May 15, 2024 • 29 mins
Anyone who’s heard The Killers' "Mr. Brightside" has an almost Pavlovian response to the song's opening lines. It's hard to go anywhere in the world without watching a room or crowd immediately sing along to the synth-rock classic. First released in 2003, the group's unique sound mixed with Brandon Flowers' New Wave vocal delivery helped make this song about jealousy, deception and calling a cab one of the most irresistibly catchy hits in pop history.
On this week’s episode, hosts Brittany Spanos and Rob Sheffield discuss the story of “Mr. Brightside,” breaking down the song’s gargantuan global success. From the Eighties pastiche of Hot Fuss to the song's entry into the pantheon of wedding DJ must-plays, the hosts unpack what it is about this single that has kept it charting in the UK for over 400 weeks.
Later in the episode Rob and Brittany are joined by mixing engineer Mark Needham, who was working with members of Fleetwood Mac when he got the call to work with this burgeoning Las Vegas band. Needham was instrumental in developing the band and shares technical details about the recording process, the song's distinctive sound, and anecdotes about working with The Killers during their early days.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversialist. I'm Britney Spanos.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Rob Sheffield. We're here to shed light on
the greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them
so great. This week, we're diving into an absolute classic,
Mister Bright's side by The Killers. What a song, so good.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
It comes in at number three seventy eight on the
five hundred Greatest Songs of All Time list. I love
this song, I love this Another album, pop Us was
the first album I ever bought. It is a favorite.
I just absolutely adore The Killers.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
The first album you ever bought, YEP, and it was.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I've still listened to it all the time. It's a
perfect album.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Actually, it's a perfect album. It's really one of the
perfect albums from that era.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah, I mean just kind of that like New Waves shund.
I mean, I think especially this time, I was listening
to so much emo and pop punk and it just
felt so, I know, so much cooler.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, really amazing. The first single comes out, somebody told
me just phenomenal song. It's funny now to think that
that was the lead single from an album where mister
Bright's eide was just sitting there, but somebody told me
was the first time I guess anybody heard The Killers,
And that song was such a statement of purpose. It
(01:21):
had like you said, it had that emo sound, but
this whole level of disco gloss. It was really the
quintessential example of two great tastes that taste great together.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, like i'd heard Maps, of course, and like it
hadn't heard like the Strokes really and like a lot
of the other bands from that New York era and
like that sort of post punk. So I kind of
like didn't have so much of that knowledge of this
like other scene that was happening, and so I was
just like the Killers are, like they just like invented something.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
It's funny how the Killers, being from Las Vegas very
much so, were embraced as a New York band at
the time. They were big in New York before they
were big anywhere else. They were playing clubs and bars
and they were absolutely so amazing as a live band,
and so they were thought of as honorary locals even
(02:09):
though they weren't even from here. They really epitomize that
sort of rare because that kind of soundcraft, like the
Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Strokes, they figured out how
to do that with the disco beat and completely invented
something new.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, And they felt so much in between those two
sort of popular rock scenes of that time, which was
that sort of post punk sound with like the emo
pop punk that was also emerging, you know, thinking of
just like the presentation of the Killers in a lot
of ways and that sort of coming up from with
another Vegas bandpack of the disco they always just felt
so like intertwined with that presentation of this kind of
(02:43):
guyliner sort of glam essence of them. It just felt
so like kind of a part of They felt sort
of in between those two worlds almost.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah, they really did. They were a combination of so
many different things. And it's while the out Hot Fuss, Yeah,
I mean, an album filled with bangers, an album filled
with potential hits. Every song that wasn't a hit on
that album still feels like it should have been. Yeah,
somebody told me it was such a great song in itself.
Mister Bright's side, on a totally different level, it totally
(03:14):
makes sense that that's the one that's that's become the
mega canonical killer song.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Absolutely perfect song, like great sing along song, had an
amazing video. I mean, I think sort of the early
two thousand songs we talked about are so intertwined with
their videos because it was so such off the time
and such of the way that so many people were
hearing these songs for the first time, or the way
they were blowing up. But I mean, just that kind
of like weird kind of Marie Antoinette Sophia Coppola style
(03:40):
one of the thirty videos, and Eric Roberts in it
as a as an antagonist in it. You know, it's
just kind of like a great sort of visual presentation
of them that was so unique and so different from
what a lot of other bands were doing at the time.
On top of it, this like incredibly kind of like
sparkly synth with like this like perfect kind of sing
along scream along chorus and also verse that was also
(04:01):
scream alonga bale and just yeah, everything about that song
is just immediately stuck in your head for the rest
of your life and you can never get rid of it.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Absolutely, it's forever coming out of that cage. That song
has never been in its cage mister Brightside such an
audacious pop song. Yea from the beginning the quote of
David Bowie not derivative, but very clear and very witty
in itself, and of course works even if you aren't
a big fan of that particular David Bowie era. Queen
(04:28):
Bitch is the song that was the kind of thing
where hearing mister bright'siye for the first time, I was
laughing out loud that how blatant that quote was and
yet used so beautifully. The you know, calling a cab
and everything about that song. It's so filled with individual details,
and it's funny that it's, as you said, ultimate sing
a long song, but it really is filled with so
(04:50):
many tiny details that become just absolute permanent part in
the memory.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, I mean, one of the most iconic opening lines
coming out in my cage and I've been doing just fine.
