Breakfast

Brandon Flowers stands onstage at the Ford Theatre wearing a sharp black suit and a bejeweled bolo tie and tells the audience about his cousin Bobby’s job parking cars in the 110-degree heat of the Las Vegas Strip.

“That was gonna be me in another life, only my big plan was to work at the Bellagio,” he adds. “Nicer place, more tips.”

As the frontman of the Killers, Flowers, 45, has spent more than two decades singing about the struggles and the temptations at the heart of the American dream. But on his new solo album, “Thrasher,” he trades the Killers’ gleaming, synth-laced rock for the crackling sound of hand-played country music.

He cut the LP at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A, where country giants like Dolly Parton and Waylon Jennings once worked; not only that, but to accompany him he recruited veteran session players including David Rawlings, Bruce Bouton and 85-year-old Charlie McCoy, who played harmonica on George Jones’ immortal “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”

Yet for all its old-school country cred, “Thrasher” also emphasizes Flowers’ roots as a Vegas showman — his tremulous croon, his go-for-broke emotion, his almost preacherly understanding of how to take a crowd up (and up) and how to take it back down. Think Glen Campbell or Donny Osmond.

“Or Wayne Newton,” says Rawlings with admiration. The guitarist, known for his long collaboration with Gillian Welch, performed with Flowers at July’s Newport Folk Festival. “It’s really thrilling to see the way he inhabits this stuff onstage,” he adds. “I have such incredible respect for anybody who knows how to entertain at that level because it’s an absolute gift — and it’s really hard work.”

Flowers, who grew up in Las Vegas and Utah and who shares three sons with his wife, spoke about the album in his dressing room last month a few hours before the Ford show. A sequel to “Thrasher,” recorded during the same sessions, is due out next year.

The Nashville OGs who played on these records — do you think they were impressed by you?
I think they were refreshed. I think they didn’t quite know what they were getting into and were pleasantly surprised.

For you, it was a different way of working, right? These players are artists. But it’s also just another day on the job.
You feel that: “Charlie’s got to leave at 4 to go to the Opry.” He still gets his licks in.

I wonder what it would’ve sounded like to cut 10 Killers classics with this band.
Probably like the Traveling Wilburys or something. The second album has some of that DNA. This one was more of a narrative album — a lot of stories. The other one, it’s more in the romantic realm. I’m excited to get it out. I have another one cooking.

A third album?
Well, because they’re so efficient. It’s opened up a door for me that I feel like I’ll always be able to explore. If I have 10 songs, I can go to Nashville for five days and cut the whole thing. We do two songs a day, no problem.

You’ve said there’s this idea in rock music that making an album needs to feel like climbing a mountain.
I blame it on U2. You don’t feel like you’re doing it right if you’re not doing that. We really went into that on “Sam’s Town” — we climbed Everest, man. When we finished “Sam’s Town,” I remember the last day — it was like 6 in the morning, the sun was up and we were finally done. What a relief it was.

Now the veil has been lifted.
It doesn’t have to be like that.

Did you get a feel for Nashville as a town while you were there?
I got a breakfast spot: Cafe Roze. I don’t want to blow it up too much because I want to be able to get in. But you know Cafe Stella in Silver Lake? They used to have my favorite breakfast in the world: sourdough, soft scramble, prosciutto and Parmesan. And they have that exact thing at Cafe Roze — it’s like I’m transported back. I could eat it every day with a side of avocado.

“Thrasher” follows a number of country excursions by rappers and pop stars. Do you have any anxiety about being seen as a carpetbagger?
No, because I’m not trying to bulldoze my way into the world and open a bar in Nashville. This is an authentic part of myself — I have an education in this music. People have a lot of preconceptions about country music, especially lately. Everyone says the same thing: cold beer, dirt road, Friday night. But there’s such an art to the tradition — it’s a soulful artistic endeavor. I’m trying to come at it from that angle.

What’s your relationship with modern country music — Morgan Wallen and Miranda Lambert and the like?
I don’t have one. It’s more people that are on the fringes, I guess — Jason Isbell or Sturgill Simpson. I got Sturgill’s guitar player because I was a fan of that stuff.

Before I heard “Thrasher,” I expected kind of a stripped-down Isbell vibe.
I could see him doing “In a Heartbeat” or “Miss America.” But once we got to Nashville and got the guys in the room, it just got a little more pep in its step.

Does being embraced by the Nashville industry feel like a reasonable goal?
That’s a whole other nut to crack. You hear stories about Dwight Yoakam having a tough time — and he brought some heat. Or John Prine just because he was from Illinois and not from further south. I’m not gonna go on a campaign to prove how worthy I am.

You’ve been dinged by people who think you’re putting on an accent on this record.
I feel like this is more how I speak than maybe they’re accustomed to. I don’t know, I might’ve leaned in a couple times. There is a Utah accent — it was something I was embarrassed by when I was younger. But now I’ve lived there 16 years of my life total, so it just starts feeding its way back in.

