WEEKEND VIDEO
“Radioactive” |
Kings of Leon have featured exploding buildings (“Notion”) and fast-paced montages of sold-out concert venues (“Use Somebody”) in their videos, but for their newest, they take a more laid-back approach. The band released the sepia-tone video for “Radioactive” on their website this month, and it finds the Kings at a Southern-style summer barbecue.
The band substitutes beer and cigarettes for sodas and pie as a youth choir is seen backing the band throughout the song. “It’s in the water / It’s where you came from,” lead vocalist Caleb Followill belts out on the track’s chorus.
As images of sun-drenched green fields and tables full of apple pies are set to gospel vocals and Matthew Followill’s heavy guitar riffs, “Radioactive” provides a glimpse of KoL’s Southern origins.
“We grew up in this type of lifestyle,” drummer Nathan Followill explained in a video posted on the group’s site about making the clip. “Gospel music was a big part of us growing up, so to be able to come back and revisit that part of our lives at this stage in our lives is a very special thing.”
The Kings of Leon are originally from Tennessee, but they can call most of the Southern states home after spending much of their childhoods traveling with their father, a Pentecostal preacher, to various Southern churches and congregations.
“Radioactive” is the first single from the band’s fifth studio album, Come Around Sundown, which is set to for a October 19 release. There were problems, however, in the early stages, bassist Jared Followill explained in the video. The new single almost didn’t make it onto the upcoming record.
“The choruses started off kind of spiritual but the verses were never matched up to them at all. … We went into the studio and we tried it and it wasn’t really working … we were going to scrap the whole song.”
It was only when the band began recalling childhood memories that the tune came to life.
“Caleb, he kind of went back to an old spiritual song that we had all sung growing up,” Jared continued. “It matched up with the chorus so nice that it all worked out from there.”