The David Bowie album that Brandon Flowers was obsessed with
Discovering the music of David Bowie proved to be a watershed moment for The Killers frontman Brandon Flowers, putting him on the right path and changing his perspective on the boundaries of sound. Bowie became his hero, and Flowers made it an obsession to study his work intently until he couldn’t physically listen to one album anymore.
Being born in 1981, Flowers was too young to enjoy Bowie’s commercial peak during the decade of his birth. It wasn’t until he became a teenager that The Killers frontman became wholly invested in the art form, which coincided with a tricky stage in Bowie’s career as he flirted with industrial rock, leading to a dwindling of his popularity.
At this time, the number of teenagers listening to Bowie was low, and although Flowers preferred music from a bygone era to contemporary acts, he had yet to cross paths with ‘The Starman’. However, upon hearing ‘Changes’, his life was illuminated, and Flowers made it his mission to seek out as much material by Bowie as he possibly could.
During an interview with The Independent in 2011, Flowers explained how he initially thought ‘Changes’ was a Bob Dylan song before finding out it was by Bowie and appeared on his Hunky Dory album. He described the LP as the “most important record to me” and claimed it represented the “pinnacle” of Bowie’s career.
This pivotal moment in his life occurred when Flowers was 18, which was the perfect age to have his mind altered by the magnificence of Bowie. Still, despite his mammoth success with The Killers, the late English singer-songwriter remains a benchmark for him whenever he steps into the studio, but he doubts he’ll ever be able to match 1971’s Hunky Dory.
Speaking to Zane Lowe on his Apple Music show, Flowers recalled: “When I got Hunky Dory, for whatever reason, it’s this masterpiece that seems unattainable to a mere mortal. But for me, it was like, ‘Oh, this is what I’m going shoot for.’ Really influential on me in my late teens. It’s funny because a lot of the groups that I grew up listening to were all of them were influenced by him.”
He continued: “And I didn’t get to him until the end of it. And so I had so much fun when I was 18 to 22, I OD’ed on it. Another highlight for us. He came to see us, I think, at the Bowery Ballroom before anybody even had cameras on their phones.”
Without Bowie, Flowers may have become a completely different artist, and it meant the world to him for the legendary musician to attend one of their early shows in New York. The Killers singer went on to explain how he was riddled with nerves during an encounter backstage after the show, which sadly proved to be his only meeting with his idol.
Watch Flowers discuss his experience of meeting Bowie below.
