The story of The Killers

Las Vegas beginnings

Brandon Flowers was born on the twenty first of June 1981 in Henderson, just outside Las Vegas, the youngest of six children. When he was eight the family moved to rural Utah, and he spent his early teens in the small town of Nephi, where he felt like an outsider. His father drove old cars and played country music. His older brother Shane, twelve years his senior, brought home records by the Cure, the Smiths, New Order and Depeche Mode. At sixteen Brandon moved back to Las Vegas to live with an aunt. He was raised a Mormon, and later joked that being a Mormon in Sin City prepared him for the lion's den. His ambitions were modest. He wanted to be a valet parker, like several of his uncles.[1] [2] [3] [4]

In 2001 Brandon was fired from his first band, a synth pop trio called Blush Response. That same year he saw Oasis play the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, and hearing the crowd sing Don't Look Back in Anger, he realised he wanted guitars too. He answered a classified ad in the Las Vegas Weekly placed by Dave Keuning, a twenty five year old guitarist from Pella, Iowa, who had moved to Vegas a year earlier and found work at a Banana Republic store in the Venetian. The ad mentioned Oasis, the Smashing Pumpkins, David Bowie and Radiohead. At their first meeting Dave handed Brandon a four track tape. On it was a riff Dave had worked out with his amplifier stuffed in a closet full of clothes to muffle the sound.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Brandon came back the next time with lyrics and a melody. He had written them after his first serious relationship ended, when he walked into a Las Vegas bar called the Crown and Anchor and found his girlfriend there with another man. The song was Mr. Brightside, the first one the pair finished together. In November 2001, with a drummer named Matt Norcross, they paid for time at the Kill the Messenger studio in Henderson to record a demo. Dave's roommate Dell Neal joined on bass. Brandon suggested the band name. It came from a fictional group seen in the video for New Order's song Crystal. Some worried that people would mistake them for a metal band, but nobody could think of anything better.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

In January 2002 Brandon and Dave played a nervous open mic slot at Cafe Espresso Roma, near the university. It was the first time Brandon had ever sung in public, and Dave later called it the scariest gig they ever played. Full band shows followed across town, in front of bikers at one bar and goths at another. The Vegas scene was full of nu metal and rap rock, and a band in eyeliner playing British sounding new wave stood out. In the spring of 2002 Norcross was let go and replaced by a sixteen year old drummer, Brian Havens. Dell Neal left soon after, stressed and unsure about the band's pop direction. He is the only member who ever quit the Killers.[1] [2] [3] [4]

The line up the world would come to know formed in the second half of 2002. Ronnie Vannucci Jr., a Las Vegas native who had been drumming since the age of six, was studying classical percussion at UNLV and working as a photographer at a wedding chapel on the Strip. He played his first show with the band on the thirtieth of August 2002. Filling in on bass that night was Mark Stoermer, a Houston born guitarist from a local prog band who worked as a medical courier. Later that year Mark joined for good. The four then snuck into the university band room at night and rehearsed from midnight until four in the morning. Much of their first album was written there.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Hot Fuss

By 2003 record label scouts were flying into Las Vegas to see the Killers, often at a small transgender bar called Sasha's, later renamed Tramps. In May the band played a showcase there, with Dave in a big fur coat despite the desert heat. A Warner Bros. scout named Braden Merrick, who had found their demo on a website for unsigned Vegas bands, became their manager and took them to Berkeley to record with Jeff Saltzman. American labels came to showcases but passed. Then a British scout carried a demo to London, to a new independent label called Lizard King. Without ever meeting the band, Lizard King offered a deal on the strength of five songs. The Killers signed that summer.[1] [2] [3]

