The Killers singer and bass guitarist Brandon Flowers spoke in a recent interview with Consequence Sound and talked about the surprising offer he received from Bruce Springsteen.
The Killers and Bruce Springsteen collaborated to re-record The Killers’ ‘A Dustland Fairytale’ song, and they released it with the ‘Dustland’ name about two months ago.
In the conversation, Brandon revealed that Bruce texted him to remake their ‘Be Still’ and ‘Dustland’ songs one day. However, Brandon didn’t think that it was really Bruce Springsteen because he didn’t have his number.
Instead, Brandon thought that Bruce Hornsby was the one who texted him. As Brandon said, he forgot to add Springsteen’s phone number to his new phone, and that’s why he couldn’t text him back immediately. Brandon explained this further by saying that he changes his mobile phone frequently because he records lots of ideas into it, which is why he didn’t have Springsteen’s number.
This is how the interviewer initiated the conversation:
“We have to talk about Bruce Springsteen — Brandon, I know you’ve told it a million times, but I am very tickled by the whole story of how Bruce texted you.”
To which Brandon Flowers replied:
“I feel bad letting it out. I’m just terrible if I get a new phone. Here’s my problem. I’ll tell you why this wasn’t on the phone. Like on this phone right now, I have these the voice memos. I wish that people could see what I’m showing you…
I’m in the high 1600s for the notes. So when I get a new phone, I don’t want 1600 voice ideas on my phone. So I don’t just transfer all the names and all the info.”
Then his bandmate Vanucci Jr. asked:
“You don’t do the migration?”
Brandon Flowers said:
“Yeah, ’cause I don’t want 1600 voice memos. So these are all ideas, and most of them are bad. After a new record, I want to get a new phone. And so that’s why I had a new phone, because we had finished Imploding the Mirage.
I hadn’t put Bruce’s number on, so that’s why I didn’t know that. I need to get a new phone. On that last one, I probably had 2000, and it eats up a lot of data. So that’s why his name wasn’t saved, why his number wasn’t saved yet.”
The interviewer couldn’t help but ask:
“So what did he text you?”
Brandon Flowers said about their collaboration:
“It was just such a nice text, and I didn’t know that it was real. It was like, ‘We’ve got to do ‘Dustland’ one day.’ He talked about ‘Be Still,‘ which is sort of not a well-known song. But for real fans, it’s a real favorite.
And so all of a sudden he’s talking about ‘Be Still’ and working on that one, and seeing us play with Johnny Marr and Pet Shop Boys. I think he was watching Glastonbury.
And then it finishes off with just ‘Bruce,’ and so I really thought maybe it’s someone messing with me, like, ‘Who is this? Maybe it’s Bruce Hornsby,’ because I also had his number on my old phone. There was a lot going on, a lot of emotion.”
You can listen to the song below.
