IN THIS ISSUE: Brandon Flowers' new country album, remembering Glen Hansard, & the songs keeping me company this summer
Dear friends,
Welcome to the 5th edition of the Alchemy newsletter.
I’m writing from summer vacation out on the East End of Long Island, where the oppressive humidity is cut only by the cool breeze along the Atlantic. So I’ve been hugging the shore with my earbuds in and finally - I know Labor Day isn’t far away! - a summer playlist has assembled itself. Better late than never. It includes a few oldies, like my all-time favorite summer song: Tommy James & The Shondells’ “Crystal Blue Persuasion,” released in June of 1969. The cascading opening notes still make me feel like I’m 13 again with a sunburn, salty skin, and no worries.
On a sad note: since I last wrote, we learned of the death of Glen Hansard, a deep loss for the music community. Last week, much of Dublin turned out to pay tribute to Glen. Bono was there and Eddie Vedder did a moving cover of Glen’s “Song of Good Hope” together with Markéta Irglová. Back in 2013, I spent a few special days with Glen. I share some memories below.
But let’s begin with our latest episode of Alchemy. I was so happy to have Brandon Flowers come by the apartment. The Killers' frontman, who has one of my favorite voices in rock, is releasing a solo country album later this month. We had a lively chat about his adventures in Nashville and how he found his style as both singer and frontman; I also learned about Brandon’s dreamlike encounter with Elvis, which became a great song on the new record.
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Thanks for reading!
- Anthony
This week on Alchemy: Brandon Flowers
When my kids were little, it was a rare spectacle to see the entire Mason family singing aloud together on a car ride. Very few songs could inspire that kind unity across the generations. But put on The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside” or “Human” in the minivan and all five Masons would joyfully be in chorus singing at the top of our lungs along I-95.
"It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?
It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss."
-The Killers, "Mr. Brightside"
I’m hardly alone in regarding “Mr. Brightside" as one of the greatest records of the 21st century. It was The Killers' debut single back in 2003 and one of the first songs Brandon Flowers wrote after answering an ad posted in Las Vegas Weekly by his soon-to-be bandmate Dave Keuning.
“The first time we played it, the hairs on my arms were standing up," Flowers recalls on the latest episode of Alchemy. "That was usually reserved for bands that I loved that made me get the chills. So it was interesting that it was my own song. Once something like that happens, you're hooked.”
More than two decades later, The Killers are one of the biggest rock bands in the world, fronted by Flowers with charismatic swagger. But when he answered Keuning’s ad in 2001, he wasn’t expecting to sing lead in a band, let alone be the frontman. And in person, Brandon is famously mild mannered.
When we had last spoken towards the end of the pandemic, he described passing the idle hours during lockdown by watching all the episodes of The Waltons with his family. So where, you wonder, does his epic stage presence come from?
“Yeah,” he acknowledges, “it’s very different than my regular personality.”
“Does something happen to you out there [on stage]?” I ask him.
“Something happens,” he says. “There’s part of me somewhere that wants that and craves that for an hour and a half every night. It's a beast waiting to come out.”
“I’m from a town of impersonators," he continues. "It may be that. My wife’s mother was a Madonna impersonator. Her first crush was on a Roy Orbison impersonator that worked with her mom. And I say she married the best damn Roy Orbison impersonator that there ever was.”
Flowers’ new record "THRASHER," his third solo project, is a country album recorded in Nashville with a band of “heavy hitters.” It’s hardly a sharp turn for the kid who grew up listening to his dad’s Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson albums.
For all the Springsteen and Orbison influences in his music, I’ve always heard a little Elvis too. And on one of my favorite songs on the album, “An American Dream,” Brandon has a haunting encounter with Elvis.
"Got picked up by Elvis in a Tesla Model X
Jet-black '68 Comeback leather
He was clean and sober
And he laughed when I asked him if it was all worth it"
-Brandon Flowers, "An American Dream"
“It's a weirdly poignant moment on the record for me,” Brandon says. “I'm 45. Look, life could have been harder for me. I've had an amazing situation. But I do wonder. I give a lot and there's a price you pay. There's things that I've missed out on. I'm asking Elvis if it was worth it, what I'm doing. He laughs, which I think is my answer. It's a little bit of a brutal thing to face.
"This is my most revealing song I've ever written. I was really trying to capture my experience thus far. He's always there. I think if anybody ever picks up a microphone, he better be there. It was inevitable that he was going to show up in the dream.”
Remembering Glen Hansard
The morning we published our last newsletter, the news broke that Glen Hansard had died in a motorcycle accident in Dublin.
Glen was 56 and just hours before had been playing in the Wren’s Nest, a Dublin pub. It wasn’t a formal gig, just Glen and his guitar with friends, the kind of moment he lived for.
Like so many, I first saw Glen in "Once," the gem of a small film that would win him unexpected notoriety and an Oscar in 2007 for “Falling Slowly,” the gorgeous romantic ballad he wrote with his co-star Markéta Irglová.
Glen’s score for the film would be the musical foundation of the Broadway production of "Once" that opened in 2012. Not long after it won eight Tony Awards, I met Glen to profile him for CBS Sunday Morning. We would spend a memorable few days together.
