No Filler Music Podcast - Kings of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak (Part 1)

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

We sit down with our long time friend Mitchell (a name we've dropped countless times on this podcast) to chat about Kings of Leon's second record Aha Shake Heartbreak. An extremely formative band and record for the 3 of us, we reminisce about seeing the band open for The Strokes in 2003, rushing down to the local record shop to grab a copy of Aha Shake in 2005, and dive deep into every track of the record. We discuss the brilliant lyrical balance of raw vulnerability with unbridled testosterone, and the southern tinged garage rock sound that defined the group just before their meteoric mainstream rise in the years to come. Join us next week for part 2. Tracklist Kings of Leon - Slow Night, So Long Kings of Leon - King of the Rodeo Kings of Leon - Taper Jean Girl Kings of Leon - Pistol of Fire Kings of Leon - Milk Kings of Leon - The Bucket This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hi, I'm Weird Al Yankovic, and you're listening to the Pantheon Network. Welcome to No Filet. We write all of the music, but we arranged it all and did, like, pretty much everything you could do besides producing. Because we did that, our heart was in it a lot more, and it was like the team effort, I mean, because we were all at the house together.

This one it was more about just go with what you're feeling. I could hear Jared playing the bass and be like, that sounds good, and then we'd build from that, or the drum beat, or Matthew's guitar part, or something like that. It was a much better process, I think. And I'm convinced that if we do our next record like that, it'll, not only will we'll be able to do it, but we'll be better at doing it, you know. And if we continue to do it every time, by the end of it, people would believe that it was live. They'd be like, no way.

We are at a stage that should be captured and should be captured in a real way. Because most of the bands that are still talked about today are talked about that because the way their method was unique and their method was honest. You know, and that's what we want. Recording is not a joke and what you're doing is not a joke. and to go in there and use all of these high-tech things to make it something, you don't need that shit. Welcome to No Filler. The music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gems

that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Travis. I got my brother Quentin with me today. And we have a guest on the show. A name that you guys should be very familiar. with. If you listen to this show often, this name has come up probably more so than Britt Daniel's name. Wow. Wow. Some other names that we've thrown around. Okay, I've found out. I feel. Britt Daniels, good God. That's right, boys, gals. My name's

mutual McKnight, you know, that recording is when I was 16 on my cell phone, that voicemail. Really? I was, I think I did it. I was making fun of flavor. Flav, I think, because you used to go, Fulfo, Flavor, Flav. And I was watching, like, Flavors, rock of love or something. And I had my first cell phone and I had to do my voice. I think it was Flavor of Love is what it was called. Yeah, I had some trash shit. Yeah, dude.

So that's a little time capsule of me from when I was a young, dumb, naive 16-year-old, my voicemail. I've had it since then, bro, the same number. Shout out Mom and Dad. Shout out Mom and Dad for the cell phone. Monthly payment there. Love you big. They've been paying it the whole time?

The whole time, the whole time. Peep behind the curtain there. That's awesome. Yeah, fuck you. Yeah. We've got, yeah, so Q, you want to, Q has to say a word yet. So how about you? I'm trying to get, I'm trying to get some words.

Let's paint the picture, dude, if this man is. The myth. The legend. Oh, geez. Yeah, so Mitch, I mean, dude, Mitchell, you are my, my only, the only friend from high school that I, that I, that I, have, man. Like, I don't, I don't keep in touch with anyone else from high school.

Yeah, that's the same for me, pal. That's big same for me, honestly. Yeah, yeah. And I don't know, I guess, so we found out pretty early on that you, that you, I don't know how. Did you, did you find our podcast or did we tell you about it? I think Tra, I think Trave or you must have, must have sent me a link or like saying, hey, we're doing discussing music. I think maybe even before you had a name, I think, and you were talking about it. But I was there early days.

