Kings Of Leon's 'stupid' Start

27 February 2009

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Kings of Leon formed out of "boredom and stupidity".

The group came together when brothers Nathan and Caleb Followill were offered a record deal but didn't want to be put in a group with other people, opting instead to recruit other members of their family, despite their lack of musical training.

Nathan explained: "Jared had never picked up a bass, Caleb had never picked up a guitar, Matt had taken two guitar lessons.

My mom would bring us food down. And at the end of that month the label people came and we had 'Molly's Chambers,' 'California Waiting,' 'Wicker Chair' and 'Holy Roller Novocaine.'

"Why did we think we could pull it off? Boredom. Stupidity. When we signed the deal with RCA it was just me and Caleb.

"The label said, 'We're gonna put you a band together,' and we were like, 'We don't want to be a duo. We're gonna buy our little brother a bass, he's a freshman in high school. Caleb will teach himself to play guitar. Our cousin Matthew played guitar when he was 10. I'll play the drums, I played in church when I was little.' They said, 'All right, we'll come down in one month and see you guys.' "

The 'Sex on Fire' rockers then opted for drastic measures in order to impress the record company - hiding themselves away with only illegal drugs to fuel their creative process.

Nathan added to Billboard.com: "We kidnapped our cousin from Mississippi, told his mom he was coming for the week and just never let him go home. We locked ourselves in the basement with an ounce of marijuana and literally spent a month down there.

"My mom would bring us food down. And at the end of that month the label people came and we had 'Molly's Chambers,' 'California Waiting,' 'Wicker Chair' and 'Holy Roller Novocaine.' "

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