Brandon Flowers says the Killers 'lack drive'

Brandon Flowers says that the Killers may not have the drive to become a major, world-spanning stadium band. Blaming timing – as well as his three bandmates – for the group’s uneven growth, the singer concedes that the Killers may never become the next U2.

“Sometimes it’s frustrating,” Flowers told NME. “With four different people and four different personalities in this band, we don’t have that whole history that U2 have of these four young kids that knew each other and grew up in the same town ... It takes a lot of work and that’s fine, everybody’s different, everybody’s gonna have their own road that they go down.”

“There’s definitely a drive that we’re lacking,” he went on. “People actually talk about how they don’t feel like [the Killers are] adequate, and it’s a big band. I don’t feel like that – I feel like I can do it.”

Although each of their studio albums has gone top 10 in the USA, and all the way to 1 in the UK, Flowers isn’t certain that the Killers will remain a stadium-scale band. “It’s changed so much now, there’s so much music out there and so much noise to compete with,” he said. “Other than Coldplay, I’m not sure anybody’s made the dent that U2 were able to make.”

Flowers has recently hinted that he feels radio programmers are biased against older artists. As part of a recent NME feature, the 33-year-old asked BBC Radio 1 boss George Ergatoudis whether he was now too old to make their playlist. “Not at all,” Ergatoudis said. “It’s about how old we see a musician’s fanbase as being, not the artist’s own age ... There’s really no guideline on age or a cutoff point where suddenly someone’s too old.”

The Killers’ most recent album was released in 2012. Although they plan to record a follow-up, Flowers is first planning to release his second solo LP.