I remember episodes one or two was Allison Chains. We were just talking about when I first listened. And then also the first record of Kings and Leon that got me into it. And y'all shouted me out on that big. And I'm glad you did, boys, because we, I mean, you know, it's kind of ironic. I want to say, this is a shout out to, I'm not going to say his full name, but Andrew, you know who you are if you ever hear this. I think he actually turned me on to Kings of Leon, which is the, the, the same thing. single greatest gift he could have ever given me straight up dude dude i want to say we might have

been sitting you remember that little computer room that his mom had yeah yeah tiny little shotgun tiny little thing yeah and i think we were like oh who's this opening band that's going to open for the strokes kings of leon and that that's what it was i swear we listen to like my molly's staircase or what was it called molly's chambers or smile's chambers or spiral staircase we might have listened to it in that computer room and be like wow we're so formative boy just the idea i'm realizing now that That's when I like kind of learned like, oh, a cool rock band's going to have a cool rock band opening for them that's smaller and trying to make them put themselves out there. Like that, just that. Now I'm just realizing like that's so formative. And then seeing how they how they come out and who they were and then what they ultimately turned into nowadays even with their record from last year.

Yeah, we'll get into that for sure. My gosh, dude. Talk about a journey. And they're all still alive and together. I mean, it could have been a lot worse. We talk about all our emotions with four, fifth, six albums. But ultimately, man, beautiful band. Yeah. So just real quick. So we all grew up with Mitchell. He lived in the street behind ours.

That's right. Yeah. No, y'all lived in the street behind me, bro. That's funny how you, because in my mind, it is firmly behind me, dude. We shared an alley. Let's put it like that. We shared an alley. We shared an alley in Carrollton, Texas.

That's right, dude. So, yeah, dude, this has been a long time coming. Yeah, man, yes. And Andrew, Andrew lived on your street. That's right, on a cul-de-sac. You know, the cul-de-sac was the epicenter for activity because of the protect the cul-de-sac. But y'all had a great spot, too, man. We'd had a lot of fun at y'all's house and in that alley that we shared, too.

You remember that creepy lady that lived behind y'all with the web fingers and she had a swimming pool? Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know, we- She lives rent-free in my head, dude. We watched their cats or dogs or something a couple times, like, because she had my mom. sure that it wasn't her turning into that cat. It may have been. She was a witch with a pool and West goes. It may have been.

It's possible. I don't remember the web toes, man. That must have been like a. That was probably an urban legend. That's a cul-de-sac rumor, you know? You know, now you're bringing that up. I don't know how I'm going to prove that. But I'm almost positive.

I saw her. I'm pretty sure my dad saw her getting male once and he was like, honey, I swear her hands, they didn't come apart. To her fingers. Your dad's hand killed, basically. Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, that sounded just like a part, part. Part, part. All right, so here's the deal.

This could be a five-hour-long episode. Oh, man. If we don't, you know, pull in the reins. Yeah, yeah. So, like, for a good reason, too. So, like, we've decided that we're going to talk about, we're talking about Ah, Hashi Carpric, if we didn't say that yet. So Kings of Leon's second record, it's there.

Yeah, 2005 record. Dare I say, probably our favorite band, cumulatively together. Yes. You know, yeah, maybe spoons in there also because I love spoon, dude. Those are somebody else best episodes. But I think Kings of Leon was more formative for us. Yes. Oh, God, yeah.

Dude, still formative. Absolutely. Discovered at the same time. Yes, I'm still imitating Caleb Followill's style to this day, dude. There's no doubt about it. His style from this era, we should say. Yes. Yeah.

And yeah, for sure. Now he looks like he just walked out of the GQ catalog, whatever. That's true, dude. But yeah, so we're going to talk about every track. So that means singles are on the table, despite what I say. It's great, man. Because God damn it, I love this band and I don't want to hide it. I think of one, and this.

It's my favorite band in the universe. And there's no filler on this album. You know what I'm saying? No, that's exactly right. There's no filler. I tried to look for it. I tried to find it in some of the slower songs, but then I found myself liking those more, you know, my God. Yeah.

Like the fifth track and fucking remimo, good Lord. So let's, let's say this. We're not going to dive into anything about the band, really. They're all related, right? It's brothers and a cousin. All right. So let's just jump right in there. We know a lot about the band.

They're fucking cool. They're brothers. Three brothers are cousins. Their dad was named Leon. Their kings have said Leon, which is a really cool name, man. Dude, we don't need to say anything else. You just summed it up perfectly. That's it.

