Kings of Leon’s Caleb Followill Is Different Now. What Happens Next?
The frontman clawed himself back from the cliffs of grief to fall in love with music—and his own life—again. Now, for the first time in a long while, he feels like his act’s true greatness is still ahead.
Sometimes it’s the shit you don’t want to hear that wakes you up. At least that’s been the case for American rockers Kings of Leon in recent years. In 2022, while headlining dates in Australia and New Zealand, the foursome—made up of lead singer Caleb Followill and his older and younger brothers Nathan and Jared as well as their cousin Matthew—was approached by their management team about the then-upcoming twenty-year anniversary of Youth & Young Manhood, their debut record. Was it time for a greatest-hits album or a nostalgia tour? The band bristled. “I wasn’t ready for that yet,” says Followill, forty-two.
It wasn’t that he felt too young or that an anniversary rerelease felt too lame. It was that looking back would tear the singer’s attention away from what was happening inside him at that very moment, from the dramatic personal transformation that was just on the horizon. Freshly in his forties and grappling with the sudden, unexpected loss of his mother the year before, the singer was in a period of intense soul-searching that would, soon after, change the way he approached every facet of his life—from his music and band to his marriage and children.
Followill was already writing at that time, and after splitting with their longtime label in January 2023, Kings of Leon decided to make a record just for themselves. They holed up in a studio outside Nashville and, with producer Kid Harpoon (Harry Styles) in tow, let it fucking rip. They got loud and a little weird. Toyed with punk and returned to the lo-fi, frenetic sounds that rattled their early LP’s. Through it all, Followill didn’t blink: “I had this unshakeable determination.” The result is Can We Please Have Fun (out May 10), a raucous and at times explorative twelve-song set that answers the question its title asks handily.
Kings of Leon have scaled the mountain more than once during their twenty-one years and, with this collection, nine albums. They’ve been the biggest band in the world with a hit song (“Sex on Fire”) they couldn’t escape. They’ve won four Grammys, including an all-genre Record of the Year trophy for “Use Somebody,” off 2008’s behemoth Only by the Night LP. They’ve partied harder and fought louder than damn near anyone else. But when Followill heard the finished Can We Please Have Fun for the first time, he fell to his knees. For the first time in a long while, he felt like their true greatness was still ahead.
This is the most. I was sad when the actual recording was finished. We were just clicking—and up until the end it was just like, “All right, what do we need?” And if somebody said, “What about a rock song or a ballad?” I was so inspired that I was like, “Any challenge, I’m ready for it.” That’s never happened before in our career.
In the beginning, you’re pretty creative but it’s to prove yourself, especially in this town. We live in Music City, so it’s a constant struggle to get people to respect you—unless you have a cowboy hat or your first name is Reba, and I have considered changing my name.
Do you write every single day?
I write every day, but not songs. I’ll start my morning writing. I usually write a couple of pages, just to clear my head. I read a book that inspired me. First thing in the morning, you write and work through your shit.
It’s a book called The Artist Way. My sister-in-law got it for my wife, and then my wife read it and loved it and gave it to me, and it sat in my office for a while. One day, I picked it up and it was just different; you read a chapter and you apply it to your life. But the one thing that really stuck with me was the morning pages.
For a long time, I would wake up and it was just stress, stress, stress. And it would take me a while to get through that. But with this, as soon as I write a couple of pages in the morning—it’s not like the stresses of the world go away, but you feel like you’re capable of tackling them.
