THE KILLERS: Vital Signs

Yet with four distinct and creative personalities at work, the band somehow manages to keep from coming unglued. “We’re a democracy,” Flowers says. “We recorded 19 songs and ten made it this time around. Sometimes there are songs that one of us wishes was on the album but it doesn’t make it because of that.”

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“Were bound to argue,” Flowers continues, “but what I find amazing is the idea that I could have this song in my head and hear it as this driving force, but Ronnie can hear it in half-time. And although it may not be how I envisioned it, I’ve got to give it a try. And through that, it can be difficult, but it can also be productive because it forces you to look at things from different perspectives.”

Turning to the band’s history and its unusual ascent, which found The Killers becoming a U.K. sensation in the summer of 2004 while they were still largely unknown in the U.S., Keuning is still sort of baffled by how they were so quickly received. “I can’t explain it,” he says. “People in England just sort of gravitated toward us right away. A lot of our influences came from stuff they like.”

“Our influences have got to have something to do with it,” Flowers insists. “They say we’re the best British band to ever come from America. They’ve always embraced us and it’s really wonderful to play over there. Our first album did really well here and there, but our second album dipped a little in America, which was sort of frustrating. And you can never really understand it.”

But with Day and Age, The Killers haven’t just rebounded from the stark, black and white imagery of Sam’s Town, they’ve moved forward creatively while delivering what should be the biggest, and most colorful modern rock album of 2008. And despite their seemingly meteoric rise, the band reminds us that they’ve had some pretty crappy A&R experiences leading up to it all.

“I just remember that we got turned down by almost every label at one point,” Keuning says.

“And you just can’t let it get to you if you get a showcase and nothing comes from it,” Flowers advises.

“I just remember meeting these A&R people who were really schmoozy,” Keuning continues. “And they’d all say things and do different things. I don’t want to be too hard on them, but you can’t take much that they say very seriously. We’ve had meetings with labels that said they were going to sign us-literally they were like ‘we’ll fax the contract’-and they never did. And it took us going to England to get a deal. And before we took this deal with a small label called Lizard King, I remember thinking, ‘Well. At least we get to go to London for a week.’ And then we did these four shows and somehow a lot of people were watching. So that was kind of a litmus test. We got a little bit of press and a meeting and so forth and then we came back home.”

“And then all the labels here wanted to take us out to dinner,” Keuning says with a snicker. “I ordered appetizers and gained eight pounds and I knew I wasn’t going to sign with any of them. And it felt good! But we still had to go back to our jobs. The U.K. deal wasn’t enough for us to quit our jobs. In October 2003 we got an American deal and we decided we could quit our jobs. I think we waited until they mailed us a check and then we quit.”