Also, they're massively huge. So plenty of people listening to the show. They made it as big as you can get. Exactly. All right, here we go. Here's the first track. slow night so long crazy I don't know about y'all what a great starter

doing album man bro that's what I mean it's that shugging guitar along with that crazy drums like every insane in that creeping bass line they just they're slowly coming in saying hello and then yeah I guess Caleb's the front man right I have that right right yep that's right yep he comes in last there

with his lyrical prowess like he always does maybe some questionable stuff but you know whatever I was kind of bring it up yeah so I've got genius dot com pulled up which is a lyric website. Yeah, that's a trusted one because it's user-led. And I mean, I remember the first time we hold this album as a whole.

We were all like, holy shit, what the hell are they saying? But now it's funny that I can almost understand every single fucking word, dude. I mean, we were, so how old were we? I would have been 18, mate. That would have been 18, yeah, 20 years. Okay, so we were 17. Dude, we were 17, dude. The record came out February 22nd of 05.

And we definitely listened to it, the dig, pretty close. of the day it came out. No, Mitchell, you and I, I remember we like, got a day of, I think. No, before. Did we? Yeah. Before.

We got it before. Did you get it before, did? Because it was released earlier in the UK or something, and we got it through Naster. You're right. You're right. We got it through Nassar. Or Kazza. And Travis was like, I'm not, I don't want to hear it.

I don't want to hear it until it comes out. I remember this now, though. Holy shit. We were just like, I'm pretty good about, oh, wow. I can't believe I forgot. I remember Trav, dude, being like, no, dude, I don't want to, I want to hear them. We're just like, it's so good. Yeah.

It's just funny because I'm, I'm the same way to this day with like, I don't want to watch trailers and stuff like that for, for like, movies. Or, like, especially for TV shows where it's like next week on The Last of Us. Like, I'm not watching that shit, dude. Yeah, I'm like. Wow, Quentin, I remember that. Yeah, dude. That's fantastic, dude.

I don't think we knew like track names or anything Because didn't it just like rip it because of the records quick It's like 28 or 29 minutes and we would have we certainly wouldn't have I mean a lot of times like you'll download it from Limewire or whatever else and like yeah it would have been Cazaa yeah cause Rinewire most certainly they got the track names wrong or whatever else So yeah we do we it was like a shot in the dark Oh shit

But in our defense we rapidly bought it from a local record store Probably day of bro I remember record come out on Tuesdays, and we would have gone after school, maybe even early release to go get it. It would have been CD addict too. Shout out tomorrow. Yep. I remember. Yeah, shout out.

C.D. fucking addict, dude. Formative in my, if it wasn't there, I don't know. We would have been at the mercy of fucking Best Buy music or something, you know. Yeah. Blockbuster music. Yeah, blockbuster music. Just up the road there.

Exactly. I will figure out a way to make sure that Mark listens to this episode. Yeah. Because seriously, man. And I remember getting that crispy record, dude. and it was, or CD, I should say, it was all white. It was like cream white with that orange flower on the front. I didn't know what the fuck it was.

But I knew it was sexy and little did I know how sexy it was going to be because the whole record is it steeped, oozing in like. Sexyville, not necessarily like youth and young manhood type like broad, just like a more newfound like here I am, you know, Colenwebo, as they say in Spanish, like with balls type type vibe. And we've made it, dude. You know what I mean? Like this is like arriving, you know. Well, yeah, they knew they were arriving. And I think he also, a lot of the lyrics are like, you know, you're going to play the second part of the song we just listened to.

And it's saying basically like, where were you and we were dirty and poor, you assholes? Now you just want to go gold digging. Basically saying that because they knew like, we're here now, boys. We saw them on this tour. And they weren't, they sold out T-room. And it was an insane show wall-to-wall. They could have sold out probably somewhere else. But they were probably fulfilling a contractual tour.

And that's what they signed for. And then it wasn't but a blink. and they were on jets flying to Japan and shit. He sings about it. He's already got lyrics and, you know, and other songs in this record about, you know, I think about like he's already kind of dealing with the fame and how he wants to kick the bucket. Yeah, you're right, dude. It says right here, rise and shine, all you gold-diggin mothers.