On the nineteenth of August 2003, Mr. Brightside premiered on Zane Lowe's show on BBC Radio 1. The following month the Killers flew to London for a week of club gigs, and on the twenty ninth of September Lizard King released the song as their debut single in a tiny run. It did not chart, but The Times gave it a rave, and NME admired how smartly the band borrowed from their heroes. The buzz sent American labels racing back, and the Killers were invited to play the CMJ Music Marathon in New York. They signed with Island Def Jam. By November they had finished recording their debut album with Jeff Saltzman, and they returned to Britain to support British Sea Power on tour. Brandon later said that in those early days the whole thing felt magical.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Hot Fuss came out on the seventh of June 2004 in Britain and about a week later in America. Years earlier, hearing the Strokes had made Brandon feel so outclassed that the band threw away every song except Mr. Brightside. Many of the new tracks were the Berkeley demos, kept for their spontaneity. Jeff Saltzman had run Brandon's voice through a plug in called Echo Farm on its default setting, and that slightly overdriven echo became the sound of the record. At Glastonbury that June, in the tent for new bands, the lights cut out near the end of their set and blazed back on for All These Things That I've Done. Brandon said the crowd for Mr. Brightside looked like footage of the Sex Pistols. In January 2005, seven months after release, Hot Fuss reached number one in Britain.[1] [2] [3] [4]

The singles kept coming. Somebody Told Me reached number three in Britain on its re release, and Mr. Brightside climbed to number ten on both sides of the Atlantic. Their future tour manager Ryan Pardey estimated they played more than two hundred and fifty shows in 2005 alone. They won best new artist at the MTV Video Music Awards and picked up a string of Grammy nominations. In July 2005 they played Live 8 in London, and their line I've got soul but I'm not a soldier was soon borrowed by Robbie Williams, Coldplay and U2. Hot Fuss went on to sell more than seven million copies worldwide, and spent more weeks on the British album chart than any other album that decade.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Fame came with friction. Brandon, young and awkward in interviews, took shots at other bands in the press, something he later called name calling and apologised for. In 2005 he married Tana Mundkowsky, a former teacher he had been with since the band's earliest days, in Hawaii. Then came a business split. The band fired Braden Merrick, the manager who had helped them get signed. In February 2006 Merrick sued for sixteen million dollars, saying they had stopped paying his twenty five percent fee on a contract that ran through 2007. The Killers countersued, claiming his management had cost them millions. The case was settled and dismissed in October 2009, with both sides wishing each other well.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Sam's Town

For their second album the Killers wanted something bigger and more American. They recorded mostly at the Studio at the Palms in Las Vegas with the British producers Flood and Alan Moulder, who were working together for the first time in a decade, and finished in London. The album took its name from Sam's Town, an old casino on the edge of the city whose huge sign Mark could see from his bedroom window as a boy. Brandon's heroes had shifted towards Bruce Springsteen, and he dropped the vocal effects so listeners could hear his real voice. Before release he declared it one of the best albums of the past twenty years.[1] [2] [3]

Sam's Town arrived in early October 2006 and sold more than seven hundred thousand copies worldwide in its first week, entering at number two in America and number one in Britain. Critics were split. The Observer gave it five stars, but Rolling Stone gave it two, mocking the band for copying Springsteen, and The New York Times called it painful. Some critics believe the backlash pushed the band in a new direction next time. Yet the record found a devoted following. In 2009 Rolling Stone's own readers voted it the most underrated album of the decade, and it has sold close to five million copies. Jon Bon Jovi praised Brandon for capturing a classic American vision.[1] [2]

The lead single, When You Were Young, gave the band their first number one on the American modern rock chart and their highest British placing, number two. Its video was shot in Mexico. The second single, Bones, marked the music video debut of the film director Tim Burton, who filled it with dancing skeletons, and it won best video at the NME Awards. In February 2007 the Killers won two BRIT Awards, best international group and best international album. They had also recorded an almost unplugged session at Abbey Road Studios, and in December 2006 released A Great Big Sled, the first of their yearly Christmas songs for the AIDS charity campaign Product Red.[1] [2] [3]

Brandon called Read My Mind the best song he had ever written. Its video found the band riding bicycles around Tokyo and checking into a capsule hotel, and Pet Shop Boys remixed it after seeing the band at Brixton Academy. By 2007 demand was so high that the Killers were headlining Madison Square Garden and festivals across Europe, including Glastonbury. The Sam's Town tour ran to more than a hundred and fifty shows and took them to South America for the first time. In November 2007 they released Sawdust, a collection of B sides and rarities. It included a cover of Joy Division's Shadowplay, recorded for the Anton Corbijn film Control, and a collaboration with Lou Reed called Tranquilize.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Day & Age and a pause

