Kings of Leon were getting ready to rev up the machine once again.
It was March 2020 and it had been four years since the band's last album, "Walls," the longest stretch between albums since the rock outfit released its debut, "Youth & Young Manhood," in 2003. The group's Instagram page was wiped clean, as artists tend to do when they're preparing to launch a new era. A new album was in the can, and the group was ready to roll out tour dates and hit the road.
COVID, however, had other plans.
As the touring industry and the world in general hit pause, Kings of Leon frontman Caleb Followill suddenly found himself with a lot of unexpected spare time on his hands, which he filled the best way he knew how, given the circumstances.
"There was a lot of drinking," says Followill, on the phone last month from his home in Nashville. "A lot of day drinking. Me and my wife, we gave ourselves a couple months to be a little more unhealthy than we normally would."
Wine is the drink of choice for Followill and his wife, Lily Aldridge, the former Victoria's Secret model, but he also found himself playing bartender. "I did get into making polomas," says Followill, 39. "That was something that on Saturdays, we did have a little poloma with lunch, which was nice."
When life gives you lemons, you make tequila-based cocktails. And as weeks became months became nearly a full year, Followill found himself continuing to sit on the sidelines, waiting out the global pandemic, holed up in his home.
"I was a freak, man. I didn't leave my house for maybe five, six months," he says.
But he made the most of domestic life. He cooked a lot of meals, using ingredients from his home garden, designing meals around the music he was listening to, whether it was Yo La Tengo, the Band or Neil Young. He played his kids — 8-year-old Dixie Pearl and 2-year-old Winston Roy — old country records, hoping to educate them on the roots of country music ("they weren't into it," he says). And he spent the most time he ever had at home with his wife, whose modeling career usually keeps her on the road, when he's not on the road living the rock star life. The couple celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary in May.
"I look back on it and it was kind of a relaxing time," Followill says. "I was freaking out the whole time, but now I look back and I wish I would have just allowed myself to enjoy my naps a little more."
There are less naps now that the band — Followill, his brothers Matthew (guitar) and Jared (bass) and his cousin Nathan (drums) — is back in full swing. That album that was in the can, the subtle, roots-y "When You See Yourself," was teased by the arrival of two singles, "The Bandit" and "100,000 People," back in January. It was released in March, and the band is now back on the road for its first tour since 2019.
The band was in tour rehearsal in late July, "kicking off the cobwebs," Followill says, practicing for a career-spanning set that touches on each of the group's eight studio albums. (Matthew and his wife had a baby last month and is not on the road with the group; touring member Timothy Deaux will fill his role.)
The goal is a fun-in-the-sun summertime show, a playful return to live performances, which is getting tough as COVID-19 and its delta variant cousin are wreaking havoc on the live touring industry.
"I feel like we're about to be out walking around with landmines all around us," Followill says, "and to get out without stepping on one, that's going to be a miracle."
He describes himself as a "ball of nerves" as fears mount that the band will have to cancel individual shows or perhaps the entire tour.
"But there's also that thought of, let's go enjoy this, because if the tour would end up stopping in the middle of it, I want to make we sure enjoyed every second we had out there," Followill says. "Hopefully everyone stays safe and we get to do it and don't have to come back home in the middle of it." (His time at home has him dreaming of songwriting gigs or film score work, projects he can tackle at home if he's forced back into another lockdown.)
Kings of Leon have been road warriors for nearly two decades; in Detroit, for example, the group climbed their way up from Hamtramck's Smalls, where they played a show in March 2003 supporting their first EP "Holy Roller Novocaine," all the way up to the Palace, where they first headlined in September 2009, at the height of the group's ascent, on the strength of the monster singles "Use Somebody" and "Sex on Fire."
It was that steady, one-rung-at-a-time climb — in between they played support shows (opening for the Strokes), club and theater concerts (Clutch Cargo's, Royal Oak Music Theatre, the Fillmore Detroit) and local festivals (Tastefest) — that taught them the ropes of live performance and allowed them to roll with the punches, whatever they may be.
"Without stepping stones and the experiences, I feel like it's not good on your brain," says Followill, who turns 40 in January. "We kind of worked our way through it, but I feel like even we didn't spend as much time in the smaller rooms as we could have. I think it's good to roll your sleeves up and go from a room with no one in it to filling it. Putting in the work."
