'One of the most beautiful, pure voices in all of rock ‘n’ roll': Bruce Springsteen gave Brandon Flowers his flowers at The Ivors
Bruce Springsteen paid a heartfelt tribute to Brandon Flowers at The Ivors with Amazon Music.
Bruce Springsteen has gushed that Brandon Flowers has "one of the most beautiful, pure voices in all of rock ‘n’ roll."
The Boss presented The Killers with the Special International award at The Ivors with Amazon Music at London's Grosvenor House on Thursday (22.05.25).
The 'Dancing in the Dark' rocker - who featured on The Killers' 2021 track 'Dustland' - paid a glowing tribute to his friend and collaborator and recounted the first time he heard the Las Vegas band.
He began: “I haven’t been to Sunderland so I’ve got my voice tonight. The first time I heard The Killers and songs of Brandon Flowers, I was walking past my high school-aged son Evan’s room. I was just passing by, and the song I was listening to through his door just stopped me. I popped my head in and said ‘Who’s that?’, and he said ‘That’s The Killers, pop.’”
He continued: "I was standing there, and I heard that classic line from ‘Somebody Told Me’: ‘Well somebody told me you had a boyfriend / Who looked like a girlfriend / That I had in February of last year’ and I said ‘That’s a clever line’. Took me a minute to figure out, and then I said ‘That’s a f****** clever line.'
“What really synched the whole deal was it was tied to this massive hook. It was like the earworm of all earworms, that from here on in, you’d be singing somewhere in your head for the rest of your life. So for the next week, I found myself going ‘I had a boyfriend then had a girlfriend sometime around February’… I didn’t have the lyrics exactly right, but they melody stayed in my head forever.
“I bought the record, ‘Hot Fuss’, it’s filled with catchy lyrics, enormous hooks. ‘Mr. Brightside’, ‘Somebody Told Me’, ‘All These Things That I’ve Done’, just great, great songs. It came out June 15th, fantastic time to come out because it made it the summer record of all summer records.”
Brandon Flowers
He went on: “After that came ‘Sam’s Town’. ‘Sam’s Town’ was a big, big change for Brandon and The Killers. They really went towards heartland music, they had a great record called ‘When You Were Young’ and albums filled with more terrific songs. They came out of Las Vegas, which is a strange place for a band to come from – most bands end up in Las Vegas, they don’t come out of Las Vegas."
The 'Born in the U.S.A.' hitmaker later revealed he would love to perform 'Quiet Town' from their latest LP, 2021's 'Pressure Machine', with The Killers one day.
He said: “They had great records all the way, up to the recent ‘Pressure Machine’, which is one of my favourites. They use unique voices in between songs to tell stories about poverty and opioid addiction and domestic abuse and suicidal ideation. It really is a one-of-a-kind record, and has a song ‘Quiet Town’ that I hope one of these days we’ll get to sing together."
He finished: “I’ve been lucky to appear in a video, ‘Dustland’ with Killers and Brandon, and I also shared the stage with them at Madison Square Garden. Brandon has one of the most beautiful, pure voices in all of rock ‘n’ roll, they’re simply one of the best live acts working out there right now. They’ve got that great bass flip that has that touch of electro-pop that gets people dancing. I gotta f*****’ figure that s*** out. Love you Brandon!”
Reacting to the heartfelt speech, Brandon told BBC News: "That was really cool.
"He went out of his way to come here. I love him."
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