Like I feel like that's like just like from It's incredible,
like how immediately sort of ingrained into culture. Every part
of this song would be. Like it's almost strange because
I don't think like I could have ever imagined that
I would be hearing the song at like sports games,
you know, for the rest of my life. Or like
(05:17):
any like other sort of random places like it just
felt so of that time, and I'm sure the band
obviously is very like can't believe all the places the
song has gone, but yeah, I mean it's just like
one of the most immediately kind of catchy rock moments
of this era, and just like that sort of like perfect, perfect,
perfect chorus that exists on there. And Brandon Flowers very
(05:38):
like Britishism, sort of like delivery of everything.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Of everything, of everything, best English accent in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
And does he does David Bowie on this one, and
Sam Sound is his Bruce album and he kind of
was like sort of testing out the waters on I'm
kind of those evoking those heroes.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Of his the Mister Brightside, very Bowie song, a very
Deuranduran song, that kind of aesthetic, but particularly the idea
of it being a rock song, a rock band song
that would also work on a total pop level, and
so much of that is just that perfect sort of
disco propulsion that it has. It was really a song
designed to make rock girls dance, which at the time
(06:19):
before The Killers was something that had been neglected a
bit in rock the rock bands of the early two
thousands were not concerned so much with making girls dance,
whereas mister Bright's side was that from the beginning.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah, and I mean just like the sort of like
bodily reaction you could still have is still experience people
having whenever the song comes on anywhere, I mean, any
sort of wedding that you're at, It's like the song
will likely play by the end of the night, especially
any millennial wedding you're at, the song will definitely play
by the end of the night. And sort of the
reaction that everyone has is just like one of my
(06:53):
favorite things that this is just like an immediate kind
of excitement and thrill.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I always have to hang around for it was only
a kiss. It was only a kiss. That second, it
was only a kiss. Such a brilliant, brilliant move, so
many brilliant details in this song.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeah, and I mean, just like the way that the
Killers have developed since then, I mean, with the Bruce
mentioned that I had brought up earlier with Sam's sound,
kind of seen the way that they sort of developed
their music, Like, what is your sort of take on
how how the Killers have moved since mister Bryce sie
what they did in the album's following Hot Fuss and
sort of changed their own kind of musical development over that.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Hot Fuss is so perfect. Also, Day and Age is
also a perfect album, but those two really loom large. Yeah,
Hot Fuss for a debut album. I remember when we
did the list of Rolling Stone five hundred albums of
all Time. Yeah, that Hot Fuss was high on your
list as an all time album, and it really is
in terms of a debut album that really has a
(07:46):
fully developed sound and a fully developed esthetic. It's well,
that a bit of a one off for that, but
that's an album where every single song I think my favorite,
My favorite has always been all these things that I've done.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, that one is very very high on my Killer's
song ranking list. I'm a big fan of that one,
and believe me, Natalie is another favorite from that album.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Unbelievable. Yeah, well it's will that one of my favorite
songs from the Killers from that era didn't even make
the album is very scandalous when the Hot Fuss came out,
that it didn't have glamorous indie rock and roll, which
was such a highlight of their live show at that point.
A song that is the Killers that they're at their
most brilliant. Yeah, take my twist with a shout might
(08:31):
be my favorite lyric in any of their songs.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, like you mentioned, kind of this album does feel
like so much of a wane off, But I feel
like that like discoe post punk dance sound that they've
sort of really i mean perfected on this album. Kind
of when they've returned to it over the years, you
can kind of see the way that they It's like
it's sort of hard for them to shake in a
lot of ways. I feel like it's like on Day
and Age especially and later songs, like it's still such
an ingrained part of who they are and still my
(08:55):
favorite thing they'd done in terms of how they've seen
themselves as a band or like been fully realized as
a band.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
There's sort of that tension between their Anglo side and
their American side. The Anglo side really takes over on
Hot Fuss for sure, as well as Day and Age,
which is that's a whole journey in itself. But it's
amazing also that Hot Fuss, despite very much being a
band from the deepest, most iconic of American Western areas,
(09:21):
being very much like an album of its place. It
was so huge in the UK. Heard it constantly in
Ireland that summer for something that was so plainly an
American band coming on, very very English. Yeah, and the
Killers very much part of that just by doing it
so well.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah. I mean it almost feels like it's kind of
the Wonderwall Mister Brightside exchange, you know, like I feel
like Wonderwall I hear constantly here of course, And like
the amount of times I heard mister Brightside in London
was like obscene. It's just like hearing it everywhere, just
like every like pub, every single place. I was just
like hearing mister Bryceide Costa in the last like two years,
(10:00):
you know, in the same way that I feel like,
you know, there's always someone covering Wonderwall or playing Wonderwall
here somewhere.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, it must have been wild for you, as a
lifelong fan of that song to have it pop up
in public places all the time, which it does. What
do you think it is about mister Brightside that makes
it a song? It's always going to pop up in
public places, whether in the US or in the UK.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
That opening kind of like sparkly synth sound is like
almost like a siren, like it's like immediately the minute
you hear it is like a Pavlovian effect that it
has on everyone's brains, and even just the way, like
I feel like that very specific way that Brandon Flowers
sings everything, that very kind of like British sort of
like new wave delivery of the song, which is in
(10:42):
retrospect over like the course of their career, very unusual
for him, and like the sort of intonation of it
where he's almost like like talk singing it is just
like so easily imitatable, Like it's like something that you
like want to sort of imitate and try out and
do for yourself. And I feel like that sort of
made that song so big in the moment, and obviously
all the lyrics and kind of just like the simplicity
(11:04):
of it just kind of became just so woven into
our own pop music consciousness. But yeah, I mean, it's
just like there are some songs that are just so
perfect for screaming along in a crowded place, and this
was immediately one of them. And it's crazy like just
from this era, the number of songs that became that
way or that just were written maybe not even with
(11:28):
that in mind, but just have become that part of
culture examination Army and hey A we had talked about
in the Beyonce episode, But just like this sort of
like two thousand and three sort of blockbuster Ye're just
leading up to this. It's wild to think of those
songs that are so unique and so weird, even just
not even just for those artists, but just in the
context of pop music at that time. Mister Brightside being
(11:50):
like that, and just the way that they became such
like those groups sing along songs in a lot of ways,
is so fascinating. It's so weird to me. But I
think it's because those songs were so so strange, both
for the artists and for those eras. I think is
what kind of allowed them to become bigger than the
year they were released. And mister Bright's Side is so
much bigger than the year that was released. It it
(12:11):
feels very two thousand and four, but it's also not,
which is like so strange, Like I think it's kind
of crazy twenty years on to I feel like maybe
ten years ago I would have been like, oh, this
is such a two thousand and four song, and now
I'm like, actually no, It just kind of feels like
a timeless like it's not just like this timeless classic
and it's become so much bigger than that era or
that nostalgia that's around it.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Really brilliant point about that era and how many universal
songs that never feel old came out of that moment. Yeah,
another one like obviously like Toxic from two thousand and four,
the Britney song that I guess it was on an
album in two thousand and three, but it was very
early two thousand and four when it was a hit,
And it seems like that was a song that you
(12:52):
knew instantly liked these songs that you've mentioned that these
were permanent songs.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, and all of them have really iconic opening, Like
I'm responding to it faster than I'm realizing when I
hear that like opening since so.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
It really is, like you said, Pavlovian. Yeah, another band
from this era that I think of his so linked
to the Killers in so many ways. Franz Ferdinand, who
had their perfect debut album, not their last perfect album.
Franz Ferdinand made three perfect albums in the two thousands.
But take Me Out another song, Yeah, that is universal,
(13:28):
another song designed to make rock girls dance and another
song with a very intense opening that power strung.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, I feel like that like era of like dance
rock music was just so perfect, Like it was just
so much fun, just like really really kind of lighthearted
and weird, and like I was listening to the song
do You Want To from their second album, and that
was a song that I just like forgot how immediately catchy.
