Kings Of Leon on their “completely honest” album ‘O My Beloved’: “I finally allowed myself to address things I’d been scared to talk about”

Kings Of Leon have spoken to NME about their tender new album ‘O My Beloved’, which sees them strip things back, return to their country roots, and be “completely honest” with listeners.

• READ MORE: Kings Of Leon – ‘Can We Please Have Fun’ review: a return to their rugged roots… sort of

The 10th album from the Tennessee rock veterans is distinctly different to its 2024 predecessor ‘Can We Please Have Fun’. While that album saw frontman Caleb Followill and co throw caution to the wind and embrace a feel-good sound, this sees them showcase their most vulnerable, stripped-back sound to date.

Originally, the record was set to carry the same larger-than-life approach that took Kings Of Leon to headlining arenas and topping festival bills for years now. However, following the band having to scrap their tour earlier this year due to the singer breaking his foot, the band ultimately decided to go back to the drawing board and use the downtime to tackle some heavier subject matter that they previously pushed to one side.

“It wasn’t planned,” Caleb explained, sharing how he ended up writing about his childhood and loss of his mother. “We were just doing our thing in the studio, writing and recording some exciting stuff. But when I busted my foot, my frame of mind went somewhere else because I was feeling down on myself. I felt like it was my fault that we had cancelled a tour. So I was sitting at home with a broken foot and I started playing the guitar… the first song that I wrote ended up being ‘My Whole World’.”

Having the dates cancelled, he added, led to him injecting “a lot of love into” his lyrics, and feeling inspired to move away from the approach he had “grown accustomed to”, where he would simply start “digging in” and focus solely on getting “some fast songs and a ballad”.

“This time, it felt like we only needed to follow what was speaking to us, and then everything started to come together,” he continued. “Before we knew it, we had a handful of songs that all felt cohesive, and we had moved away from using the tricks that we’ve learned over years to make a song that would fit on the radio. It became about being honest and writing songs from a good place… then just seeing what happened.”

Check out the rest of the interview below, where Caleb and his brother and bassist Jared Followill also opened up about why younger generations are pushing artists to return to their roots, potential plans to celebrate 20 years of ‘Because Of The Times’, and whether they have plans to call it quits having already achieved more than they thought possible.

NME: Hi Caleb and Jared.  When you spoke to us last, you said that you learned that it “takes time” to heal from difficult periods. Those comments feel more aligned with this album. Are you now embracing things that have laid in waiting for a long time?

Caleb: “Yeah, there was a lot that we buried and hadn’t addressed. We lost our mother in 2021, and the reflex then was to bury ourselves in the studio, make another album and say, ‘Let’s forget about all this. Let’s hit the road. Let’s try to get back into a groove.’ In terms of the songs, I wasn’t allowing myself to face grief and the realities of life.

“Now, for the first time ever, I allowed myself to be completely honest and completely vulnerable. While I was writing those words, they were reminding me of moments throughout my childhood, and how little things now mean more to me than they did in the moment. It was therapeutic because I finally allowed myself to address some things that I’d been scared to talk about.”

It must be a bit daunting putting that forward and showing the world. Jared, how did you feel when you saw some of these lyrics Caleb had written? After all, a lot of them would have been about your life as well…

Jared: “I loved getting inside the writing process with Caleb and being a bit of a cheerleader, giving him confidence to continue what he was doing. I just wanted him to keep going down that path. Everything he was doing resonated with me, and I remember telling him one day about the power that he had. He could wreck people if he wanted to just by telling the truth.

“When it comes to our stories, people have heard the headlines – our dad was an evangelist preacher from the South, blah, blah, blah… But we’ve definitely been through some other stuff. Caleb has this ability to speak the truth in his lyrics, and this feels like our most complete album that we’ve ever done.”

Not only have you stripped the music back, you’ve also been revisiting intimate live venues lately as well. Why have you felt the urge to go back to these spaces?

Caleb: “When you get accustomed to playing a certain size venue and having those bells and whistles that bolster up your show, it’s hard to go back. We’ve only gone back a couple of times, and it just feels so good but it’s also very scary. You can see everyone in the crowd and there’s nothing to hide behind. But that’s what this album is all about! We didn’t rely on pedals or get loud, we stripped it way down. Again, there was nothing to hide behind, which was challenging but also so freeing.

