The

Interview

All that fine, feathered Killers

singer Brandon Flowers wants is

to be a larger-than-life rock star,

given to grandiose statements

and office-unfriendly outfits. But

he may have been born at the

wrong time. “Maybe the idea is

outdated,” he says. “I hope not.”

By DaviD marchese

Photographs by Ture LiLLegraven

Bthe dressed-down Killers lead singer is fidgeting on an oxblood leather love seat in the lobby of Hollywood’s historic Roosevelt Hotel—as well as figuratively—dude can’t help but dig deep. “I know I say things that other people don’t,” confesses Flowers, 27. “I process what I’m thinking and say it anyway. I won’t wear a muzzle.” And why should he?

RANDON FLOWERS IS on the couch. Both literally—

The Sin City Mormon’s proclamations of his band’s greatness have made him one of the most recognizable, polarizing, and eminently quotable rock stars of his generation.

And one of the most talented, too, equally at ease with dance-floor fillers (“Somebody Told Me,” from the Killers’ glossy, Britpop-tinged debut, Hot Fuss), Dustbowl epics (“When You Were Young,” off the more ambitious and more divisive Sam’s Town), and Pop Art philosophy (“Human,” the blockbuster, if lyrically befuddling, lead single from their latest, Day & Age). Yet despite the success, beautiful wife, and year-and-a-half-old son—Ammon, named after a prince from the Book of Mormon—Flowers is restless.

“You can’t save the world with music,” he says, clutching a pillow to his chest. “But I can try. I have the same job as Bruce Springsteen. I have to go as far as I can with it.”

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