It was, again not even like the big hit by them,
(13:55):
but also still kind of just like super catchy from
this era of just like this like super light hearted
kind of dance rock music that I really love. And
obviously the Killers kind of being sort of the forefront
of that and of that sort of movement in pop music,
I think allowed a lot of weirder rock bands to
have a.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Moment absolutely to be fun and like you said, to
be very dance oriented after a time when that was
really lacking in popular rock music. It's funny that the
Killers from Las Vegas Franz Ferdinand from Scotland were both
so tied in with this New York rock explosion and
Meet Me in the Bathroom Lucy Goodman's History of that era.
Those are both very prominent bands, even though neither one
(14:35):
was from New York, but they were both responding really
directly to what was coming out of New York with
the Strokes in the aas.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, and made it even more pop, made it even
more you know again for the girls who want to dance. Yeah,
I mean everything about Hot Fuss like it is so dancing.
I think a part of what appealed to me too,
just like that kind of darkness to the entire album too,
that like New Wavy kind of joy division order type
of like influence that is, you know, so big on
(15:03):
Brandon Flowers and not on the Killers at this time. Of course,
they have a great cover of Transmission that I was
really really obsessed with, and you know there is that
sort of that bright kind of danciness and still that
sort of like underlying kind of post punk New Wavy
like post wave kind of darkness that they lean into
on parts of the album.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Definitely there's that combination obviously, like you said, emo influencers,
I guess.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Like mister Bryceiye is an emo song that was like
a very very emo song about jealousy, and you know
it's the very again sort of that feeling of them
being in between these two rock scenes that were blowing
up at the same time and both. You know, I
feel like the emo and pop punk was very much
for sort of the teenagers at the time, and you know,
the kind of like post punk movement was for a
(15:48):
little bit of like an older sort of listener, And like,
I think that they were sort of like in between
where they can kind of appeal to both sides of
that and in a lot of ways totally.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I read about The Killers that summer in Rolling Stone.
It was their first America an interview. Yeah, and I
love something Brandon said that it was great to look
out at a crowd and see people dancing instead of
elbowing each other. It's funny that they think of late
nineties early two thousands rock, especially with the emphasis on
metal type stuff, that it was very much designed for
(16:17):
elbowing each other and you know, crowding in for room.
The change was really kind of amazing to see.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, I feel like it feels so intertwined to me
because that Panka Diisco album came out two thousand and five,
so it was around the same time. Obviously, you know,
a couple of their singles were already blowing up, and
the Vegas connection. I feel like esthetically they were so similar,
so they always felt like so obviously not in that scene,
Like they weren't a fuel by ram and band. They
(16:43):
weren't like, you know, performing with these bands. But because
of the lyrical nature of the song and a lot
of the presentation that was so similar to a lot
of the emo bands at that.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Time, Clearly Hot Fuss is an album made by band
that really wants arenas. Yeah, which is funny because that
was they were come out of a scene where that
wasn't something a band was even supposed to admit that
they were even curious about. Yeah, this was at the
time when the Strokes were still refusing to do encores.
It's part of it because it was two show biz.
(17:14):
It was a time when the resistance to show biz,
even with very crowd pleasing, very outreach, very pop oriented bands. Yeah,
And it was so wild to hear a song like
all these things that I've done and has the moment
where it stops and it's I got sold, but I'm
not a soldier. And it was wild to hear them
play that song in a bar but very different thing.
(17:37):
You hear it on the album and you think this
is so designed for Arenas. This band wants the Arenas.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, listening to it now, it's kind
of amazing to realize how ambitious the entire record is.
This was their debut album. I think it was so
much that kind of like charisma of Brandon, just like
the way it was just like, you know, just like
the weirdness of the song, the delivery, the kind of
you know, it was retro, but it wasn't. Just that
(18:02):
kind of combination of things was like, this is the
only band that could pull that off.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Absolutely so true. You're so right, and it's so well
that so many bands tried that. When The Killers came
out and they had really cracked the code of how
to do this very dance oriented rock music, that we
were flooded, although I would choose to say blessed with
so many bands that wanted to be The Killers, well
that they spawned rock imitators, like a band I happened
(18:29):
to love, The Bravery. Yeah, they sounded so much like
a Killer's tribute band with an honest mistake, which I
totally love a song about post nine to eleven panic
terror sex as it was called at the time. But
it's wild that you know, they had this really a
few that turned very very nasty, very fast.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I didn't even realize they had a feud. Yeah, No,
I think there's definitely like a direct line from the
Killers and like Brandon Flowers as like rock heart Throb
to sort of like that Tumbler era that would come
like a few years later of like very steeped in
like eighties new wave, like a deep deep joy division
(19:10):
sort of like nostalgia and like kind of like that
that would happen that were like it was like goth light,
you know, and like new wave light of all that.
Like I feel like The Killers were very influential on
a lot of that because I think that that opened
up a lot of doors for a lot of young
listeners who would later get on Tumblr and you know,
post a bunch of pictures of like David Bowie and
(19:32):
like just like a bunch of you know, like eighties
new wave boys and stuff.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
When I read about them in Rolling Stone and that summer,
and Brandon said something that he wanted it to be
a real life Ziggy Stardust, like the band Ziggy Startist
and the Spiders from Mars, not the band that made
the album, but the band that Bowie is singing about
the fictional band on that album. Oh wow, that they
wanted to be a real life version of that. Yeah,
which makes so much sense.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Oh yeah, that makes like that makes the picture of
hop Us even clearer to me. Up next we have
mister Brightsize's engineer and mixer, Mark Needham. We are joined
now by engineer and mixer Mark Needham. Thank you so
much for joining us today, talk about mister bright Side.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Thanks sure, thanks for having me out A legend, legend,
thank you so legend in my own mind.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
So you were just coming from working on with Fleetwood
Mac when you got.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
The call to I was in the middle of a
couple of different fleet I was on about two or
three Fleetwood Mac things. But yeah, my partner, I was
my attorney in San Francisco, and I had we had
a studio. We developed a few artists. We wanted to
find three bands, make demos or album for all of them,
and shop them and sign them.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
It was fun.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
We got we found the three bands that we loved
and got all of them signed.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
And what was your first impression of the Killers?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
We'd flown out to see them live. They were playing
it a little. They played a little club in a
strip mall in Las Vegas. So, you know, I love
the band. They were super cool guys. They were they
were so young. I mean, I look back at the
pictures now, they were so young and so kind of
shy and and all, you know, just so happy and
thrilled to be in the recording studio. So it was
(21:14):
it was fun. On mister Bright's side, it was you know,
it was two or three takes. I just did some
editing and I kicked the band out for a little
bit and just kind of made that distorted intro and
did a really quick mix, and that's what ended up
being put out. I tried. I actually tried to remix
the song at least five times, but you know I
(21:37):
usually do. Really I've worked really fast and sometimes you
just get the vibe just sounds right.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
You know, as we were talking about, it's a ubiquitous song.
