'conversation', then I 'conversed' with Kings of Leon yesterday. Well I went to their press conference and I asked them a question, and they answered it. As you'd expect, Caleb the lead singer was the most loquacious with his answers, then Jared (the guy on his left), then Matthew (the guy on the far left), then Nathan the long haired drummer. The band were in Auckland for their
Only By The Night tour, their fourth time playing in New Zealand. Sadly, they had no memory of their previous NZ tours "due to the drinking".
Here's what they had to say for themselves.
On what the family thinks of their success:
"They're all claiming to be named Leon at this point, all of our family has been behind us 100% and they just miss the fact that we don't get to spend much time with them anymore, but they appreciate how nice the Christmas presents are getting though, so I don't think they're complaining too much... Cars, houses..."
Which songs are their favourites:
"A lot of our favourite songs don't even make it on the albums. You make an effort to put the songs on there that are gonna cross over to territories that you haven't touched on yet, but I (Caleb) like country music, so I like songs like Wicker Chair and Talihina Sky and stuff like that. Favourites change when you make the records, but as a whole I think we've liked Manhattan a lot, True Love Way, Ragoo, Knocked Up, Molly's Chamber - just joking, (whispering) we hate that song."
On whether they'd be keen to jump off the Harbour Bridge:
"Do you guys literally just jump off? I (Matthew) would love to do it but then I'd be scared that I'd hurt my back or something and then these guys would be mad and you guys would be mad because we couldn't play the show. As long as I (Caleb) get paid, I don't care what happens."
On their haircuts:
"I (Matthew) think haircuts are a normal thing. I don't know we just thought it was time for a change, it gets really hot in Tenessee."
On painkillers and alcohol in the writing process:
"I (Caleb) did take meds for my shoulder but then you know they inspired me to write songs so I kinda took them for a little longer too. I find that I can be more honest if I can be a little altered, so I'm always drinking a little bit when I'm writing."
Then there was a break in questioning as Jared realised where he was, and pointed out towards Devonport:
"That mountain over there, or that hill, is that where they have the little cement cave things that you can go through? In 2004 I stayed up until sunrise and went over there at like eight in the morning, so wasted, and went through all those little things and got lost. And so I do definitely remember New Zealand."
On how they got into tight jeans:
"Actually it was an accident that we even started wearing these. My mom used to alter our pants, which basically just meant making them snug on the legs, but they were never really tight at the bottom. And she messed up a pair of Jared's pants, and he walked out and he had on skin tight pants, and we all called him Peter Pan at first, but then it was like, that looks pretty cool! Well I (Jared) went to a party, and I didn't come home alone..."
On the cult of celebrity:
"You can't really pay that much attention to it. It's fun to read, I wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is get my computer and like, what did I do? I don't know it's just something to pass the time when you're on the road. The stuff that we read is just hilarious, and the stuff that we allegedly do is - we get up to some crazy stuff, but the stuff that they come up with is way better than what we're actually doing. They always get one fact that's right in there, but everything around it is wrong. We witnessed a fight backstage at the Brits, and had nothing to do with it, and it turned into 'Caleb beat Matt up'. I (Caleb) just saw on Wikipedia that in high school I was really great at gymnastics."
On the subject of ladies - who has the most success and have they got any tips? (My question):
"We all raise our hands at once. I think whoever has the best success with ladies is whoever is single at the time. We usually have girlfriends and the one person that's single just gets their pick. It's been years since we got tons of ladies, or, a year, there are good days though. But I'll be honest, back then our standards weren't too high. It was like 'I slept with 40 girls, well I slept with 50 girls,' yeah but they were all ugly (laughs)."
On onstage pranks:
"I hate when for the last show a band does something stupid. This one tour in America a male stripping cowboy got on the stage during King of the Rodeo, and that was annoying. The crowd was really wanting to hear that song and you just messed it up by having a stripper out there."
On how they got into music:
"We were always into music with church, because that was our contribution to what our dad was doing - he was preaching and we were playing music. And afterwards we would get in the car with girls on the way to the pizza place and we would sing Boyz II Men - it was just for the ladies."
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