We’ve got another artist crossing over into the country music space… this time The Killers frontman Brandon Flowers.
Artists from all different walks of the music industry have traded in their regular form of music making to try their hand at country music. Post Malone, Beyoncé, and Lana Del Ray are probably the most famous names… and you can throw former Beatles member Ringo Starr in there too.
Then there’s a laundry list of non-musicians who have ventured into the realm of country in the past couple of years. NBA star Jimmy Butler says he’s got over 200 country songs in the bag and ready to go, and another former NBA player, Meyers Leonard, announced his retirement from the sport with an original country song. Even Kelso himself – Ashton Kutcher – said he had a country album on the way.
Needless to say, everyone apparently wants a slice of the country music pie in the 2020s.
The latest is one of music’s most talented vocalists: Brandon Flowers. The frontman for The Killers – a Las Vegas based band formed in 2001 with countless hits like “Mr. Brightside” and “Somebody Told Me” – apparently got an itch to record some country songs, and explained in a video announcement today that the time was finally right:
“The fact that I love new wave and rock and roll has been well-documented. But a life is long enough to allow for more. Walt Whitman said it best, ‘I am large, I contain multitudes.’ Well, I’m larger now than I was 20 years ago, and I’ve unlocked a room that feels like it’s been waiting for me all along: country western music, my father’s music. It has offered itself to me and the stories I have to tell at the moment with a breezy enthusiasm.”
Flowers and the producers on the forthcoming album titled THRASHER – Shawn Everett and Jonathan Rado – assembled a team of well-respected and esteemed Nashville musicans to play on the record that he’s named Thrasher. 85-year-old Charlie McCoy, who played on Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline record, is part of the team, as well as guitarist David Rawlings and pedal steel player Bruce Bouton.
The Killers lead singer revealed that they all got together and recorded the project last summer in Music City, and now in 2026, it’s nearing its release. Flowers also made sure to get ahead of the worry from rock fans… no, he’s not moving over to country full time:
“We recorded ‘Thrasher’ last July in Nashville, Tennessee, playing with the seasoned and extremely capable musicians that Rado and Shawn assembled was one of the highlights of my career. I hope you hear the joy in the record, because we sure had a blast making it. Oh, and this is not me running away from rock and roll. I don’t want to replace my old songs. I simply found room for more.”
If you want a taste of the new album, Flowers is allowing for a sneak peak when the single “plans” releases this Friday, June 26. You actually hear a bit of it in the trailer above:
“Gold and silver
God and glitter
Lights that flicker on hubcap chrome
On the road to heaven
Is Strauss and Stetson
Swimming pools of horsepower
Take me back, take me back home.”
So keep an eye out for “Plans” when it releases later this week. As for the full album, it’ll be a little bit longer of a wait. THRASHER is set to release in its entirety on August 21. Here’s a look at the track list:
THRASHER Track List:
1) Does It Ever Cross Your Mind?
2) One of Us
3) Tiger’s Blood
4) Plans
5) Paradise
6) Miss America
7) Angel
8) The Red Ground
9) In a Heartbeat
10) An American Dream