The next chapter began with a remixer. Stuart Price, who worked under names like Jacques Lu Cont and Thin White Duke, had already reworked Mr. Brightside. The band met him at his London home to talk about Sawdust. After dinner they went into his home studio and recorded a demo of a new song, Human, in about two hours. Brandon kept it off Sawdust because, he said, it was too good. Price went on to produce their whole third album. Demos flew between Las Vegas and London over the internet, and the band finished the record at their newly acquired studio in Vegas, which they named Battle Born after the motto on the Nevada state flag.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Human was released in September 2008. Brandon described it as Johnny Cash meets the Pet Shop Boys, and it reached number three in Britain. Its chorus line, are we human or are we dancer, baffled listeners everywhere. Brandon said it came from a remark by the writer Hunter S. Thompson, who complained that America was raising a generation of dancers, afraid to step out of line. The line later topped a poll of the weirdest lyrics of all time. Day & Age followed on the eighteenth of November 2008. Brandon called it their most playful record, like looking at Sam's Town from Mars, full of saxophone, steel drums and harpsichord.[1] [2] [3]

Under the bright surface were two very personal songs. The closing track, Goodnight, Travel Well, was written about the death of Dave's mother. A Dustland Fairytale was Brandon's tribute to his parents, who had met as teenagers, and he wrote it after his mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Day & Age became their third straight number one album in Britain. The world tour that followed reached every continent except Antarctica, including the band's first shows in Africa. In July 2009 they filmed their first live concert release at London's Royal Albert Hall, a venue Brandon knew from the Morrissey videos he had watched growing up.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

In January 2010 the band announced a break after six years on the road. The tour wound up in Melbourne that February. In early 2010 Brandon's mother Jean died of brain cancer, and tour dates in Asia were cancelled. That summer the Killers regrouped for a special occasion. At the invitation of President Barack Obama, they played the White House South Lawn on the Fourth of July 2010, at a concert saluting the military. During the break Brandon released his first solo album, Flamingo, an ode to Las Vegas that went to number one in Britain. Ronnie formed the side project Big Talk and finished his degree at UNLV in 2011. Mark released a solo album that year too.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Battle Born and the stadiums

The four reconvened in October 2011, and at first it was awkward. Brandon said they spent about a week just eyeballing each other in a room. The song Runaways broke the ice. Scheduling problems meant they ended up with five producers, among them Steve Lillywhite, Brendan O'Brien, Daniel Lanois and Stuart Price. During the promotion Brandon was nursing a painful left shoulder after surgery, and joked that his fist pumping was down to about seventy percent. Battle Born came out in September 2012 and became their fourth British number one in a row. Critics were lukewarm, but the tour took the band to new places, including Russia and China.[1] [2] [3]

On the twenty second of June 2013 the Killers headlined Wembley Stadium in London, a venue holding about ninety thousand people, and their first ever stadium show. Some had wondered if it was too ambitious. The Guardian's reviewer watched Brandon go from nervous to euphoric. The band played a song written just for the night, simply called Wembley Song, a cheeky history of their rise. Then, rather than rest, they raced across London to play a scrappy half hour set at a small club at two in the morning. That autumn they marked ten years since their first London show with a greatest hits album, Direct Hits, which included two new songs.[1] [2] [3]

Direct Hits was announced with a riddle. The band tweeted six lines of Morse code that spelled out the title of a new single, Shot at the Night, produced by Anthony Gonzalez of M83. Ronnie admitted the compilation was partly a contractual matter. Brandon's first choice of title was Cream, a joke on their rarities album Sawdust. In 2015 he made his second solo album, The Desired Effect, with the producer Ariel Rechtshaid. He admitted he wanted to fire Rechtshaid four times, but his wife talked him out of it after hearing one of the new songs. The album went to number one in Britain.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

In April 2016 the Killers opened the new T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip, joined on stage by Wayne Newton and the Blue Man Group. A month later came the first crack in the line up. Mark Stoermer announced he was stepping back from touring. He cited exhaustion after about a thousand shows, and he had also been left with hearing damage after a pyrotechnics mishap at a show in London. He stayed a member and kept working in the studio. That autumn the full band, Mark included, played Sam's Town in its entirety over two nights at the Sam's Town casino, to mark the album's tenth birthday.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Wonderful Wonderful and a band divided

