The Followill brothers, Nathan, Caleb and Jared, were brought up on the road in the American south by their mother and Pentecostal preacher father, travelling from one one-horse town to another, sleeping in cars or at relatives' homes between preaching engagements, until their alcoholic father was defrocked and it was time to do their own thing. Nathan played drums and Caleb sang and played guitar; together they came up with some songs. Soon they were joined by cousin Matthew Followill on guitar and little brother Jared on bass.
Kings Of Leon's debut album, Youth & Young Manhood, is a masterpiece of rough, dirty blues and rockabilly riffs. It has all the craggy authenticity of swamp rockers Credence Clearwater Revival, recast with the rawness and thrashing energy of a garage rock band. The lyrics evoke stories from the underbelly of southern life - experiences the boys had, characters they met and tales they heard on the road, of bar-room brawls and murders, of whorehouses, fallen men and loose women (and, on the track Trani, a woman who turns out to be a man). "Each song has a part of us in it," says Nathan, the eldest brother at 23, though he seems older. "But part of it is fiction as well, because we have wild imaginations."
The story of the brothers' upbringing is so steeped in rootsy southern gothic romance that some writers have implied that it's all too good to be true. "We thought that was funny," says Caleb, 21, "but if we were going to make up a story, we'd probably make up something a little more glamorous." These days, they lead a dual existence - still up-and-coming in the US, where the album has sold some 80,000 copies; in Europe, bona fide rock stars.
In the UK alone, the album has sold 300,000 copies, and they are headlining a tour here next month. This is mainly down to the fact that record companies like to create a buzz in the UK before tackling the far bigger US market: the album was released here a few months earlier, and they have already played two sets of UK dates this year.
Today, Kings Of Leon are in New York to support the Strokes, with whom they have been touring for the past month. After having their photographs taken, they sit and sup their beers in a midtown restaurant. They are sweet-mannered boys, with mellow southern accents but none of the macho swagger their music suggests. They tell me a story about how they used to hunt squirrels and birds, but the one time Caleb shot a woodpecker he felt really guilty. And when Jared accidentally shot a rabbit, he fed it cold pizza in the hope it might recover. "But it just flipped over and died," he says remorsefully. "I swear to God, I felt bad about it."
Kings Of Leon look as if they have come straight from Woodstock - thrift-store-style tight flairs and vintage T-shirts, long hair in disarray and plenty of facial hair. The youngest, 17-year-old Jared, is a little more spruced-up in smart white loafers. At their father's church services in "little bitty poor towns" across the south, says Caleb, "nobody cared what they looked like or what they sounded like - it was all very much in the moment. Which is why, if you see a picture of me live on stage, it looks like I'm taking a shit." There's an intensity about Kings Of Leon that is quite rare - on record and on stage, there's not a moment of self-consciousness. The songs they grew up with were "oldies", as Caleb puts it. "Old soul, old R&B, black gospel, Chuck Berry - hearing gospel every night, I think we were more attracted to real music, more broken-down music." But, even more than this, you can put the band's energy down to the fact that they were performing at their father's evangelist church services long before they got into rock'n'roll.
Nathan played drums to accompany his father on bass and his mother on piano, and worshippers danced in the aisles during the family's 15-minute sets. A Pentecostal service, like a Kings Of Leon gig, is an emotional, exuberant experience; on one of their best tracks, Holy Roller Novocaine, Caleb growls, "Lord's gonna get us back, I know, I know" through the chorus until the song ends in an almighty, hysterical crescendo of guitars - you can't help but wonder if their church days will ever be behind them.
Kings Of Leon are keen to stress that they see themselves as a rock band from the south, rather than as a "southern rock band" - they don't listen, for instance, to Lynyrd Skynyrd or the Allman Brothers Band, and would sooner credit the White Stripes as an inspiration. And while they may look as if they have been transported straight from 1972, their sound could only be a product of the 21st century. "We were on the road so much that we weren't really paying attention to our heritage," says Caleb. Jared is quite defensive on the subject, automatically equating southern with redneck. "I don't think we're that southern," he says. "We're not racist, we don't tote guns around [apart from the odd hunting expedition, presumably] and do stupid bullshit like that - we're just normal people. If we were overly southern, we wouldn't hang out with the people we do: our friends are from New York and all over, and they wouldn't hang out with stupid people." Caleb sees it slightly differently. "Morally, we were raised the right way. We're good guys, we open the door for a lady and all that, so in that sense, yeah, we're southerners." Their mother, Betty Ann, is said to be the embodiment of the southern gal: she will always invite you in for cherry pie and her parting phrase to her boys is: "Stay sweet."
What may seem romantic from the outside, however, wasn't always so great from the inside, and their frenetic childhood had its drawbacks. The "revivals", as their father's preaching sessions were known, lasted anything from three days to 12 weeks, so it was a truly itinerant life - the boys were mostly schooled by their mother. There were just two years when they spent six months and then 18 months in the same place, and "it kind of felt like home", says Caleb. "People picture this great travelling lifestyle. There were moments that were awesome, and then there were moments that we don't think were that awesome. I guess it was tough, and it shows more on us now than it did then, because at the time it was just our lives and we didn't know it was weird." If you made a buddy or found a girlfriend, it could never last long. "It kind of made us colder, it made it easier for us to walk away from people." It also brought them closer as brothers - if there was something they wanted to tell a friend, they would just tell their brother instead. In many respects, it must have been good preparation for being on the road as a band. "Totally," says Nathan. "And a bad preparation for life after," adds Caleb.