“You know that feeling when you walk into a club to watch a band and you don’t know what’s gonna happen? Well, when we’re in those small venues, it’s the same thing. After a couple of seconds we get lost in the show and it reminds us of the feelings we used to have in our early days. There’s something beautiful about that. It’s not about how many tickets we sold or how the merchandise sales went, it’s about being able to say, ‘Man, did y’all feel the energy in that room?’”

You recently said that it feels like you’ve already surpassed everything that you thought was possible for Kings Of Leon. Does that mean you’re preparing to call it a day?

Caleb: “No, because there are always going to be goals amongst ourselves, whether it’s things we would like to do or places we’d like to play. For me, it’s always about growing our audience and reaching people that we haven’t reached yet. It still shocks me when I see a video of someone from another country playing our music. All I can think is, ‘Man, we were just a bunch of kids that didn’t even graduate high school!’ It felt like the world had written us off before we even started, but not only have we been able to do what we love, but we’ve been able to witness people feeling something from the music we’re making. That’s more meaningful than anything we ever thought it would be.”

Jared: “Yeah, the way we see the band has changed, but there’s still stuff we want. I don’t mean cars and money and gold and diamonds… but, for example, we’re all big Oklahoma Sooners Football fans, and it’s always been a dream for us to play a concert at that stadium. I don’t know if we ever will, but I want to because I know what it would have meant to my grandparents to see us play on that stage.

“So there are always little goals, but they’re not as selfish as before. They’re now about wanting to do things for people in your life. Or bringing joy to people who are not in the band. Those kinds of things are always going to keep on coming up.”

Like you, a lot of artists seem to be either going back to their roots or more purely embracing country music. Why do you think that is so appealing right now?

Caleb: “When you start out in a band or as an artist, you don’t really know exactly what you’re trying to do, you’re just trying not to get laughed out of the room. So a lot of your earliest influences might be something that comes from your family and may be a genre of music you’re embarrassed by. But, the older you get and the more comfortable you get in your own skin, you start to go, ‘You know what? No. I’m not going to hide that about myself.’ I feel like a lot of artists are realising that. We’ve learned that you don’t have to be from Tennessee to hear a song about our life and have it mean something to you.

“As well as that, one thing this up-and-coming generation is so good at is wanting the realest, rawest, most honest version of everything. They don’t want the AI perfect fake thing, and a lot of artists are noticing that. In response, they’re wanting to be completely honest with their influences and embrace whatever type of music is inspiring them. I think it’s the best thing that has happened in a long time.”

Are there any new artists who have caught your eye who are doing that?

Caleb: “One person that I can point out, just because we’ve worked with him recently and I’ve seen the way he works, is Zach Bryan. If he has a song idea that comes, he will record it in the moment and then show it to the world. When we played shows with him, you could tell people were singing back every word because it meant something to them.

“He’s the one artist that made me go ‘Hey, maybe we overthink it sometimes, and maybe we’re a little too precious with the way that we present music… especially considering that the stuff of his that people are resonating with is the stuff that is more spontaneous and genuine’. It was inspiring to know that you don’t have to try and be perfect.”

What is something you hope people take from ‘O My Beloved’?

Caleb: “I hope that they get something that is helpful for them in their life. I want to make music that reaches people where they are, and for it to be something that they listen to and think ‘Whoa, I feel like this was written for me’ or ‘This really speaks to this situation in my life.’ I just want to write something that’s meaningful, and for people to get something out of it – not just tap their toe to it.”

Your breakthrough third album ‘Because Of The Times’ turns 20 in 2027. Are there any plans to mark the milestone?

Jared: “Yes… actually, I don’t know! Honestly, I swear to God, we talk about stuff and then it’ll just go silent for a long time and I won’t know if it’s happening or not. Then, a month before it comes out, I’ll get told ‘You know that thing we haven’t talked about in six months, we’re still doing it. Go and learn ‘Camaro’ now.’ We’ve talked about doing stuff, and we’re playing some shows next year, so there could be one thing or another on the way…”

Caleb: “I believe the anniversary lands around the same time as that O2 show… so there might be a reason for that. At this point, though, it’s about how far we want to go with it. Our first albums were so close together that every six weeks it’s another anniversary. If we can talk Matthew [Followill, guitarist] into learning those songs, the sky is the limit.”

‘O My Beloved’ is out now via Love Tap Records. Kings of Leon perform at the British Airways Arc in London on November 10, before returning next year for a headline slot at Isle Of Wight Festival and at The O2 in London. Visit here for tickets.

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