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Kings of Leon's history is the epitome of a mythological rock & roll story. The Followill brothers are sons of a preacher man who were raised on the road throughout the South, traveling from one Pentecostal church service to the next. They were shattered by a divorce, transformed by illicit substances and the stoner music of Led Zeppelin and rewarded with a Nashville record deal for their grinding garage-boogie sound and raw, Southern gothic lyrics.
The Followill boys — Nathan (born June 26th, 1979), Caleb (born January 14th, 1982) and Jared (born November 20th, 1986) — grew up watching their father Leon, a Pentecostal preacher, instill the fear of God in parishioners across the heartland. Forbidden to listen to secular music, they spent their early childhoods being home-schooled, watching church choirs and occasionally banging on drums during services. The boys' fates as followers of fundamentalist Christianity seemed sealed until 1997, when Leon Followill resigned from the church and divorced his wife. The divorce rocked the Followills' world, and afterwards, the two eldest brothers moved to Nashville, hoping to break into music. They quickly ran into Nashville songwriter and former new waver Angelo Petraglia, who turned the brothers on to the secular music of the Rolling Stones and Johnny Cash. In 2000, the two met a singer who helped them find a manager.
Kings of Leon, named for their father, were born when younger brother Jared and a cousin, Matthew Followill (born September 10th, 1984), came into the fold. At first, Nathan and Caleb's musical influences were few. But Jared, who briefly attended public schools, had learned about the music of the Pixies and Velvet Underground. The boys began woodshedding, and by 2002 Kings of Leon had interest from nine labels. A bidding war ensued, with the band ultimately choosing RCA Records.
The group's debut EP, Holy Roller Novocaine, and album, Youth and Young Manhood — both produced by Petraglia and Ethan Johns (son of Led Zeppelin and Who producer Glyn Johns) — came out in 2003. The band's retro-chic look — long hair, mustaches, Seventies-style clothing — and blend of Southern boogie with gritty garage rock inspired comparisons to both Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Strokes. Kings of Leon were hailed by the British press as the second coming of rock & roll, being named everything from 2004's "Best New Band" to "the kind of authentic, hairy rebels the Rolling Stones longed to be." But the band failed to make much of an impact in the United States, where reviews were generally lukewarm and the modern rock audience generally disinterested. In the U.S., Youth sold only 100,000 copies compared with the 750,000 copies it moved elsewhere. When Kings embarked on a tour, the band became the cliché of rock & roll excess and the British press went along for the ride. Stories of sex, drugs and sightings with models followed the home-schooled boys, who just a few years earlier hardly knew what sex, drugs and rock & roll meant.
The group's highly anticipated second album, Aha Shake Heartbreak, came out in 2005, debuting at Number Three on the British charts. Kings added more experimental touches — the angularity of British art-punk band Wire — to their still-very-raw aesthetic. A tour supporting U2 upped the band's profile in the U.S., and the album reached Number 55 on the Billboard 200. In late 2006, just before release of Kings' third album, Because of the Times, the band opened for Bob Dylan at some shows. Times, released in April 2007, found the Kings moving even further away from their short songs with immediate hooks, but the general sound and substance remained the same, with lyrics about pregnant girlfriends and black Camaros, and the album reached Number 25.
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