Certain members of the band have "their girls in certain ports who they see occasionally", says Caleb, but, unsurprisingly perhaps, none of them is in a serious relationship. "I find it hard to be in stable relationships," says Caleb. "For me, it's impossible. It's weird, you go through the stage of being whoever you are so you get the chance to be with girls, but it's like, now we're doing the opposite, I want to know she's a genuine person. I'm over the girls who are there because of my name and all that - I don't want to sound like a sexist or something, but you know what I mean." Not that they don't believe in true love. "I've never found it," ponders Caleb. "A lot of people I know thought they'd found it and they lost it eventually. I don't know, man, I hope..." Then he stops abruptly and laughs. "Shit, we sound like Coldplay or something, talking about relationships."
The brothers took their father's and grandfather's name, Leon, for the band, and they acknowledge that their childhood has been a gift when it comes to songwriting. "If we hadn't seen what we'd seen," says Nathan, "we'd be writing the same kind of songs everyone else is writing." But Jared objects to all the interest in his father. "I just think it's absolutely fucking stupid," he says, seething with teenage fury.
Still, it wasn't all bad. Every Thanksgiving there would be a family reunion, and cousins and uncles would line up waist deep in creek water, chewing tobacco, with some beer on the riverbank. They would fish for bass, catfish, perch. Their mother's sisters all married preachers, too. Did they ever think of going into the family business? "As a little boy I did," says Caleb. "I thought all of us would. Every little boy wants to be their dad, and then later on they want to be the opposite of their dad." Some of their preacher relatives haven't taken too kindly to the band - one of them even sent the boys a letter trying to discourage them. "I can understand why they wouldn't like it if they read the press," says Caleb. One NME coverline read "Shootin', snortin', screwin', Kings Of Leon Get Mean". "It was about our songs, not us, but still our uncles were, like, 'Why would you want to portray that?' " And as for any strong religious faith, well, "That was our past," he says firmly, "ever since 1997 to 1998 when our parents divorced, and our dad got out of doing what he was doing - because his nerves kind of got to him," he adds, diplomatically.
Unlike his two elder brothers, who grew up in a "church bubble" - no TV, no rock music - Jared settled in Oklahoma at the age of 10, when his father left the church and separated from their mother, and so had a more "normal" childhood - he was able to go to school and make friends. "That's why I'm so much cooler," he says, with a mock smoothness. Caleb didn't mourn the change in lifestyle that came when the preaching stopped, just the break-up of a tight-knit family. "Same as it is for anyone whose parents split." It was soon after that that Caleb and Nathan took some songs to a country music management company in Nashville. Before long, they were picked up by the A&R team who signed the Strokes.
Now the boys own a house in Tennessee with a pool - they're the first in their family to own property - and they still seem a little wide-eyed about their success. It's been "wonderful" being on tour with the Strokes, says Caleb. "Every night, something amazing happens, and then we look at each other next day and we're like, wow, we can't believe it." In his laid-back way, he says he is happy enough to be "under the radar" in the US. "If people are talking about us, we love it, but if everyone's talking about you, that just makes some people hate you. Either way, as long as we're doing what we love. If we get to the point where we're not, that's when we're hanging up our dancing shoes."
It's time to go to the venue and, as we make our way to Madison Square in a cab (the concert is in the 5,000-capacity theatre there), Jared tells me how much he loves New York, and Chicago, and London, and how he is sure he will love Paris, too, when they go there. Playing Europe is a very different experience, he says, because they're so popular there. Unlike his brothers, Nathan makes no bones about the fact that he'd like to be able to come home to the US and sell out shows. When they go home to Tennessee, no one knows who they are. "They think we're gay," says Jared, "because we all live together, and we have long hair and stuff, and we go grocery shopping together."
"Quieten down up there, Matthew," shouts Jared at the still silent Matthew who is sitting up front with the driver. No response. Ever since their first interview, when they "humiliated" themselves (so badly they won't go into details), 18-year-old Matthew has hardly spoken in interviews, says Jared. (Later, I ask Matthew if they pick on him. "You could say that," he says with a resigned smile.) They must get sick of each other sometimes. "Yeah," says Nathan. "Like Jared, I hate him right now. Totally." Jared looks ahead, apparently oblivious. "We've learned now," Nathan continues, "that when it builds up and someone needs to go off on their own, it's best to let them cool down in their own way, like some of us like to chill in a movie theatre, or take a walk or take, like, lots of prescription drugs on our day off and just dream."
Later that night, Kings Of Leon get a rapturous response - they may be under the radar of the US mainstream, but clearly they have a devoted following in New York. The crackling ferocity of their performance comes as a surprise after their mild-mannered demeanour off stage - they carry themselves with an assured, swaggering confidence, even the quiet Matthew. Their avalanche of sound is so tight they seem almost telepathically connected, and Caleb is a mesmerising front man, his rasping southern growl squalling and whispering with extraordinary power. As their songs lurch from manic thrashes to stripped-down sultriness - the bluesy Molly's Chambers, the simmering Spiral Staircase and the languorous Trani - it all unravels with a slick, thrilling brilliance.
After the Strokes' set, a crowd squeezes into Kings Of Leon's dressing room to congratulate the band. "Awesome" seems to be the consensus, amid much hugging and a sea of Nashville accents - the crew and management are all southern. Nacho, the roadie cousin and honorary band member, smiles amiably in a corner, and Jared puts on a Patsy Cline CD as people file in - friends, acquaintances, a couple of blond beauties, probably models. Albert Hammond Jr of the Strokes drops by, a gaggle of girls not far behind him, and then the actor Liv Tyler sweeps in and chats animatedly to a wide-eyed Jared and, as ever, laid-back Nathan. People start drifting off after a while, then we are ushered to the aftershow party at a bar down the road. In the back room, a DJ is playing the Ramones, everyone is ignoring the New York no-smoking law, and the band are swamped by excited record company executives and enthusiastic girls. Their mother's phrase springs to mind - stay sweet