Are you too good to tango with the poor, poor boys? Yeah, because that's it. Those are the lyrics, and it's just a little ditty. Play it out. Yeah, let's see it up. So this is a little outro that they do at the end of Slow Night So Long. Yeah, it's a little intro. It's so soft and it sounds, but it's also got a taste of like new kind of Kings of Leon vibe with this kind of like classroom instrument sound or almost like a, it's like a tango or something.

Yes, like a foreign Latin vibe. Yes, exactly. But it's still got that Southern American, you know, four dudes like playing rock music shit. But it's different and the same all at once, which I love, man. And then it just carries on into the, into the next few tracks, man. I've listened to it probably five times since we're. since we talked about it last week. And it's quick, dude. And they're all, like, connected to me now. All right. Well, speaking of singles, here we go. Here's our first single, track number two. This song is called King of the Rodeo.

Dude, I love this riff, dude, that starts the song. Me too. Probably my favorite. Favorite song on the record? I don't think it's the best, but it's my personal favorite. Not going to lie. Coming off with a slow end to slow nights along. And then it just, boom.

I'm telling you, boom. And then this new sound, too, like, oh, shit, this is them now. Holy fuck. This isn't some jangly, like, country type. I know what I'm getting now. Awesome, indie guitar. Dude, it's great, man. All right, here we go.

King of the rodeo. That might be my favorite, too, man. Yeah, dude. Yeah, it's the perfect length. Perfect everything, dude. I'm going to focus on verse two because this is pretty cool, dude. I actually didn't know this. So, according to genius, and I don't see why this wouldn't be true.

So he says, how dare you come to me like With Nail for a favor? With Nail, there's a movie from 87 called With Nail. Withnail and I, which is about two friends that go on holiday, staying in a cottage owned by Withnail's uncle. The use of his cottage is the favor asked by Withnail. And then take off your overcoat, you're staying for the weekend. In the movie, they both wear these big size overcoats. Swaying like a smoky gray, a drink in the park. Apparently, in the closing scene, Wichnell recites Shakespeare in the park while getting drunk on super fancy pants wine stolen from his uncle.

that's great right you just yeah i think you just described probably where they were headed at that time right because like they probably had access to money at this time yeah dude you know fancy overcoats fancy pants wine yeah dude i love that i didn't know that so it's a it's the final the last verse is all about a movie reference all about a cult a cult movie from 87 called with 87 yeah dude i mean there's no chance in how we would have known what what they were talking about back when we were 17, 18. No, I mean, I could, I knew he was saying like with nail for a favor, but I had no idea what that meant.

That's a good little segue into like how it was hard to understand, but it didn't matter because the way he sings on this record is wholly unique, even compared to the first one. And then the ones that come after, he cleans his stuff up. Definitely hones it in and calms down, right? On this one, there are some shrill, sharp, beautiful, just, I mean, raw shit that is, it's like another instrument in the in the in the band dude i mean there's no denying it i think in youth and young man heard their first record like i think he was still i don't know testing out his voice i mean like totally he wasn't hiding it at all but like in this one he's like you know

he's he's he's found he's found it and he's like owning it he's owning it he's owning it do you ever do you ever feel like it gets too much do you ever think it gets too much because i don't i'm always like my god dude let me tell you this so i'm i'm just i'm i'm sure i'm sure my wife isn't the only one out there who can't she doesn't understand it dude she can't she doesn't she doesn't she doesn't she doesn't she can't do the voice yeah now she's does this she says the same thing about tom york and it hurts me we've had this combo before did that's the thing with we've talked about this before to with with with with with with york is that like you either love him or hate him right i would say tom york i i get that criticism much more for tom york because

he's way creepier i can hear but you know coming from like having blues and country and western in my face as a boy like there's no i can't deny that i like this kid or this man now singing about you know just such a should and assure i can't deny it so i get this ceremony not like that you know you know it's it can be it can be i can certainly see how it looks like he's trying to do something like right i don't think there was no trying that was him right y'all if you miss the train on that i'm sorry but that that was most assuredly not an act that was him trying to sing and be into oh yeah no yeah there's that's the thing to you man i think that's That's a good segue here.