It's a song that you hear everywhere, a wedding standard.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
That's yeah, that's why I was. I was so amazed,
like that wouldn't be the song I'd picked to play
at my wedding, but you.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Know, in such a distinctive sound that it had a
real rock presence, but also a real dance propulsion.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
That whole album is pretty sparse. There's not like a
ton of tracks on a couple of the songs that
have where we added the choir on the stuff that
are filled out more, but a lot of them are
pretty minimalistic. But it's just the drums and bass are
so busy, and then there's sort of the floaty guitar
and then the keyboard line that comes in now and
then you know, But other than that, there's not really
(22:27):
a lot on there. But it allows the drums and
bass to be so present. That's what I think adds that,
that dancy and the bass, especially with that it there's
a lot of distortion on the bass, so that kind
of makes it feel a little bit like that rock
guitar thing going. But the rhythm section is so big.
I think that's what adds that, that dancy feel.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Wow. And when they played it live, sort of when
you were first hearing it, did you have a sense
that that was already there?
Speaker 3 (22:55):
I mean not in the way the record blew up.
I mean the first time we saw them, there was
a they played it that it was just a little club.
It held maybe two or three hundred people. It was
in a little strip mall right across from the hard
Rock Hotel. After we finished the album, we shopped it
in the US for at least a year, and to
(23:16):
respond from all the labels like, yeah, no, this isn't
this is not really good, this is not happening where.
But until that always makes you kind of you start
to doubt, you know, you start to doubt the validity
of the of your choices a little bit. But in
the end it worked out the way it was supposed to.
You know, it's started in the UK and then came back.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, and you brought up something earlier about the distorted
intro that's on the song, and Rob and I were
kind of talking about all the elements of the song
that sort of stick out to us but also may
have been part of what made the song so iconic
and so memorable and so ingrained in all of our
musical memories. And that intro for me, is something that like,
the minute I hear it, I'm like immediately, oh, probably good.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
I'm curious if there are any other moments in a
song that like are maybe little maybe easter eggs of
how you mix the song that you that really stand
out to you.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
I work really fast, and I don't really think. I
don't like to think about, well, I mean I should
use this compressor, if you know, I do what I hear.
And on that I said, well, let's start with the drum.
I think I had the drums panned hard to the
side and distorted the bottom cut out, and well, let's
do that. It just felt like the thing to do.
And I mean I literally came together in maybe thirty
(24:30):
minutes or the whole thing, and well, you know, we
came up with that that slap delay sound, which was
I didn't really have any outboard gear when I mixed that,
and it was just the basic set of plugins that
come with pro tools, so we used that. There was
the green echo farm when you first open it up,
that the very first delay had kind of distorted, it
(24:51):
had distortion that's built in on it, and just added
like eighty with an eighty six millisecond slap and it's like, oh,
let's sounds pretty good. I guess that that sounds like
the vocal show. You know. Things were just kind of
fell together really quickly for me on that song. And
I had a weird digital limitter that I is Drammer
(25:14):
Digital Limited. That's the only time I've ever actually used
that thing. I retired after I did that song, but
it had like a crush distortion feature on the holding.
You could kind of really kick the level really loud
and kind of crush the whole mix. And I definitely
had it for a month or so and I started
experimenting with kind of overdriving the whole thing and found
(25:34):
a sweet spot for that. And literally after that record
came out and that was starting to be popular, I
just took that thing out of my rack and retired.
And I did it. I did that at one time.
That's it going to do it again.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
And you mentioned how it was taking some time to
shop around the Killers and chop around this album, and
I mean, given the way that the song blew up,
I mean the entire album blew up, do you feel
shocking that so many people like were able to finally
gravitate towards this band after working so hard to even
get a label to sign.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Well, yeah, I mean again, after the the year of
us kicking it around and everybody turned it down. You know,
literally the only label we could find in the world
that would sign it was just a Little Lizard King,
which was a really small label in London. You know,
at that point when that was the only thing that happened,
we're just kind of like, well, this is going to
(26:24):
be like a little indie release and the underground thing.
But Jane and Lowe really picked Radio One became a
was he became a huge fan, like overnight on this
song and just played the heck out of it, and
you know it, literally a month or so later it's
number one in the UK, and then that changed the
(26:47):
whole the whole scope of everything for the U. For
the international release, everybody.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
No, no, we'd love that.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
BRK, you idiot. That was you know, that was kind
of you know, everybody was interested in the band and
loved it at that point.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
So it's hard to imagine people hearing the album and
passing on it. It's so funny that there was a
year of that that seems really.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
It was pretty much to finished album. We started taking
it out. There was one an R guy in the
US that actually made an offer on it. He made
an offer. I was going to give him all three
bands with the album's done for eighty thousand dollars and
his boss turned it down. Well, so we didn't get
one offer in the US well from one A and
(27:32):
R guy that the hand of the label shot that
down too. It also could have been they were right
and the band played some clubs in the UK and
that was yet. But it's a hard choices to make,
so I don't fallow people for not liking it. Everybody's
opinion changed once they saw how kids reacted to it,
you know, then they were able to get on board,
(27:52):
and having a major label be part of it was
able to take it make it a worldwide phenomena.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, and you brought an original of Mister Brightside or
is it? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Yeah, this is the very first, the very first single
that was released on Lizard King. It's a little it
was a little white vinyl. Yeah, it just went from
here to it just went diamond.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah. I mean with the album turning twenty this year,
I know the Killers are going on tour to celebrate that.
I mean, this album's longevity and Mister Brightside's longevity has
you know, surpassagably anything that you could have imagined that
the band could have imagined that Robin I, as early
fans of the band could have imagined.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
I mean, being on the charts. I mean it's in
the UK the longest it you know, just been on
the charts longer than any other song in history. It's
like really like longer than the Beatles.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Come on.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
That's but I'm so proud of the band that that's
the case. I mean, it's it's hard to believe when
you think of all the great songs that have come
out of the UK. Yeah, it's hard to believe it's
twenty years.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Well, it's been an excellent twenty years, made better by
mister Brekeside for sure.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Absolutely hard to imagine the last twenty years.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Make sure ll lies a little break right.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Thank you so much, Thank you, Yeah, thanks so much,
my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yeah cool. Thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stone's
five hundred Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you
by Rolling Stone and iHeartMedia. Written hosted by me Britney.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Spanos and Rob Sheffield.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Executive produced by Jason Fine, Alex Dale and Christian Horde,
and produced by Jesse Cannon, with music supervision by Eric Zeiler.