The first was on Jersey Street, a block-long spur between Crosby and Lafayette in lower Manhattan. Glen had picked it to busk for our cameras because it reminded him of Dublin, where he had started as a street musician at 13 after dropping out of school. Jersey was hardly a highly trafficked thoroughfare, but Glen soon drew an audience, his voice echoing beautifully off the old brick walls.
“I get the sense,” I said to him, “that you’ll always be at home playing a guitar on the street.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You can climb all the levels of success and of celebrity or fame. But you’re never more than a step away from the guy who’s just making his money for the day.”
We sat down for a formal interview some time later. My producer Ramon Parkins had suggested we ask about a song called "Bird of Sorrow." In an earlier interview Glen had said it was about Ireland. And Ramon envisioned the music playing over a montage of Irish scenes.
It was the last question in our nearly hour-long conversation and Glen startled us with his response. The song wasn’t about Ireland at all, he confessed.
"'Tethered to a bird of sorrow' means a few things in my head when I sing it," he said. "It’s us. Me and my brother..."
Glen paused. His eyes began welling up and then his face collapsed. He was suddenly flooded with emotion, and for a minute, could barely speak. When he finally collected himself, Glen shared that his alcoholic father had physically abused his mom: “And we spent a lot of our childhood in aunts' houses, in battered wives homes, in long periods of, like, living in a dorm. Away from him.”
"You've squandered more than you could borrow
You've bet your joy on all the tomorrows
For the hope of some returnin'
While everything around you is burnin'"
-Glen Hansard, "Bird of Sorrow"
“It’s a funny thing to feel more like an adult than your parents when you’re a kid,” he said.
Glen’s haunted look after he broke down has stayed me ever since. He was upset that he’d broken - it surprised him as much as it did us. Ramon and I struggled with how much of that vulnerable moment to include in the story. We kept it to a minimum. But I felt it explained what I had always heard in Glen’s music - an ache and a sadness that until then I couldn’t quite put a finger on because in person he could feel so joyous.
Glen’s generous spirit was infectious. As part of our story, I also visited the rented cottage where he lived on an estate outside of Dublin. We were sitting at his kitchen table chatting when I mentioned I would be flying on to London next to shoot another story with Pete Townshend. “Oh well, I’ve got something for you then,” Glen said, getting up from his chair and going over to a drawer at the kitchen counter. He pulled out a handful of guitar picks and started sorting through them. “Here it is,” he said and passed a pick across the table to me. It had Townshend’s name on it. “Eddie Vedder gave this to me,” he said. I knew that Eddie, a good friend of Glen’s, was also a huge fan of The Who.
I protested. “I can’t take this from you,” I said, handing it back to him.
“No,” Glen insisted. “You’re going to see Pete. You should have it.”
A couple of years ago, I caught up with Glen in Missoula, Montana when coincidentally he was opening for Eddie and Pearl Jam. We shared a warm embrace backstage. It was the last time I saw him.
The guitar pick he gave me ended up attached to a vintage photograph of Townshend. After Pete signed it for me, I took the photo to a framer and asked them to affix the pick to the corner of the image. It’s hung across from my desk at CBS ever since. I think of Glen every time I look at it.
The Mason Mixtape: Summer '26
I wasn’t planning on compiling a summer playlist, maybe because I hadn’t heard that “one song” that compelled me. And when we hit August I figured it was too late anyway. But last week I was cruising down the Montauk Highway when I finally heard the tune that pulled it all together.
Michigander’s “Freaking Out” got under my skin instantly - both its pop punk guitar riff and the chorus, which screamed aloud my current state of mind:
“This is what it feels like to be alive / I’m freakin’ out
Out of control / Spinning like a record nobody knows
I’m high, then I’m low
Singing with the static on the radio"
My song of the summer had finally arrived. A couple of years ago, Michigander opened for Crowded House at Pier 17 in New York. I caught the show and afterwards had a great chat with songwriter & frontman Jason Singer. I’m so happy he has his breakout hit.
So my playlist starts there. It also includes a couple of great “comebacks” of a kind: from Robert Smith of The Cure who duets with Olivia Rodrigo. And from New Radicals’ Gregg Alexander, who joins Michelle Branch on a new version of “The Game of Love” (which he wrote and she made a hit way back in 2002).
Anyway, before it’s too late, here are the songs that have been keeping me company on bike rides and beach walks this summer, the bright new ones and some old favorites that still shine…
“Freaking Out” - Michigander
“Camera” - Charli XCX
“what’s wrong with me” - Olivia Rodrigo & Robert Smith
“Eastside Girls” - MUNA
“oh yeah?” - Steve Lacy
“Suzanne” - Mark Ronson & RAYE
“Plans” - Brandon Flowers
“Carry On” - Jungle
“California Girls” - Future
“Never Have I Ever” - Rainbow Kitten Surprise
“East Village” - Spacey Jane
“Recommend” - Masego
“Mess I Made” - St. Paul & The Broken Bones
“To Love Somebody” - Holly Humberstone
“Choosin’ Texas” - Ella Langley
“The Game of Love” - Michelle Branch & New Radicals
“Shades of Time” - Santana
“Crystal Blue Persuasion” - Tommy James & The Shondells
“Summertime Thing” - Chuck Prophet
“All Summer” - Little Big Town
“California Soul” - Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
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