Because like I feel like, something I wanted to talk about with these guys. I think what drew us to them is they just feel so fucking genuine and like raw and real. Yeah. Compared to like all the bands that we were listening. I mean, it's not like the strokes didn't have a little bit of that. But I mean,

fucking Julian Costa Plankis is like a, he's the heir to some like, you know, I don't know what to talk about trying to put an act on. There's most certainly. They're definitely, yeah, dude. And I see that now 20 years on.

for this record coming out like this holds up so does is this it and room on fire i mean those are flawless fucking but they're also kind of one more one note to me i this record takes me and now i have to look at it with my outside of my rose-colored glasses and the heavy bias of nostalgia but this record takes me from highs to lows happy to sad you know angry to chill you know and and it's just a smear of sexy over the top it's just ridiculous they're just so yeah they're just such good storytellers, you know. Yes, sir. You know, without a doubt. And like, I don't know if you caught that intro clip that I played as from an interview that was put out for the making of the record. But the record was recorded live. I remember Quentin telling me that. I remember

Quentin or you, Travis, one of you sleuthing that out in our, maybe even in a fucking magazine, you all read or something in the time. Or we read it in the notes like recorded live, whatever, somewhere in the liner notes. And we were not just made it more impressive because You lads play instruments and it made, and y'all were like, that's ridiculous because, you know, you can isolate things and get the perfect riff and put it all together and copy and paste it all essentially, you know, in layman's terms. And that just makes it. That's the vibe, dude. They played together their whole life. Why wouldn't they do that?

It's also balzy, it seems like, you know, like, well, they were saying earlier in the interview, they were saying that they did a bunch of demos, demo tapes with these songs. And they were so, like, they listened back to me and were like, man, this is so damn good. Why wouldn't we do this? just recorded live because that's how our demos were done like just live just off the cup or whatever i mean you lose you lose a lot of the like adrenaline and authenticity there's there's like there's an edge to this record that that that i think is unique even to to all their records even in their first one because there's tough songs in their first one but on this record like four kicks and you know uh uh some of the lyrical stuff and it's it can be it's hard dude it's like tough i don't

know something i think there's some some wild happenings between the first record coming out and then blowing up with i mean it just must have been meteoric and because to me the vibe i get is like it's almost like he doesn't want it the whole the vibe from the whole record having listened to it's like the front man who i relate to the most i guess it's like he's this unwanted attention from it all but he's going to run with it and it's going to be his way and it's going to be the coolest greasiest sexiest way that there is right that that kings of leon way Yeah, yeah. That's right, man.

That's how I felt for the one it's all said done when the record's done. And the first one, the first record is I got to get it in there, man. I had so much to say about the first one. The first record is much more of like a, here we are, we're going to play your bar. Please tip us because we need it. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And also here's a rock song.

They still have something to prove, you know, yeah. Yes. Yes. This next one, so this is the only Kings of Leon record that has a parental guidance warning on it. And this next song is one of the songs that got them the parental advisory label. And that's because of the C word gets dropped in this song. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's like a kind of a punky edge to this shit, man.

I'm telling you, in the lyrics and in some of the delivery, for sure. So here we go. This is Track 3, Taper Gene Girl. Natty. Natty. I remember thinking he was saying punks watch their bodies. That's what I thought too, man. But, I mean, those are probably interchangeable.

I don't know with the intent there, at least for my understanding of what he's trying to say. And I don't think it's necessarily like a dig either. But that's hilarious that you drop that C word a couple times and you get that. I mean, we're such stiffly about that in America. Oh, I know, I know. But apparently, uh, hilarious. Apparently, Rimmemmo, soft and four kicks. All of those songs are, uh, yeah, four kicks is about beating shit out of somebody.

It's about, I mean, it's about getting guns from the South. And, yeah, dude, four kids, one from each of them. I wonder who that was about, dude. And remimo, man, I mean, that's got to be a personal story. We'll touch on that. We get there. Yeah, I'm hoping that the genius website has something to say about it. But yeah.