Thanks for watching and thanks for listening.
Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversialist. I'm Britney Spanos.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Rob Sheffield. We're here to shed light on
the greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them
so great. This week, we're diving into an absolute classic,
Mister Bright's side by The Killers. What a song, so good.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
It comes in at number three seventy eight on the
five hundred Greatest Songs of All Time list. I love
this song, I love this Another album, pop Us was
the first album I ever bought. It is a favorite.
I just absolutely adore The Killers.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
The first album you ever bought, YEP, and it was.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I've still listened to it all the time. It's a
perfect album.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Actually, it's a perfect album. It's really one of the
perfect albums from that era.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah, I mean just kind of that like New Waves shund.
I mean, I think especially this time, I was listening
to so much emo and pop punk and it just
felt so, I know, so much cooler.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, really amazing. The first single comes out, somebody told
me just phenomenal song. It's funny now to think that
that was the lead single from an album where mister
Bright's eide was just sitting there, but somebody told me
was the first time I guess anybody heard The Killers,
And that song was such a statement of purpose. It
(01:21):
had like you said, it had that emo sound, but
this whole level of disco gloss. It was really the
quintessential example of two great tastes that taste great together.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, like i'd heard Maps, of course, and like it
hadn't heard like the Strokes really and like a lot
of the other bands from that New York era and
like that sort of post punk. So I kind of
like didn't have so much of that knowledge of this
like other scene that was happening, and so I was
just like the Killers are, like they just like invented something.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
It's funny how the Killers, being from Las Vegas very
much so, were embraced as a New York band at
the time. They were big in New York before they
were big anywhere else. They were playing clubs and bars
and they were absolutely so amazing as a live band,
and so they were thought of as honorary locals even
(02:09):
though they weren't even from here. They really epitomize that
sort of rare because that kind of soundcraft, like the
Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Strokes, they figured out how
to do that with the disco beat and completely invented
something new.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, And they felt so much in between those two
sort of popular rock scenes of that time, which was
that sort of post punk sound with like the emo
pop punk that was also emerging, you know, thinking of
just like the presentation of the Killers in a lot
of ways and that sort of coming up from with
another Vegas bandpack of the disco they always just felt
so like intertwined with that presentation of this kind of
(02:43):
guyliner sort of glam essence of them. It just felt
so like kind of a part of They felt sort
of in between those two worlds almost.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah, they really did. They were a combination of so
many different things. And it's while the out Hot Fuss, Yeah,
I mean, an album filled with bangers, an album filled
with potential hits. Every song that wasn't a hit on
that album still feels like it should have been. Yeah,
somebody told me it was such a great song in itself.
Mister Bright's side, on a totally different level, it totally
(03:14):
makes sense that that's the one that's that's become the
mega canonical killer song.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Absolutely perfect song, like great sing along song, had an
amazing video. I mean, I think sort of the early
two thousand songs we talked about are so intertwined with
their videos because it was so such off the time
and such of the way that so many people were
hearing these songs for the first time, or the way
they were blowing up. But I mean, just that kind
of like weird kind of Marie Antoinette Sophia Coppola style
(03:40):
one of the thirty videos, and Eric Roberts in it
as a as an antagonist in it. You know, it's
just kind of like a great sort of visual presentation
of them that was so unique and so different from
what a lot of other bands were doing at the time.
On top of it, this like incredibly kind of like
sparkly synth with like this like perfect kind of sing
along scream along chorus and also verse that was also
(04:01):
scream alonga bale and just yeah, everything about that song
is just immediately stuck in your head for the rest
of your life and you can never get rid of it.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Absolutely, it's forever coming out of that cage. That song
has never been in its cage mister Brightside such an
audacious pop song. Yea from the beginning the quote of
David Bowie not derivative, but very clear and very witty
in itself, and of course works even if you aren't
a big fan of that particular David Bowie era. Queen
(04:28):
Bitch is the song that was the kind of thing
where hearing mister bright'siye for the first time, I was
laughing out loud that how blatant that quote was and
yet used so beautifully. The you know, calling a cab
and everything about that song. It's so filled with individual details,
and it's funny that it's, as you said, ultimate sing
a long song, but it really is filled with so
(04:50):
many tiny details that become just absolute permanent part in
the memory.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, I mean, one of the most iconic opening lines
coming out in my cage and I've been doing just fine.
Like I feel like that's like just like from It's incredible,
like how immediately sort of ingrained into culture. Every part
of this song would be. Like it's almost strange because
I don't think like I could have ever imagined that
I would be hearing the song at like sports games,
you know, for the rest of my life. Or like
(05:17):
any like other sort of random places like it just
felt so of that time, and I'm sure the band
obviously is very like can't believe all the places the
song has gone, but yeah, I mean it's just like
one of the most immediately kind of catchy rock moments
of this era, and just like that sort of like perfect, perfect,
perfect chorus that exists on there. And Brandon Flowers very
(05:38):
like Britishism, sort of like delivery of everything.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Of everything, of everything, best English accent in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
And does he does David Bowie on this one, and
Sam Sound is his Bruce album and he kind of
was like sort of testing out the waters on I'm
kind of those evoking those heroes.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Of his the Mister Brightside, very Bowie song, a very
Deuranduran song, that kind of aesthetic, but particularly the idea
of it being a rock song, a rock band song
that would also work on a total pop level, and
so much of that is just that perfect sort of
disco propulsion that it has. It was really a song
designed to make rock girls dance, which at the time
(06:19):
before The Killers was something that had been neglected a
bit in rock the rock bands of the early two
thousands were not concerned so much with making girls dance,
whereas mister Bright's side was that from the beginning.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah, and I mean just like the sort of like
bodily reaction you could still have is still experience people
having whenever the song comes on anywhere, I mean, any
sort of wedding that you're at, It's like the song
will likely play by the end of the night, especially
any millennial wedding you're at, the song will definitely play
by the end of the night. And sort of the
reaction that everyone has is just like one of my
(06:53):
favorite things that this is just like an immediate kind
of excitement and thrill.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I always have to hang around for it was only
a kiss. It was only a kiss. That second, it
was only a kiss. Such a brilliant, brilliant move, so
many brilliant details in this song.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeah, and I mean, just like the way that the
Killers have developed since then, I mean, with the Bruce
mentioned that I had brought up earlier with Sam's sound,
kind of seen the way that they sort of developed
their music, Like, what is your sort of take on
how how the Killers have moved since mister Bryce sie
what they did in the album's following Hot Fuss and
sort of changed their own kind of musical development over that.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Hot Fuss is so perfect. Also, Day and Age is
also a perfect album, but those two really loom large. Yeah,
Hot Fuss for a debut album. I remember when we
did the list of Rolling Stone five hundred albums of
all Time. Yeah, that Hot Fuss was high on your
list as an all time album, and it really is
in terms of a debut album that really has a
(07:46):
fully developed sound and a fully developed esthetic. It's well,
that a bit of a one off for that, but
that's an album where every single song I think my favorite,
My favorite has always been all these things that I've done.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, that one is very very high on my Killer's
song ranking list. I'm a big fan of that one,
and believe me, Natalie is another favorite from that album.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Unbelievable. Yeah, well it's will that one of my favorite
songs from the Killers from that era didn't even make
the album is very scandalous when the Hot Fuss came out,
that it didn't have glamorous indie rock and roll, which
was such a highlight of their live show at that point.