The fifth album, Wonderful Wonderful, was produced by Jacknife Lee, whom Bono had recommended. Brandon called its lyrics the most personal and bare he had ever written. The song Rut was about his wife Tana's struggle with post traumatic stress disorder, and it pictures her acknowledging it and promising to break the cycle. Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits played guitar on Have All the Songs Been Written, a title that began as the subject line of an email Brandon sent Bono during a bout of writer's block. The swaggering single The Man looked back at Brandon's cocky younger self. Its cover shows his youngest son, photographed by Anton Corbijn.[1] [2]

On the sixth of August 2017, weeks before the album came out, Dave Keuning announced an indefinite break from the band, citing exhaustion and a wish to spend time with his son. His last show was Lollapalooza in Chicago that month. With Mark also absent, the Killers toured with hired hands, and long serving sideman Ted Sablay moved to lead guitar. Even so, Wonderful Wonderful became their first number one album in America, and their fifth straight number one in Britain, a record for an international act. On the thirtieth of September they played the Australian Football League Grand Final in Melbourne and invited a winning Richmond player on stage to sing Mr. Brightside.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Back home, tragedy was about to strike. On the night of the first of October 2017, a sixty four year old gunman named Stephen Paddock opened fire from his suite on the thirty second floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel onto the crowd at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip. He killed fifty eight people there and wounded hundreds more before taking his own life. Two more victims later died of their injuries. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in American history. On the first of December the Killers joined the Vegas Strong benefit concert at T-Mobile Arena, with Mark back on stage. It raised more than seven hundred thousand dollars for the victims.[1] [2] [3]

In January 2019 the band released a standalone single, Land of the Free, with a video directed by Spike Lee. It touched on immigration, gun control and police killings of Black Americans, unusually direct for a band that had always stayed neutral in elections. That June they headlined Glastonbury. Johnny Marr of the Smiths joined them for This Charming Man, and Pet Shop Boys came out too. The broadcast sent Mr. Brightside back up the British chart. Brandon was later asked about honouring the Smiths given Morrissey's politics. He said he did not regret it, because Marr should not be held back because of Morrissey.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Two albums in a pandemic

Work on the sixth album was a struggle. Brandon had moved his family back to Utah, and the band set up in a large house studio in Park City. Without Dave, Brandon said, they were making a dumbed down mannequin version of the Killers, and after six months they had almost nothing they liked. The fix came from two new producers, Shawn Everett and Jonathan Rado of Foxygen, and the band started again in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. When the song Caution needed guitar, Ronnie joked over Thai food that they should call Lindsey Buckingham. They shared a publicist, and the next afternoon the Fleetwood Mac guitarist walked in. His solo became the song's ending.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Caution came out in March 2020, just as the pandemic shut the world down. It topped the American alternative chart, thirteen and a half years after their previous number one there, a record gap. Imploding the Mirage, delayed from May, arrived on the twenty first of August 2020 and became their sixth straight British number one. Its cover is a painting by Thomas Blackshear called Dance of the Wind and Storm, which Brandon said became like another member of the band. In interviews, Ronnie was blunt about Dave, saying it had been years since he had been a productive part of the band. Dave later said the remark annoyed him.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Stuck at home, Brandon found his mind drifting back to Nephi, the Utah town of his teenage years. The result was Pressure Machine, released on the thirteenth of August 2021, a quiet concept album of small town stories. He wrote every lyric before any music. The songs deal with opioid addiction, poverty and a gay teenager contemplating suicide. Quiet Town recalls two local high school seniors killed by a train in 1994, when Brandon was in eighth grade. Between the songs, real Nephi residents tell their own stories, recorded by an NPR staffer the band sent to the town. It became their seventh straight number one studio album in Britain.[1] [2] [3]

Pressure Machine also brought Dave Keuning back. When the pandemic cancelled their tour, the band reached out, and he returned to the studio, where two of the songs grew from his guitar lines. This time Mark missed the sessions because of the pandemic. Bruce Springsteen, one of Brandon's great heroes, sang on a new version of A Dustland Fairytale, simply called Dustland, in June 2021. Brandon had sent Springsteen the original back in 2008 with a note thanking him. In October 2022, on the long delayed world tour, Springsteen surprised the crowd at Madison Square Garden and played the whole three song encore with them, including Badlands and Born to Run.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Rebel Diamonds and the road home

