Trivia / The Killers (Band)

• Absurdly Short Production Time: From a band known for allowing for relatively lengthy gaps between albums in their later years, the gap between Imploding the Mirage and Pressure Machine being less than a year surprised a lot of fans.
  • The band has already hinted at working on TK8 shortly after Pressure Machine was wrapped with it promised to be the first album with all four founding members of the band present since 2017, however they did say there would be some delay between it and Pressure Machine due to returning to the touring circuit... that still didn't stop them teasing out the potential producers of TK8 Shawn Everett and Stuart Price before Pressure Machine got its digital deluxe release. Ultimately TK8 was delayed after the initial concept fell through, and the finished songs were included as tracks on the greatest hits album Rebel Diamonds.
• Author's Saving Throw: Brandon Flowers was very cocky in the band's early years and often gave his unsolicited criticism of other bands including Green Day and Panic! at the Disco (it was bad enough one blogger in 2008 even put Flowers in their "Top 4 Assholes in Rock" list alongside Axl Rose and Roger Waters). This attitude faded as The Killers aged and got more experienced, and Flowers himself spoofed it in "The Man" describing himself sarcastically in all the same sort of self aggrandizing language he used in his youth before going into how that cocksure attitude eventually collapsed in on itself.
• Black Sheep Hit: "Mr. Brightside" is a touch more ‘garage band’ than the more polished sound that the band would stick with. There is a good reason for this: Mr. Brightside is among the first songs the band wrote, and effectively the only one from that era to survive the process of cutting songs to create a cohesive debut album.
• Bonus Material:
  • Contractual obligations forced the band to release Direct Hits a greatest hits compilation roughly ten years after Hot Fuss. Perhaps though recognizing the absurdity of a greatest hits album with only four prior studio albums and one b-sides collection at that point, the band did write two new pieces "Shot At The Night" and "Just Another Girl" to fill out the greatest hits album with some new material for fans.
  • Notes from a Quiet Town which was released to coincide with Pressure Machine getting a deluxe digital edition. Notes is shot on physical film, and showcases Nephi, Utah and the people living there and is roughly 30 minutes long.
• Fan Community Nickname: The Victims.
• Irony as She Is Cast: 'Just Another Girl' has Dianna Agron play as the lead singer. Never once does she sing - but they Cast the Expert in lip-syncing.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The vinyl boxset for all the studio albums released from Hot Fuss to Wonderful Wonderful is also the only place to get Live From Royal Albert Hall on vinyl. The live album has yet to been released as a standalone vinyl purchase.
  • Also... the official hot sauce boxset.
• The Pete Best: The band's original lineup featured Dell Neal on bass and backing vocals, and Matt Norcross on drums. Norcross was briefly replaced with Brian Havens, before both Neal and Havens left the band to be replaced with Mark Stoermer and Ronnie Vannucci, forming the band's long-running lineup that became famous with Hot Fuss.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • In an interview Brandon and Ronnie once gushed about how much they enjoy Foxygen and wish they could "sound like that." Foxygen member Jonathan Rado was brought on to produce Imploding the Mirage and Pressure Machine shortly after, and performs many musical parts in both albums especially guitar in Imploding with Keuning absent.
  • Phoebe Bridgers' cover of "Human" lead to her singing a duet with Brandon Flowers in "Runaway Horses."
  • Fan Stevo Jacobs recreated the cover of Pressure Machine in a color photograph then posted it on Instagram inspired by the original black and white shot on the original album release. Stevo's photo would then be used as the cover art for the album's later digital deluxe re-release.
  • Humorously, Flowers himself can act like this around the musical icons which inspired the band, with their interactions with The Cars, New Order, U2, Bruce Springsteen and Lou Reed almost always allowing Brandon's inner fanboy to slip out a bit. Prime example Flower's shock when he got a text message from an unknown phone number that signed off as "Bruce" and he debated briefly if it was actually The Boss texting him, or some prankster.[1]
• What Could Have Been: With the momentum from Imploding the Mirage and Pressure Machine the band went ahead with producing TK8, with the possibility of reuniting all four original band members in studio to work on the album. However the choice to go in a more 80's inspired electronic/rock direction caused creative issues and Brandon would ultimately express a desire to work on more folk rock songs such as what was done in Pressure Machine. Teasing fans with a new LP, eventually the proposed TK8 was downgraded to a shorter EP, before being canned outright. Instead the finished songs from TK8 ended up becoming singles for the 20th anniversary greatest hits compilation Rebel Diamonds featuring "boy", "Your Side of Town" and "Spirit" as surviving tracks from the canned album. Shortly after the release of Rebel Diamonds a fourth song from the canceled album "We Did It In the Name of Love'' was released as a stand-alone track on social media.
• Working Title:
  • Pre-release review copies of Day & Age were titled Sway & Rage by "The Humanoids" to prevent online leaks. Battle Born followed with pre-release copies named Cattle Horn by "Vegas."
  • Both fans and the band often refer to future unannounced albums as TK#, with '#' being the album number. For example, Pressure Machine was TK7.

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