Is your vocal approach different for country than for rock?
There’s more quiet in these songs — more room for the story to be told. In the rock band, I’m competing — everybody wants to be heard — whereas this one, there’s this beautiful thing where the guys don’t mind being in the background. They want to frame the picture, and I’m the picture.

Did you find yourself making more of an effort to enunciate?
I’ve always been cognizant of that. Just today, there was a band — I won’t say who it was — but I was interested in hearing their new thing, and I didn’t understand a word until the chorus. I was rooting for the guy the whole time, but it’s like: How can I fall in love with this if I don’t know what’s happening?

Brandon Flowers performs last month at the Ford Theatre.

(Rob Loud)

Got some questions about specific songs. “One of Us” is about your brother-in-law, which made me realize how few people write songs about their in-laws.
He passed away unexpectedly a few years ago. You know, I’m the youngest of six, and he married my oldest sister. She’s 17 years my senior, so when they got married, I was a kid — he became my big brother and was a masculine figure in my life and all that. There’s your family and then there’s your found family, and he’s part of my found family. I wanted to honor him, and this is my way of doing it.

I assume your sister’s heard the song.
Oh yeah. A lot of those moments happen on this record where I had to play the song for the person, and you just can’t help but be brought closer together. You’re taking part in their grief but we’re also celebrating him. It was beautiful.

“Miss America” is about another one of your sisters.
The one next in line.

She’s addressing an abusive ex, and you sing it from her point of view — from a woman’s perspective.
It just started like that. I don’t remember a moment of thinking: Am I gonna do this from the outside or am I gonna step into her shoes? Maybe it’s something to do with that Tom Waits song [“Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis”] — something about that maybe gave me permission.

Did you play “Miss America” for that sister?
It felt like the gentlemanly thing to do. If she’d said no, I would’ve been heartbroken because I think “Miss America” is gorgeous — I’m really proud to be part of it. But I would’ve honored her wishes.

In “An American Dream,” the point of view seems to keep shifting. At one point I think the narrator becomes Elvis Presley?
Chorus 1, I’m singing with this man that used to give me cigars and tobacco when I was a kid — we’re singing it together. Giving a 13-year-old Red Man tobacco — there was nothing shady about it, or nothing too shady — but it was still a wild move. Then Chorus 2, Elvis and I are both singing — I see it that way.

Which era of Elvis are you envisioning?
Whenever I think of him, I think of him in ’68. Nobody’s ever looked that good — it’s not fair.

You’re known for your flights of lyrical fancy: “Burning down the highway skyline in the back of a hurricane,” for instance, from the Killers’ “When You Were Young.” Did country music allow for those flourishes?
Verse 2 of “Does It Ever Cross Your Mind?” is a great example: “I could’ve been born in Bangladesh but I wasn’t / I was born here with just enough jelly beans in my basket to ask you to go wishing on a star.” That’s fun.

In “An American Dream” you say, “We blew through starlight on bricklayers’ knees.”
We’re performers, and we’re here to entertain you. But we’re working-class men, me and Elvis.

Some of these lines get at this crucial point that I think your music makes, which is that pageantry and sincerity can coexist.
I think people get confused a lot — they might look at a line like the one you just talked about and think it’s total bulls—. It’s annoying to me to read a review and see where they just don’t get it — and they think they’re the smart one. I saw someone talking about my tropes, and they brought up the Bangladesh line. I thought: What are you talking about? That’s the most left-field line.

You’re challenging the listener to accept that over the top doesn’t necessarily mean phony.
It’s so American to be over the top and to still have substance. That’s the chorus of “An American Dream”: “Gold and silver / God and glitter.” I guess I’m trying to spoon-feed it there a little bit.

Plenty of Killers songs involve people making bad decisions. How do you think about the degenerate’s place in country music?
It’s funny how people aren’t quite familiar with how wild it was. The same person in me that was excited about old Depeche Mode stories still gets excited about old George Jones stories. And a part of me yearns for that. But I keep it under wraps.

Your oldest son is 19, which means you became a dad at a fairly young age.
It was just par for the course. I grew up in an LDS family — my sisters were having kids when they were 17 and 18. So having Ammon at 26 — that was the oldest anyone had had their first child in my family. They were like, “Brandon might be gay.”

How did you reconcile the rock star and new dad halves of your life?
It sort of gave me a direction early on because I was a little bit teetering in those days. Who’s ready to have this wild fame brought on them at such a young age? We weren’t the Beatles, but “Hot Fuss” and “Sam’s Town” were really successful records — we went straight to arenas. It was tough to navigate, and family gave me an anchor.