A song that is the Killers that they're at their
most brilliant. Yeah, take my twist with a shout might
(08:31):
be my favorite lyric in any of their songs.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, like you mentioned, kind of this album does feel
like so much of a wane off, But I feel
like that like discoe post punk dance sound that they've
sort of really i mean perfected on this album. Kind
of when they've returned to it over the years, you
can kind of see the way that they It's like
it's sort of hard for them to shake in a
lot of ways. I feel like it's like on Day
and Age especially and later songs, like it's still such
an ingrained part of who they are and still my
(08:55):
favorite thing they'd done in terms of how they've seen
themselves as a band or like been fully realized as
a band.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
There's sort of that tension between their Anglo side and
their American side. The Anglo side really takes over on
Hot Fuss for sure, as well as Day and Age,
which is that's a whole journey in itself. But it's
amazing also that Hot Fuss, despite very much being a
band from the deepest, most iconic of American Western areas,
(09:21):
being very much like an album of its place. It
was so huge in the UK. Heard it constantly in
Ireland that summer for something that was so plainly an
American band coming on, very very English. Yeah, and the
Killers very much part of that just by doing it
so well.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah. I mean it almost feels like it's kind of
the Wonderwall Mister Brightside exchange, you know, like I feel
like Wonderwall I hear constantly here of course, And like
the amount of times I heard mister Brightside in London
was like obscene. It's just like hearing it everywhere, just
like every like pub, every single place. I was just
like hearing mister Bryceide Costa in the last like two years,
(10:00):
you know, in the same way that I feel like,
you know, there's always someone covering Wonderwall or playing Wonderwall
here somewhere.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, it must have been wild for you, as a
lifelong fan of that song to have it pop up
in public places all the time, which it does. What
do you think it is about mister Brightside that makes
it a song? It's always going to pop up in
public places, whether in the US or in the UK.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
That opening kind of like sparkly synth sound is like
almost like a siren, like it's like immediately the minute
you hear it is like a Pavlovian effect that it
has on everyone's brains, and even just the way, like
I feel like that very specific way that Brandon Flowers
sings everything, that very kind of like British sort of
like new wave delivery of the song, which is in
(10:42):
retrospect over like the course of their career, very unusual
for him, and like the sort of intonation of it
where he's almost like like talk singing it is just
like so easily imitatable, Like it's like something that you
like want to sort of imitate and try out and
do for yourself. And I feel like that sort of
made that song so big in the moment, and obviously
all the lyrics and kind of just like the simplicity
(11:04):
of it just kind of became just so woven into
our own pop music consciousness. But yeah, I mean, it's
just like there are some songs that are just so
perfect for screaming along in a crowded place, and this
was immediately one of them. And it's crazy like just
from this era, the number of songs that became that
way or that just were written maybe not even with
(11:28):
that in mind, but just have become that part of
culture examination Army and hey A we had talked about
in the Beyonce episode, But just like this sort of
like two thousand and three sort of blockbuster Ye're just
leading up to this. It's wild to think of those
songs that are so unique and so weird, even just
not even just for those artists, but just in the
context of pop music at that time. Mister Brightside being
(11:50):
like that, and just the way that they became such
like those groups sing along songs in a lot of ways,
is so fascinating. It's so weird to me. But I
think it's because those songs were so so strange, both
for the artists and for those eras. I think is
what kind of allowed them to become bigger than the
year they were released. And mister Bright's Side is so
much bigger than the year that was released. It it
(12:11):
feels very two thousand and four, but it's also not,
which is like so strange, Like I think it's kind
of crazy twenty years on to I feel like maybe
ten years ago I would have been like, oh, this
is such a two thousand and four song, and now
I'm like, actually no, It just kind of feels like
a timeless like it's not just like this timeless classic
and it's become so much bigger than that era or
that nostalgia that's around it.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Really brilliant point about that era and how many universal
songs that never feel old came out of that moment. Yeah,
another one like obviously like Toxic from two thousand and four,
the Britney song that I guess it was on an
album in two thousand and three, but it was very
early two thousand and four when it was a hit,
And it seems like that was a song that you
(12:52):
knew instantly liked these songs that you've mentioned that these
were permanent songs.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, and all of them have really iconic opening, Like
I'm responding to it faster than I'm realizing when I
hear that like opening since so.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
It really is, like you said, Pavlovian. Yeah, another band
from this era that I think of his so linked
to the Killers in so many ways. Franz Ferdinand, who
had their perfect debut album, not their last perfect album.
Franz Ferdinand made three perfect albums in the two thousands.
But take Me Out another song, Yeah, that is universal,
(13:28):
another song designed to make rock girls dance and another
song with a very intense opening that power strung.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, I feel like that like era of like dance
rock music was just so perfect, Like it was just
so much fun, just like really really kind of lighthearted
and weird, and like I was listening to the song
do You Want To from their second album, and that
was a song that I just like forgot how immediately catchy.
It was, again not even like the big hit by them,
(13:55):
but also still kind of just like super catchy from
this era of just like this like super light hearted
kind of dance rock music that I really love. And
obviously the Killers kind of being sort of the forefront
of that and of that sort of movement in pop music,
I think allowed a lot of weirder rock bands to
have a.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Moment absolutely to be fun and like you said, to
be very dance oriented after a time when that was
really lacking in popular rock music. It's funny that the
Killers from Las Vegas Franz Ferdinand from Scotland were both
so tied in with this New York rock explosion and
Meet Me in the Bathroom Lucy Goodman's History of that era.