There's a tough side here where I think that they definitely lose because they, and that's, you got to lose that, bro. If you're going to grow up and mature and not, you can't be getting beer and beer bottle fights and, you know, fucking torn around the South. It's not going to be that way forever. So, and I can hear that, I can hear that in this because also I have the, you know, the knowledge of. time but I can hear their journey in real time dude like he's the famous they're they're living

in the moment I think he's self aware of it dude and also doesn't I think he can tell it's going to change everything you know what I mean but like uh yeah to get it back to the not such heady lofty discussion like that fucking guitar dude how clean is that oh yeah it's such a simple little riff but it's just so efficient it just works yeah you talked about it earlier you said something about like maybe it was the intro for king of the rodeo but like it how they were transitioning from like the first record was more like raw like southern rock kind of stuff and then this song or this record starts to sound more like indie like that's what you say yes and i think totally unique and something unique yes brother yeah is and now like yeah they had that like

garage rock kind of vibe now i mean spoilers i like the first record as a whole more but my god this one they push into places that are just fucking cool dude yeah really good dangerous and dangerous you know and like unknown you know that was what track three so i mean talk about one two three pretty quick you know we haven't but one two three talk about a one two three punch dude in less than like eight to nine minutes just incredible little solos drum work awesome little like vignettes of songs i i feel like i've been to a different country already yeah yeah dude so let me this is awesome awesome quote from caleb uh apparently let's say he was interviewed 2004 for this.

So before it came out, I guess. Maybe it was right after it came on the UK or something. But anyway, so AHA Shake, Heartbreak, you know, that's the album, the album name is in this song. So he said, we just felt like Aha Shake Heartbreak. That's where we were as a band. I mean, we had, we had been on the road and had this big blurry whirlwind of a year, you know, beautiful women and lots of great parties. But we were all too drunk to realize it.

And so once we got back home, we didn't really have anything to show for it other than our heartbreak. So it's kind of like heartbreak before love. Oh, that's fantastic, dude. It's kind of like heartbreak before love really exists. You know, it's kind of like when you're a little kid and you get that butterfly. And then for the rest of your life, every girl that you meet, you try to compare her to that butterfly.

Not going to happen. No, it's not. That's a aha shake heartbreak. Brat, get out of my head, Caleb follow up. What's the hell? Knocking him down like the seventh grade, dude. So he was 22 when this album came out. So thinking about that.

Me too. Yeah. Holy shit. That means that means Quentin, he was, God damn, dude, he was four years older than I was when it came out. I mean, I know. That's fucking crazy, dude, it's probably why we related to this record so much, man. Yeah. That is insane.

I mean, we should have made that connection and known that obviously, but in my head, they're like these lofty, like untouchables. They're up there like now with, you know, all time like, I mean, fuck, dude, that's ridiculous. Dude, so, and I don't even know, like, is he the, is he the oldest brother, you know? Like, I don't know. I don't know. Talk about it. Parental warning. You're going to have to put a parental warning on this one, boy.

Sorry about that. I swear like I said. Oh, no, no. Every episode we drop, we drop bombs, dude. Yeah, every episode. So yeah, that's fine. Ronan's old enough now that he finds it a real hoot. If he hears one of us curse, he'll, like, look over at the other parent and be like,

yeah, dude. Did you hear what daddy just said? Like, he's waiting for you to get in trouble by my mom. Dude, he walked into, he walked into, He walked down into my office this morning. And he does that. It's funny. He'll open the door and he'll go,

Daddy, are you in a meeting or on a phone call? And I go, I'll go, nope, I'm not. And so he just thinks it's an imitation to come in and talk to me. And then he goes, he goes, daddy, sometimes you say the word, shit. And I'm like, yes. Yeah, you know, I do. I'm like, yeah.

And he goes, I don't like that word. And I'm like, you know what? I'll try, I'll try really hard not to say it from now on, but because I, you know, because you don't like it. I'm sorry. Wow. And he's a yeah. Yeah. Dude.

