Brandon Flowers on how Alice Deejay influenced The Killers song ‘Jenny Was a Friend of Mine’
Ahead of their upcoming compilation album Rebel Diamonds, The Killers frontman Brandon Flowers has taken to social media to share the story behind one of their original hits, ‘Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine’.
To start their countdown to the release of the compilation, Flowers shared a video about “the first song that all four of us got our hands on” when discussing ‘Jenny Was a Friend of Mine’. The song formed the opener to the band’s debut record, Hot Fuss, in 2004 and one-third of their “murder trilogy“.
Flowers recalled practising in drummer Ronnie Vannuci Jr’s garage most nights, trying to hone his use of a newly purchased synth. “I had just purchased this keyboard, this synthesiser, a Nord Lead Two,” he explained, “And it was a thousand bucks. And that was a lot of money for me. And it was a very big purchase, and I figured I better learn how to use this thing and apply it to this band that I was in.”
He continued to remember: “Everybody was so capable of their instruments, and everybody had their parts, and it came down to the end of the song, and I felt like I wanted to have something that was really identifiable that I would play.”
Flowers chose to borrow from his surroundings, “harkening back to music that I was hearing in the clubs on the [Las Vegas] Strip,” particularly Alice Deejay’s iconic ‘Better Off Alone’.
The frontman recalled how the song inspired “this big beautiful, dramatic thing that whenever it was played in the club, everybody was very excited. And that’s where this came from. So the time came for me to come up with something, and I was definitely thinking of those big lines that I was hearing when this came on.”
Rebel Diamonds is set for release on December 8th via EMI. Revisit ‘Jenny Was a Friend of Mine’ and watch Flowers’ explanation of the track below.
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