The band's next plan was a synth driven eighth album. They debuted a single called Boy at a festival in Madrid in July 2022 and released Your Side of Town in August 2023. Then Brandon pulled the plug. He told The Times that halfway through recording he realised he could not do it. The Killers were his identity and their songs filled the seats, he said, but he felt more fulfilled making music like Pressure Machine, and he was not twenty any more. Three songs from the scrapped album appeared on the greatest hits collection Rebel Diamonds in December 2023. It became their eighth number one album in Britain.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

That same August the band walked into a political storm. At the Black Sea Arena near Batumi, Georgia, on the fifteenth of August 2023, they kept up their habit of inviting a fan to play drums on For Reasons Unknown. The volunteer was Russian. Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and still occupies about a fifth of its territory, and parts of the crowd booed. Brandon asked whether he, an American, was not their brother too, and called the audience his brothers and sisters. Many people walked out. The band apologised, saying their message had been misconstrued, and Brandon later said he had been trying to calm an impossible situation.[1] [2] [3] [4]

In August 2024 the original four finally shared a stage again. For the twentieth anniversary of Hot Fuss, Brandon, Dave, Mark and Ronnie played the whole album at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Deep cuts they had ignored for years came back into the set. To mark the residency they released Bright Lights, the first recording with all four core members since 2017, with a video on a stage modelled on the famous Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign. By then Mr. Brightside had overtaken Oasis's Wonderwall as the biggest British hit never to reach number one.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

In May 2025, at the Ivor Novello Awards in London, Bruce Springsteen made a surprise appearance to hand Brandon the Special International Award. He called Brandon's voice one of the most beautiful and pure in rock and roll, and joked that most bands end up in Las Vegas, they do not come from there. Brandon replied that Springsteen regularly cold calls him just to check in. That spring the band also issued their Madison Square Garden encore with Springsteen as a Record Store Day release. In November, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they played for the induction of Warren Zevon, with Dave on a guitar Zevon had given David Letterman.[1] [2] [3] [4]

In 2026 Brandon turned to his father's music. His third solo album, Thrasher, recorded in Nashville with Everett and Rado and veterans like the harmonica player Charlie McCoy, came out on the twenty first of August 2026. He told NME that his childhood, which he had often described as a Norman Rockwell picture, also included drug abuse, domestic violence and physical fights, and that he only now felt able to write about it. As of 2026 he says the full four piece band has been meeting in Salt Lake City to write a new Killers album. More than two decades after a riff was born in a Las Vegas closet, Mr. Brightside has logged over five hundred weeks on the British singles chart.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

The people around The Killers

Brandon Flowers and Dave Keuning. Dave placed the newspaper ad, Brandon answered it, and their first meeting produced Mr. Brightside. Brandon writes the lyrics, while Dave helped write classics like Mr. Brightside, Somebody Told Me and When You Were Young. The partnership frayed in the late 2010s, when Dave felt his ideas were ignored and stepped away. He returned to the studio in 2021, and by 2026 the pair were writing together again in Salt Lake City.[1] [2] [3]

Brandon Flowers and Tana Flowers. Brandon has been with Tana, a former teacher, since the band's earliest days, and they married in Hawaii in 2005. They have three sons. Tana lives with post traumatic stress disorder, and Brandon wrote the songs Some Kind of Love and Rut about her. He has said writing Rut helped him understand what she goes through. She also saved one of his solo albums by talking him out of firing its producer.[1] [2] [3] [4]

The Killers and Braden Merrick. Merrick was a Warner Bros. scout who found the band's demo online, became their manager and set up the Berkeley recordings that became Hot Fuss. Once they were famous, the band fired him. He sued for sixteen million dollars in 2006 over unpaid fees, the band countersued over his management, and the dispute was settled in 2009 with the band thanking him for his contributions.[1] [2]