Those are both very prominent bands, even though neither one
(14:35):
was from New York, but they were both responding really
directly to what was coming out of New York with
the Strokes in the aas.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, and made it even more pop, made it even
more you know again for the girls who want to dance. Yeah,
I mean everything about Hot Fuss like it is so dancing.
I think a part of what appealed to me too,
just like that kind of darkness to the entire album too,
that like New Wavy kind of joy division order type
of like influence that is, you know, so big on
(15:03):
Brandon Flowers and not on the Killers at this time. Of course,
they have a great cover of Transmission that I was
really really obsessed with, and you know there is that
sort of that bright kind of danciness and still that
sort of like underlying kind of post punk New Wavy
like post wave kind of darkness that they lean into
on parts of the album.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Definitely there's that combination obviously, like you said, emo influencers,
I guess.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Like mister Bryceiye is an emo song that was like
a very very emo song about jealousy, and you know
it's the very again sort of that feeling of them
being in between these two rock scenes that were blowing
up at the same time and both. You know, I
feel like the emo and pop punk was very much
for sort of the teenagers at the time, and you know,
the kind of like post punk movement was for a
(15:48):
little bit of like an older sort of listener, And like,
I think that they were sort of like in between
where they can kind of appeal to both sides of
that and in a lot of ways totally.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I read about The Killers that summer in Rolling Stone.
It was their first America an interview. Yeah, and I
love something Brandon said that it was great to look
out at a crowd and see people dancing instead of
elbowing each other. It's funny that they think of late
nineties early two thousands rock, especially with the emphasis on
metal type stuff, that it was very much designed for
(16:17):
elbowing each other and you know, crowding in for room.
The change was really kind of amazing to see.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, I feel like it feels so intertwined to me
because that Panka Diisco album came out two thousand and five,
so it was around the same time. Obviously, you know,
a couple of their singles were already blowing up, and
the Vegas connection. I feel like esthetically they were so similar,
so they always felt like so obviously not in that scene,
Like they weren't a fuel by ram and band. They
(16:43):
weren't like, you know, performing with these bands. But because
of the lyrical nature of the song and a lot
of the presentation that was so similar to a lot
of the emo bands at that.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Time, Clearly Hot Fuss is an album made by band
that really wants arenas. Yeah, which is funny because that
was they were come out of a scene where that
wasn't something a band was even supposed to admit that
they were even curious about. Yeah, this was at the
time when the Strokes were still refusing to do encores.
It's part of it because it was two show biz.
(17:14):
It was a time when the resistance to show biz,
even with very crowd pleasing, very outreach, very pop oriented bands. Yeah,
And it was so wild to hear a song like
all these things that I've done and has the moment
where it stops and it's I got sold, but I'm
not a soldier. And it was wild to hear them
play that song in a bar but very different thing.
(17:37):
You hear it on the album and you think this
is so designed for Arenas. This band wants the Arenas.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, listening to it now, it's kind
of amazing to realize how ambitious the entire record is.
This was their debut album. I think it was so
much that kind of like charisma of Brandon, just like
the way it was just like, you know, just like
the weirdness of the song, the delivery, the kind of
you know, it was retro, but it wasn't. Just that
(18:02):
kind of combination of things was like, this is the
only band that could pull that off.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Absolutely so true. You're so right, and it's so well
that so many bands tried that. When The Killers came
out and they had really cracked the code of how
to do this very dance oriented rock music, that we
were flooded, although I would choose to say blessed with
so many bands that wanted to be The Killers, well
that they spawned rock imitators, like a band I happened
(18:29):
to love, The Bravery. Yeah, they sounded so much like
a Killer's tribute band with an honest mistake, which I
totally love a song about post nine to eleven panic
terror sex as it was called at the time. But
it's wild that you know, they had this really a
few that turned very very nasty, very fast.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I didn't even realize they had a feud. Yeah, No,
I think there's definitely like a direct line from the
Killers and like Brandon Flowers as like rock heart Throb
to sort of like that Tumbler era that would come
like a few years later of like very steeped in
like eighties new wave, like a deep deep joy division
(19:10):
sort of like nostalgia and like kind of like that
that would happen that were like it was like goth light,
you know, and like new wave light of all that.
Like I feel like The Killers were very influential on
a lot of that because I think that that opened
up a lot of doors for a lot of young
listeners who would later get on Tumblr and you know,
post a bunch of pictures of like David Bowie and
(19:32):
like just like a bunch of you know, like eighties
new wave boys and stuff.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
When I read about them in Rolling Stone and that summer,
and Brandon said something that he wanted it to be
a real life Ziggy Stardust, like the band Ziggy Startist
and the Spiders from Mars, not the band that made
the album, but the band that Bowie is singing about
the fictional band on that album. Oh wow, that they
wanted to be a real life version of that. Yeah,
which makes so much sense.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Oh yeah, that makes like that makes the picture of
hop Us even clearer to me. Up next we have
mister Brightsize's engineer and mixer, Mark Needham. We are joined
now by engineer and mixer Mark Needham. Thank you so
much for joining us today, talk about mister bright Side.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Thanks sure, thanks for having me out A legend, legend,
thank you so legend in my own mind.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
So you were just coming from working on with Fleetwood
Mac when you got.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
The call to I was in the middle of a
couple of different fleet I was on about two or
three Fleetwood Mac things. But yeah, my partner, I was
my attorney in San Francisco, and I had we had
a studio. We developed a few artists. We wanted to
find three bands, make demos or album for all of them,
and shop them and sign them.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
It was fun.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
We got we found the three bands that we loved
and got all of them signed.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
And what was your first impression of the Killers?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
We'd flown out to see them live. They were playing
it a little. They played a little club in a
strip mall in Las Vegas. So, you know, I love
the band. They were super cool guys. They were they
were so young. I mean, I look back at the
pictures now, they were so young and so kind of
shy and and all, you know, just so happy and
thrilled to be in the recording studio. So it was
(21:14):
it was fun. On mister Bright's side, it was you know,
it was two or three takes. I just did some
editing and I kicked the band out for a little
bit and just kind of made that distorted intro and
did a really quick mix, and that's what ended up
being put out. I tried. I actually tried to remix
the song at least five times, but you know I
(21:37):
usually do. Really I've worked really fast and sometimes you
just get the vibe just sounds right.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
You know, as we were talking about, it's a ubiquitous song.
