Brothers—and cousin—in arms

 

Glastonbury is now in their midst, deciding whether or not to go to Hooters for a postgame celebration. Most of the time, this doesn’t bother the Kings.

“As long as I get paid a fraction of what all the shitty bands that are famous in America make and can own my own house and buy a nice car,” says Jared, “I don’t care where I’m famous.”

But while the Followills mouth the expected platitudes about being happy with the career they have, and will enthusiastically enumerate the virtues of being able to walk to the grocery store unmolested in their hometown, they’re hardly indie aesthetes. “We’d all like to be something bigger at home,” Caleb told me earlier. “I don’t want my family to have to gather around a computer to watch our biggest show.”

The struggle is to reach the people they should theoretically know best. “I’ve always been conscious of thinking, ‘I don’t want to alienate Americans,’ ” says Caleb. “Every vehicle I mentioned on Because of the Times was a Chevrolet. I want Americans to get the music, to turn their heads and say, ‘Hey, this is an American band. They might be playing miles away, but this band is writing these songs in our backyard.’ ”

“It’s hard to be a rock star

when everyone in your band knows
everything about you.”

★ ★ ★ ★ CALEB FOLLOWILL

^{he following night, Nathan, Caleb, and} T ^{their better halves head to a bar called Loser’s. It’s an unremarkable place, but} a frequent hangout for Music City artists _{and executives.} “_{Caleb usually gets} drunk and picks a fight with some big-ass country singer there,” Nathan told me earlier in the day.

Tonight there are no big-ass country singers to

scrap with, only family. The spark is a best-of-five Texas shuffleboard match that pits the increasingly soused Followills against each other. The requisite trash-talking soon morphs into an argument over the game’s rules. The sniping escalates and gets personal. Girlfriends and fiancées are dragged into it. Finally, Nathan, who, up to this point, seemed more interested in playfully winding Caleb up, looks serious.

“I was just having fun,” he says, jabbing his finger in his brother’s direction. “I’m not all about trying to look a certain way for a magazine story. We can’t live with your bullshit anymore, Caleb.”

“You’ve been living off my bullshit for years, bro.”

Nathan slaps the table and stands up. “All right. I’ll be the bigger man and walk away.” And he does.

“This is nothing,” Baylin says, laughing. “It happens every time they get drunk together.”

At the table, though, Caleb is still fuming. He looks around the bar and bemoans Nashville. (“It’s such a slow fucking place.”) He says he’s contemplating moving out of town, maybe overseas.

“If we’d lived in L.A., New York, or London, we could’ve been bigger,” he says. Then he leaves.

When I talk to him a few days later, he says not to make too much of his jawing with Nathan. “It was probably the booze talking,” he says. “When we get boozy, everybody claims they have the biggest role in the band. It’s hard to be a rock star when everyone in your band knows everything about you.”

As for leaving Nashville, he has no plans to do so. He’s got his frustrations with the Kings’ modest Stateside success, but he’s trying not to lose perspective.

“To be big here, you have to be Nickelback or 3 Doors Down,” he’d told me over lunch the previous week. “If we’re just considered one of the best of the cool bands, that’d be awesome.” Taking a slurp from his margarita, he’d nodded his head intently, as if trying to convince himself.

“At the end of the day, that has to be good enough.”

 

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