Return of the Kings

Kings Of Leon, the hardest-partying band of the noughties, have spent the last three years cutting down on the boozing, organising food festivals and fixing their shattered relationships. With seventh album ‘Walls’ ready to go, Mark Beaumont heads to Nashville to hear how the Followills became a family again.

“Is the ding-dong in shot?” Caleb Followill sucks on his third beer of a lunchtime photo shoot and adjusts a pair of eye-scorching aquamarine slacks, the better to frame the revered orbs and sceptre of the Kings Of Leon’s crown jewels for the camera. “I’m really milking it.” Before the bottle’s dry, this wayward King is leaping in the air performing karate kicks at the lens and studying each shot, muttering, “Should my eyes look glassier? Maybe I should’ve drunk more last night.”

Ding-dong comprehensively milked, Caleb and his band of brothers (and cousin) settle into the chillout area of their Nashville studio Neon Leon, a converted warehouse strewn with signs of rock’n’roll refinement. The lounge room is racked with fine wines and liquors, a hat-stand covered in wigs and hats speaks of post-jam cross dressing parties and a neon Michelob sign hangs over the theatre-sized stage area, illuminating a wall-mounted photograph of the band from 2003, back when they were millennial indie rock hopefuls tagged ‘the Southern Strokes’; hick-haired and nostril-deep in their wild youth and cocaine-fuelled young manhood.

Reports of a cleaned-up Kings Of Leon living like Ned Flanders during a particularly pious Lent ever since Caleb had an onstage meltdown in Dallas in 2011 – walking offstage midway through a show and prompting a year-long hiatus that was essential to stop the band disintegrating – have been mildly exaggerated.

“I definitely would not be having beer like this normally,” Caleb insists, flicking cigarette ash onto the carpet and raising a fourth bottle. “We just had a big dinner at my house and I got hungover so I have to drink. But we spend a lot of time sober, Palestinian Wall kinda cool.”