Do you hear before parenthood and after parenthood in your music?
There’s a song called “Be Still” on the fourth record — a song to the kids. But I don’t know if the writing changed that much. Everybody was getting older in the band, so whatever happened, you can’t place the blame just on me.

Jon Kay and Sally Nugent were back on the red sofa for the latest edition of BBC Breakfast

The hosts of BBC Breakfast shared some sad news this week.

Jon Kay and Sally Nugent were back in the studio on Wednesday (October 7) to deliver the latest headlines from across the UK and around the world. Later in the show, the presenters announced the death of an acting legend.

Eva Marie Saint, one of the last survivors of Hollywood’s golden age of the 1940s and 50s, has died at the age of 102. Her work on screen spanned six decades. She made her screen debut alongside Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, and also starred in North by Northwest and Superman Returns.

Representatives of the star said that she died on Tuesday (October 6) of natural causes at her Los Angeles home, surrounded by her loved ones. Sharing the news on BBC Breakfast, Sally said: “Tributes have been paid to one of the last stars of Hollywood’s golden age, the American actor Eva Marie Saint, who has died at the age of 102.”

Jon added: “In a career spanning nine decades, the oldest surviving Oscar winner became best known for her roles in the 1954 hit On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando, and later with Cary Grant in the spy thriller North by Northwest.” BBC culture correspondent Charlotte Gallagher then looked back on Eva’s life.

In the pre-recorded tribute, Charlotte said: “Eva Marie Saint, the ice-cool femme fatale, who meets Cary Grant on a train in Alfred Hitchcock’s Cold War spy classic North by Northwest. She seduces him, betrays him, but ultimately falls in love, after a terrifying escape from enemy spies across Mount Rushmore.”

Eva was the daughter of a tyre salesman from New Jersey. She initially thought of becoming a teacher, but modelling led to a small part in television, alongside former silent screen legend Lillian Gish.

As her acting career took off, Eva became known for appearing in Exodus, The Sandpiper, 36 Hours, and Grand Prix. She soon won a Primetime Emmy Award and an Academy Award.

Back in the studio, Sally then said, “Eva Marie Saint, whose death has been announced. The star of so many incredible films.”

Jon went on to say, “True end of an era stuff,” before Sally agreed, “Yeah.” The hosts then continued with their bulletin.

Tributes have flooded in for Eva, following the news of her death. “Oh no… But what a magnificent life!” one person wrote on X.

Another added: “No! I was just talking about how amazing it was that she was over 100 to my father yesterday!” A third said: “This is such sad news, what a wonderful actress and beautiful lady she was, RIP Eva Marie.”

Someone else echoed the sentiment, saying: “Damn. Not many left. Enjoyed her on Turner Classic. Great actress.” A fifth fan shared: “They just don’t make them like that anymore. What a loss.”

BBC Breakfast airs daily on BBC One at 6am

Childline founder and legendary broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen has died at the age of 86 after battling cancer, as her children announced in a joint statement.

BBC presenters Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetty reflected on Dame Esther Rantzen’s life.

The 86-year-old is best known for presenting shows such as That’s Life! and for founding Childline, as well as campaigning to legalise assisted dying in the UK. In 2023, she revealed she had joined Dignitas, the Swiss assisted dying clinic, after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

Sadly, her children confirmed in a joint statement that their mother had died on September 30, stating they will ‘miss her immeasurably.’ During Thursday’s (October 1) instalment of BBC Breakfast, presenters Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt took a moment to pay tribute to the broadcaster and reflect on her career.

Naga said: “Many tributes have been made for the broadcaster and campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen, who has died at the age of 86.”

Charlie added: “She became a household name presenting and producing the BBC programme That’s Life for more than 20 years. Our culture editor Katie Razzell looks back at her extraordinary life.”

BBC viewers were then shown a compilation of clips of Esther’s broadcasting career, including some hilarious snippets from her time on That’s Life, alongside her investigating other serious issues.

One segment saw a clip from her former co-star Adrian Mills, who said: “At the time, the three most powerful people in the country were probably, The Queen, Margaret Thatcher and Esther Rantzen, not necessarily in that order.”

Actress and comedian Miriam Margolyes added, “She just wouldn’t let anything get in the way of work. She was determined, very ambitious and somehow generous.”

A poignant moment in the tribute was a past interview with Esther herself as she commented, “I don’t expect to be remembered.

When you stop appearing on television, people assume you’ve died. My physical death, no doubt, will happen long after people have said, ‘Wasn’t she Esther Rantzen?’

One of the last campaigns Esther was fighting for was the assisted dying bill, which was rejected in Parliament on September 11.

The BBC played a clip of Esther speaking with her daughter, Rebecca Wilcox, on the phone to share her thoughts on the MP’s decision.

She said: “I am sure a change in the law will come, I am deeply sad that it won’t come soon enough for many of the people who need it.”

BBC Breakfast is available to watch weekdays on BBC One from 6am