The Killers and Bruce Springsteen. Sam's Town leaned so heavily on Springsteen that critics mocked it, but the Boss became a friend. Brandon joined him for Thunder Road at the Pinkpop festival in 2009, and Springsteen sang on Dustland in 2021 and joined the band at Madison Square Garden in 2022. In 2025 he presented Brandon with an Ivor Novello award, recalling that he first heard the Killers through his son's bedroom door.[1] [2] [3]

The Killers and Stuart Price. The British producer started as a remixer of Mr. Brightside under the name Jacques Lu Cont. He produced Day & Age, most of Brandon's solo album Flamingo, tracks on Battle Born and Direct Hits, and later co-wrote Boy and Your Side of Town with Brandon. Brandon has said Price has become like a brother to him.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Brandon Flowers and Morrissey. Brandon grew up worshipping the Smiths and calls Morrissey one of his kings. He said a line about the romance of crime in Morrissey's Sister I'm a Poet inspired his murder songs, and the Killers opened for Morrissey twice in 2004. As Morrissey's politics drew criticism, Brandon admitted it was difficult to separate the man from his art, but said he would not burn his Smiths records.[1] [2] [3]

Ronnie Vannucci Jr. and Mark Stoermer. The rhythm section arrived together in 2002, and the band's early booker said that was when the Killers became a cohesive unit, with Ronnie the discipline and Mark the solid musician. Ronnie has said Mark almost intuitively knows what he will play. After Mark stopped touring in 2016, the band described him as still close and still contributing in the studio.[1] [2] [3]

Dave Keuning and Ronnie Vannucci Jr.. Ronnie is the most outspoken Killer, and in 2020 he said it had been years since Dave had been truly productive in the band. Dave said the comment annoyed him, but that the two get along well and he did not want to ruin that. When Dave returned for Pressure Machine, Ronnie said it was nice to have his element back after twenty years of playing together.[1] [2] [3]

The Killers and Matt Norcross, Dell Neal and Brian Havens. Before the classic line up, the Killers included drummer Matt Norcross, bassist Dell Neal, who performed as Dell Star, and teenage drummer Brian Havens. All three were gone by the end of 2002. Speaking in 2010, none of them said they regretted it. Havens said the band succeeded because of the four people it ended up with, and Norcross joked that his last Killers show was to six people.[1] [2]

Brandon Flowers and Richard Dawkins. In 2012 Brandon, a practising Mormon, found himself debating the atheist scientist Richard Dawkins on the Scandinavian talk show Skavlan. Brandon felt his best answers were edited out and objected to the way Dawkins dragged his church through the mud. He summed up their difference with a joke, calling Dawkins an unhappy old lemon tree and himself a peach.[1] [2]

The Killers and Oasis. Seeing Oasis in Las Vegas in 2001 made Brandon want guitars, and Dave's original ad listed them as an influence. On one of the band's first British trips, Noel Gallagher came backstage at the NME Awards to say he had worked out how to play All These Things That I've Done, which Brandon found surreal. In 2024 Mr. Brightside passed Wonderwall's British chart record.[1] [2] [3]

The Killers and Tim Burton. The film director Tim Burton made his first ever music video for the Killers, Bones, full of dancing skeletons, and it won best video at the NME Awards. Six years later he returned for Here with Me, shot in Blackpool with Winona Ryder, about a lonely young man who steals a wax figure of the woman he adores.[1] [2]