But yeah, uh, this, this lyric just is really fucking funny. Taperjean girl with a motel face. Brah, dude. I mean, I just can't. I don't know if it's because of his proximity to where we grew up and the way he writes. But yeah, it's just vivid. Everything metaphors and everything he uses just paints a picture for me. Talk about a veiled like, uh, uh,

Oh, my God. That's not even veiled, bro. That's not even veiled. It's not really, it's pretty much telling you there, dude. It'll work for tonight. The motel, it'll work for tonight.

He's talking about like beer goggles and shit. Like, I don't think that's what she looked like the night before. Yeah. Might be some, it might be some bed bugs in there, but it'll work. Yeah,

but bro, she got them tapered jeans. I like a tapered gene. Taper gene, but she does have a motel thing. Yeah. To go back to his vocal delivery on those, on those,

thank you for looking. that up because I was curious, but aha shake. I think aha is like they're trying to shake it off. Shake it off. You're shaking because you need some more beer maybe. You're shaking because you're scared. You don't know what's happening. You're shaking because you're excited. You're happy. It's just so much, bro. And then heartbreak.

And just the way he screams it out, dude. I'm just, I love that shit. It will never get old for me. I mean, it's for sure. It's the best version of what they did for me with him singing. Without a doubt. I agree. I agree, man. So heartfelt. Let's jump to pistol of fire. All right, here we go. Pistol of Fire.

Let me jump in. That solo is the first one on the record that sounded like one from their first record. That's what I was about to say, dude. I think this was the one that got me, like, pumped more than the first three. Like, I loved the first three when I heard it for the first time, you know, and still do. But yeah, this one was like, oh, they still, this is still the same, this is the same boys from youth. Yeah, the same boys. But also now to me, this one sounds, I feel, you know what I'm here? I am praising the first one.

This one, to me, is the first time that it kind of slowed the record down for me. But still, amazing, amazing. Just the guitar, the guitar lands it for me. The guitar lands it for me all the time. That guitar solo at the end, that little outro thing, that Tim E sounded like it could have been a stroke solo. That could have been Albert Heyman. Oh, definitely, yes. Maybe change the way it sounds a little bit.

But yeah, just the way it was delivered, how, like, kind of quickly it was, in and out, you know, like, definitely could have been. Or old boy, Nick, I can't remember the other guitarist. last name Nick something Nikolai or Nick Nick something oh yeah yeah he had solos too yeah he has Hammond sometimes were a little more if I always think of Hammond yeah yeah yeah but but definitely bro I found myself comparing a lot of the sound on this to like well that the the the the clap clap beat of the drums reminded me a lot of stroke

stuff we know that they toured with them so it's not like they weren't just taking it in you know yeah that's what I think too they think I think it's like real time influence from there from who they're around and how quickly they got attention. And then it's like, yeah, you're going to be on tour with these guys now. And then it's like, oh, all of a sudden he's wearing skinny jeans and he's cut the beard off, but he's still got the long hair, right? And he's got some weird fucking, you know, designer glasses on.

And like, you know, he's getting off a private jet. Yes, man. It's that in between, dude. Totally. It's really interesting. Because, like, yeah, they had this interesting mashup of like, yeah, like the thrift store, garage rock. Yes, bro.

And not just the look of that. that, but like the, like, I'm going to the thrift store to look for work pants because that's my, that's my, the money I have to spend on work pants type person, right? That's what it's the real deal, not just the performative. That's what I love, dude. And I think he can feel that he's changing in that way. Exactly. Just something more, something awesome, something cool, unique, rare, like an orchid.

Yeah, there you go. That's, maybe that's why they had that. Fragile too, dude. Fragile, very fragile. They're soft. His vocals are fragile. Everything's fragile. Everything, bro.

Touchy, sensitive. Just like me. God, man. Motel phase, dude. So, guys, I wasn't really listening because I was just funny, let me tell you this. I didn't know this, guys. But if you look under writers for the track listing, who wrote what? For pistol of fire and for soft, the writers are Caleb Fowal, Nathan Fowl, and Angelo Patraglia.