It's a song that you hear everywhere, a wedding standard.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
That's yeah, that's why I was. I was so amazed,
like that wouldn't be the song I'd picked to play
at my wedding, but you.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Know, in such a distinctive sound that it had a
real rock presence, but also a real dance propulsion.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
That whole album is pretty sparse. There's not like a
ton of tracks on a couple of the songs that
have where we added the choir on the stuff that
are filled out more, but a lot of them are
pretty minimalistic. But it's just the drums and bass are
so busy, and then there's sort of the floaty guitar
and then the keyboard line that comes in now and
then you know, But other than that, there's not really
(22:27):
a lot on there. But it allows the drums and
bass to be so present. That's what I think adds that,
that dancy and the bass, especially with that it there's
a lot of distortion on the bass, so that kind
of makes it feel a little bit like that rock
guitar thing going. But the rhythm section is so big.
I think that's what adds that, that dancy feel.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Wow. And when they played it live, sort of when
you were first hearing it, did you have a sense
that that was already there?
Speaker 3 (22:55):
I mean not in the way the record blew up.
I mean the first time we saw them, there was
a they played it that it was just a little club.
It held maybe two or three hundred people. It was
in a little strip mall right across from the hard
Rock Hotel. After we finished the album, we shopped it
in the US for at least a year, and to
(23:16):
respond from all the labels like, yeah, no, this isn't
this is not really good, this is not happening where.
But until that always makes you kind of you start
to doubt, you know, you start to doubt the validity
of the of your choices a little bit. But in
the end it worked out the way it was supposed to.
You know, it's started in the UK and then came back.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, and you brought up something earlier about the distorted
intro that's on the song, and Rob and I were
kind of talking about all the elements of the song
that sort of stick out to us but also may
have been part of what made the song so iconic
and so memorable and so ingrained in all of our
musical memories. And that intro for me, is something that like,
the minute I hear it, I'm like immediately, oh, probably good.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
I'm curious if there are any other moments in a
song that like are maybe little maybe easter eggs of
how you mix the song that you that really stand
out to you.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
I work really fast, and I don't really think. I
don't like to think about, well, I mean I should
use this compressor, if you know, I do what I hear.
And on that I said, well, let's start with the drum.
I think I had the drums panned hard to the
side and distorted the bottom cut out, and well, let's
do that. It just felt like the thing to do.
And I mean I literally came together in maybe thirty
(24:30):
minutes or the whole thing, and well, you know, we
came up with that that slap delay sound, which was
I didn't really have any outboard gear when I mixed that,
and it was just the basic set of plugins that
come with pro tools, so we used that. There was
the green echo farm when you first open it up,
that the very first delay had kind of distorted, it
(24:51):
had distortion that's built in on it, and just added
like eighty with an eighty six millisecond slap and it's like, oh,
let's sounds pretty good. I guess that that sounds like
the vocal show. You know. Things were just kind of
fell together really quickly for me on that song. And
I had a weird digital limitter that I is Drammer
(25:14):
Digital Limited. That's the only time I've ever actually used
that thing. I retired after I did that song, but
it had like a crush distortion feature on the holding.
You could kind of really kick the level really loud
and kind of crush the whole mix. And I definitely
had it for a month or so and I started
experimenting with kind of overdriving the whole thing and found
(25:34):
a sweet spot for that. And literally after that record
came out and that was starting to be popular, I
just took that thing out of my rack and retired.
And I did it. I did that at one time.
That's it going to do it again.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
And you mentioned how it was taking some time to
shop around the Killers and chop around this album, and
I mean, given the way that the song blew up,
I mean the entire album blew up, do you feel
shocking that so many people like were able to finally
gravitate towards this band after working so hard to even
get a label to sign.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Well, yeah, I mean again, after the the year of
us kicking it around and everybody turned it down. You know,
literally the only label we could find in the world
that would sign it was just a Little Lizard King,
which was a really small label in London. You know,
at that point when that was the only thing that happened,
we're just kind of like, well, this is going to
(26:24):
be like a little indie release and the underground thing.
But Jane and Lowe really picked Radio One became a
was he became a huge fan, like overnight on this
song and just played the heck out of it, and
you know it, literally a month or so later it's
number one in the UK, and then that changed the
(26:47):
whole the whole scope of everything for the U. For
the international release, everybody.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
No, no, we'd love that.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
BRK, you idiot. That was you know, that was kind
of you know, everybody was interested in the band and
loved it at that point.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
So it's hard to imagine people hearing the album and
passing on it. It's so funny that there was a
year of that that seems really.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
It was pretty much to finished album. We started taking
it out. There was one an R guy in the
US that actually made an offer on it. He made
an offer. I was going to give him all three
bands with the album's done for eighty thousand dollars and
his boss turned it down. Well, so we didn't get
one offer in the US well from one A and
(27:32):
R guy that the hand of the label shot that
down too. It also could have been they were right
and the band played some clubs in the UK and
that was yet. But it's a hard choices to make,
so I don't fallow people for not liking it. Everybody's
opinion changed once they saw how kids reacted to it,
you know, then they were able to get on board,
(27:52):
and having a major label be part of it was
able to take it make it a worldwide phenomena.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, and you brought an original of Mister Brightside or
is it? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Yeah, this is the very first, the very first single
that was released on Lizard King. It's a little it
was a little white vinyl. Yeah, it just went from
here to it just went diamond.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah. I mean with the album turning twenty this year,
I know the Killers are going on tour to celebrate that.
I mean, this album's longevity and Mister Brightside's longevity has
you know, surpassagably anything that you could have imagined that
the band could have imagined that Robin I, as early
fans of the band could have imagined.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
I mean, being on the charts. I mean it's in
the UK the longest it you know, just been on
the charts longer than any other song in history. It's
like really like longer than the Beatles.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Come on.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
That's but I'm so proud of the band that that's
the case. I mean, it's it's hard to believe when
you think of all the great songs that have come
out of the UK. Yeah, it's hard to believe it's
twenty years.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Well, it's been an excellent twenty years, made better by
mister Brekeside for sure.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Absolutely hard to imagine the last twenty years.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Make sure ll lies a little break right.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Thank you so much, Thank you, Yeah, thanks so much,
my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yeah cool. Thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stone's
five hundred Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you
by Rolling Stone and iHeartMedia. Written hosted by me Britney.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Spanos and Rob Sheffield.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Executive produced by Jason Fine, Alex Dale and Christian Horde,
and produced by Jesse Cannon, with music supervision by Eric Zeiler.
Thanks for watching and thanks for listening.
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