Rare facts about The Killers

• The Killers took their name from a fictional band seen in the video for New Order's song Crystal. Brandon, a devoted New Order fan, suggested it to the early line up. Some worried it sounded like a metal band's name, but nobody could come up with a better one.[1] [2]
• The band's marquee style logo was inspired by an Elvis Presley hits album Brandon spotted in a Las Vegas Virgin Megastore. The 2002 compilation ELV1S, 30 Number 1 Hits, used a marquee sign design. The band hired Ronnie's roommate's girlfriend to create their version, and they have used it ever since.[1]
• Before they were signed, the Killers sneaked into a university band room at night to rehearse. Ronnie was studying classical percussion at UNLV. With most of the band still working day jobs, they practised from midnight until four in the morning and wrote much of Hot Fuss there.[1] [2]
• Ronnie Vannucci Jr. once worked as a photographer at a wedding chapel on the Las Vegas Strip. He held the job while studying at UNLV. He finally completed his bachelor's degree there in May 2011, during the band's hiatus.[1]
• Brandon Flowers once worked as a hotel bellman in Las Vegas, looking after tourists' luggage. He also worked as a food runner at a brasserie on the Strip. His honest ambition as a young man was to become a valet parker, like several of his uncles.[1] [2] [3]
• Soon after moving to Las Vegas, Dave Keuning worked at a Banana Republic store in the Venetian casino. He had moved to Las Vegas from Pella, Iowa, in 2000. His parents ran a plumbing business back home, and he played in his high school jazz band.[1]
• Brandon Flowers and Mark Stoermer graduated from the same Las Vegas high school, four years apart. Mark left Chaparral High School in 1995, having played trumpet in its jazz ensemble. Brandon graduated from Chaparral in 1999 after moving back to Las Vegas from Utah.[1] [2]
• Before the Killers were signed, Mark Stoermer worked as a medical courier. He had studied philosophy and music at UNLV and played lead guitar in local bands, including the Negative Ponies, before switching to bass for the Killers.[1]
• The label that first signed the Killers had never met them. A British scout carried their demo to London, where the new independent label Lizard King offered a deal on the strength of five songs. The label's boss later said everyone in America had turned them down.[1] [2]
• Mr. Brightside first came out in 2003 as a run of about five hundred CD singles, and it did not chart. Its first review ran in The Times. The song only became a hit on its 2004 re release, when it reached number ten in Britain.[1]
• Dave Keuning wrote the Mr. Brightside riff with his amplifier stuffed in a closet full of clothes. The clothes worked as soundproofing in his small Las Vegas apartment. He recorded the idea on a four track tape and handed it to Brandon at their first meeting.[1]
• Brandon wrote the Mr. Brightside lyrics in a room he rented from his sister for two hundred dollars a month. He was nineteen or twenty and had just come out of his first serious relationship. He wrote the words with a pen on notebook paper.[1]
• Brandon has said Mr. Brightside is a direct descendant of David Bowie's Queen Bitch. He was obsessed with Bowie's Hunky Dory at nineteen. The cadence copies Bowie, he said, while his vocal delivery was an attempt at Iggy Pop's monotone on Lust for Life.[1] [2] [3]
• Mr. Brightside is the longest running hit in British chart history, with more than five hundred weeks in the top one hundred. In 2024 it overtook Wonderwall as the biggest British hit never to reach number one. It also ranks as the third biggest song of all time in Britain on combined sales and streams.[1] [2] [3]
• At Michigan Stadium, crowds of more than one hundred thousand college football fans sing Mr. Brightside in the fourth quarter. The tradition began at a 2016 game and took off in 2017, when fans sang the chorus unaccompanied in the rain. A college football video game now recreates the moment.[1]
• The Hot Fuss cover photo was taken in the suburbs of Beijing, not in Las Vegas. The picture dates from 2000. The Chinese characters on top of the buildings translate as construction material development.[1]
• Brandon's vocal sound on Hot Fuss comes largely from the default setting of a plug in called Echo Farm. Producer Jeff Saltzman, a former entertainment lawyer, was new to recording. The preset slightly overdrove the voice and added an eighty four millisecond delay, and he used it on nearly everything.[1] [2]
• The gospel choir on All These Things That I've Done is the Sweet Inspirations. They also sing on Andy, You're a Star. Brandon said the gospel idea came from U2, while the bassline was inspired by David Bowie's Slow Burn.[1] [2]
• Sam's Town is named after a Las Vegas casino whose sign Mark Stoermer could see from his bedroom window as a child. In 2016 the band marked the album's tenth anniversary by playing it in full for two nights at the Sam's Town Hotel and Gambling Hall itself.[1] [2]
• The Sam's Town cover features a desert bighorn sheep, Nevada's state mammal. The photographs were taken by Anton Corbijn, and the sheep also appears on the Bones single. Brandon once happily recited Nevada's state animal, bird, tree and plant to an interviewer.[1] [2] [3]
