Kings Of Leon Say Justin Bieber Sounds Better With A Cocktail

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According to the Kings of Leon themselves, the title of their brand-new album Come Around Sundown was taken from country singer John Anderson’s song “Small Town.” It also happens to be a pretty apt description for the album, which is a nocturnal, sultry thing about, well, nocturnal, sultry things.

And, unlike pretty much everything people have said about the album, the Kings themselves actually sort of agree with that assessment. Because, in a lot of ways, Sundown is the soundtrack to their lives … the overwhelming majority of which happens to occur very late at night.

“I don’t think we had any intention of making the songs more about the night time, but maybe the music we were listening to was inspired by that, or maybe just the fact that we enjoy the nighttime,” frontman Caleb Followill said. “I think you want to listen to it whenever you don’t have a lot of stuff going on and you can actually just relax … I think it sounds better with a cocktail, probably. I don’t know, though — I don’t really listen to that much music in the morning.”

It’s worth mentioning that pretty much all the Kings’ music is rather cocktail-friendly … they are, after all, a band that’s not exactly averse to the occasional party. But on Sundown, they’ve wrapped the majority of their boozy, woozy rock in a downright nightly haze — inspired by, as bassist Jared Followill explained, the music of Beach House and LCD Soundsystem, which the band was listening to during the writing process.

And while those inspirations are new, the basic formula KOL used on Sundown remained largely unchanged: One part sweaty, Southern rock, three parts cocktail-inspired bad behavior. Like the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

“Everything [is better with a cocktail],” Jared Followill smiled. “Justin Bieber sounds better with a cocktail.”