Brandon Flowers is on a break from The Killers, with his first solo album in 11 years
For the last 25 years, he's been the frontman of The Killers, channelling his love of stadium rock and British new wave on songs like Mr Brightside, When You Were Young and Human.
But in the back of his mind, there's always been an alternative soundtrack.
"You know, a lot of guys in my line of business develop drug addictions," he says.
It started when he was a kid in Nephi, Utah. His dad would play Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and John Conlee on the car stereo. School dances, held at the local golf club, would always feature country and western slow dances.
So when Flowers moved back home and started revisiting his childhood haunts, his passion for country was rekindled.
You can hear the results on his third solo album, Thrasher, recorded in Nashville's famed RCA Studio A – home to Dolly Parton's Jolene and I Will Always Love You – with a group of veteran musicians that included pedal steel legend Bruce Bouton, 85-year-old harmonica player Charlie McCoy, and Americana musician Margo Price.
"I sang live with them and I think they really appreciated that, because it's a very romantic way of doing it," he says.
"It's not something that people do anymore. To actually get that energy down on tape is a different thing."
It's an album he couldn't have made in his 20s.
The singer previewed his new music at the prestigious Newport Folk Festival, with assistance from singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus
Flowers once said his "experiences weren't interesting enough" to be turned into lyrics. Now, he's excavating his diary to write about his rural upbringing and experiences of working in Las Vegas casinos.
There's also a tribute to his brother-in-law, who died suddenly several years ago and, on Miss America, a critique of the opioid crisis that hit his hometown.
"It's a sad thing, you know? It's basically doctors prescribing people heroin, and it took so many lives unnecessarily."
Prescription painkillers are chemically similar to but not the same as heroin.