• Human was recorded as a demo in about two hours, on the first night the band met Stuart Price. They had come to his London home to discuss Sawdust. Brandon left the song off that rarities album because, he said, it was too good.[1] [2]
• Human was the top globally streamed song on Spotify in 2008. The service had only just launched. The song also reached number one in Norway and number three in Britain.[1]
• Each Day & Age single carried a painted portrait of a different band member. Artist Paul Normansell drew all four. Dave was on Human, Brandon on Spaceman, Ronnie on The World We Live In, and Mark on A Dustland Fairytale.[1] [2]
• The first Killers greatest hits album was almost called Cream. Brandon's joke was that after a rarities album called Sawdust, the best songs should be the cream. His sleeve idea showed the Hoover Dam holding back a reservoir of cream.[1]
• The Killers announced Shot at the Night with a tweet written in Morse code. The six lines decoded as The Killers Shot at the Night. The song arrived on the sixteenth of September 2013, ten years to the day after their first London show.[1] [2]
• At Wembley in 2013 the band sang a one night only song warning George Michael to stay away from cars. Wembley Song was written just for that show. It told a tongue in cheek history of the band and name checked earlier Wembley headliners and England's 1966 World Cup win.[1] [2]
• The Killers' Christmas singles raised more than a million dollars for the fight against AIDS. They released one each year from 2006 to 2015, with guests including Elton John, Owen Wilson and Jimmy Kimmel. The 2016 compilation added a song featuring Brandon's former elementary school teacher.[1]
• The Santa in the video for Don't Shoot Me Santa was played by Ryan Pardey, who booked many of the band's early shows. Pardey, a Las Vegas DJ who later became their tour manager, believes he was the first DJ to play the Killers in a club. A hidden track on Sawdust is about him.[1] [2] [3]
• Senator Harry Reid used to walk out to the Killers' recording of the state song, Home Means Nevada. Reid went to the same high school as Brandon's parents. Brandon first sang the song in elementary school and calls it one of his earliest musical memories.[1] [2]
• The Killers played the White House South Lawn on the Fourth of July 2010, in the middle of their hiatus. President Barack Obama invited them to a concert honouring the military. Brandon called it a monumental honour, and they paired Read My Mind with God Bless America.[1] [2]
• The Killers played Mr. Brightside on the roof of Caesars Palace for the Las Vegas Raiders' first home game. The halftime performance on the twenty first of September 2020 was broadcast nationally during Monday Night Football.[1]
• In 2020 the Killers sold the publishing rights to their songs from Hot Fuss through Wonderful Wonderful. The buyer was the investment firm Eldridge, which also held stakes in Rolling Stone, Variety and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The band kept its master recording royalties.[1]
• Mark Stoermer spent part of 2014 and 2015 playing bass on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins. He had been a fan since his teens. Billy Corgan asked him to tour behind Monuments to an Elegy, and Mark agreed once he heard the new songs.[1]
• Teenage drummer Brian Havens played with the early Killers under the stage name Buss Bradley. He met Brandon while stocking CDs at a Virgin Megastore. Brandon heard him tapping a pen on the floor and asked if he played music.[1]
• On tour, Brandon Flowers admits he sleeps better in a cramped bus bunk than in his own full size bed. He told The Independent in 2012 that he starts the night in the private room on the bus, then wakes up and moves to a bunk, which he called the womb.[1]
• Pressure Machine was mixed on a desk straight to tape, with no computer mixing allowed. Brandon said they wanted to keep the dust on it. The sound drew on Johnny Cash, John Prine and Springsteen's Nebraska, and the spoken interludes were inspired by This American Life.[1]
• The title Rebel Diamonds comes from a line in Read My Mind about stars blazing like rebel diamonds cut out of the sun. Brandon has called Read My Mind the best song he ever wrote. A Pet Shop Boys remix of it features Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe on extra vocals.[1] [2]
• When Brandon won the Q Idol award in 2012, he joked that he was now officially an American Idol. He insisted the solo honour would not cause tension in the band, saying it was common for the singer to get a little more attention.[1]
• At the 2025 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Dave Keuning played a guitar Warren Zevon had given David Letterman. Zevon handed Letterman the guitar after his final Late Show appearance in 2002. Letterman passed it to Dave for the Killers' tribute performance, saying it was going back to work.[1] [2]

Disputed stories

These stories are told often but the accounts don't agree. Here are the versions and who says what.