Nashville alt rockers Kings of Leon are officially recording the follow-up to their 2013 LP Mechanical Bull. “We’ve already started pre-production in our studio for the next record, but the main thing on the calendar for 2016 is getting the record finished,” said drummer Nathan Followill to the Associated Press.
The four-piece plan on recording the still-untitled record in Los Angeles rather than Kings of Leon’s Nashville home base for a change in perspective. However, the band will be headlining a New Year’s Eve celebration in their adopted hometown of Nashville, along with Chris Stapleton, Kelsea Ballerini, Sugar & The Hi-Lows, The Whigs, Wild Cub and LANco, according to the AP.
It sounds like the group has made some progress since June. At that point, lead singer Caleb Followill told SiriusXM’s Alt Nation that Kings of Leon were still in the early stages of writing the record. “But record number seven, most people take like, what, five years to make that or something? So we’re still in the very early stages of our five-year plan for this next record,” said the frontman (via Rolling Stone).
Kings of Leon had their mainstream breakthrough in 2008 with the success of their fourth record Only by the Night featuring radio hits Use Somebody and Sex on Fire. The record topped multiple Billboard charts stateside, and took home the Grammy for Record of the Year. The anthemic single has sold more than 4 million copies according to Yahoo! Music. The group’s fifth (2010’s Come Around Sundown) and sixth record (2013’s Mechanical Bull) have also been commercially and critically successful.
And it sounds like the Followill brothers are excited to put out more material.
“Obviously there’s a lot of work that goes into [recording and promoting a record] and it can get stressful at times,” said Caleb Followill to the AP, “but we’re all in a good place and we’re having fun with it and we’re all excited to do something new.”