Who? Because he's not one of the brothers. So he was a songwriter. He's a songwriter. He was a member of the new wave band face to face. Huh. And is best known for his work, best known for his work with Kings of Leon. So apparently, so apparently he, apparently he kind of took them under his wing and was

riding, riding with them into, into shape as a band. Yeah, he was, he was with them in their early days and just kind of like, helped form them as like a, of an actual band. So he's credited as a producer on this record, of one of the producers. And a writer, dude, for, yeah. And apparently he, apparently he exposed them to rock and roll bands like the Rolling Stones and the faces. That's insane, dude, because that's what you would think they would have heard that, but they didn't because they came from that sheltered background of being church, church band. Right, right, exactly.

A very, a very lively Pentecostal church band. That was secular music. I think we talked about that in the Youth and Young Manhood episode. Like, they weren't listening. They weren't able, they weren't allowed to listen that stuff, dude. Right. Yeah, that's crazy. Wow, dude.

Yeah, check out a, I mean, total, total side note, but shout out the song disconnected by face-to-face. I love that song. I got it, like, on a couple of emo playlist I have and punk playlist and shit, bro. Hey, let's, let's fade out with that song. Why not? Yeah, why not, dude? It's a good song. I think you'll like it, particularly, Q.

I do. Gives me vibes of, like, title fight or, or, uh, fucking Joyce Manor, even shit like that, but it's old. I want to say it's from the 90s, that song specifically. Anyway. 92 is when that, the album came out, face-to-face. Don't turn away is the album. That means Caleb was fucking like, you know.

I mean, Nathan is the oldest brother as far as I know. And I do remember knowing that he wrote a lot of the first album and the second. So that's cool. But as far as I know, Caleb, yeah, that's the drummer, which is cool as fuck. As far as I know, Caleb has his fingers on almost every single song, as far as a note. Yeah, I mean, it says all songs written by Kings of Leon, unless otherwise noted. And it mentions all four of them as the main songwriters. Well, that's cool.

I mean, I like that because that's just like, you know. Unless otherwise noted, in other words, Angelo Petraglia helps out with pistol fire and soft. He helped write that on some level, on some level. Cool. All right, let's jump to milk, dude. Now, this is where we slow things down a little bit. Yeah, and this is when he's coming in raw, dude.

Yeah. Where it's like, holy, we're quick. I think we're still at like 15 minutes. or something like that. And then, yeah, you want to talk about first time we heard this one. And then not even, still, every time I hear this one. Milk is four minutes long and it's the longest track on the record. That's funny.

That makes sense. All right, here we go. Last good night that we toasted too. And imagine on the spotlight show what I chased away for me. Yeah, I can't think of another song that I could put like, I wouldn't even put them on a playlist. What playlist do I put that on? A breakup, a breakup. Yeah.

dude just milk a whole bunch of milks in a row yeah that's the that's the that's the cry the cry all night playlist that's the sitting in the shower with the cold water running down your back that's right dude crying you're trying to hide your yeah dude the lyrics are fucking awesome man like there's this uh so i'm reading so like he's talking about obviously like a some heartache right a breakup is this girl he didn't he wish she hadn't left or whatever but you know the chorus she saw my comb over her hourglass body she has probably with drinking milk and being school tardy. Yeah, that's beautiful.

I can remember hearing that the first time being like, oh, dude, that's in line, bro. If that doesn't get her back, nothing will, man. So think about it. Like, dude, like, you're, you're, so, so the interpretation from genius, this genius annotator, I think it's pretty spot on. He's saying she saw his, like, he has a coma or her. She's got an hourglass body.

So, like, she's too good for him. He's saying she has problems with drinking milk. the interpretation is that like he's good for her. He's saying like, you know, milk is good for the good for you. She has a problem drinking milk, meaning like I took it much more literally like she was like about this about this individual. Like she probably left. Like she knows it got a comb over.

She's got a great body. But I mean, she's no, she's no angel. She's got, you know, she got problem drinking milk. Ooh, I like that too. She's, you know, she's got a problem. She's tardy all the time. She's not great. She's not perfect.

But she'll loan you her toothbrush and she'll barge in your party. She's, you know, she'll loan your. Just know why Russians at that party, please. No milk. I thought about being a school, like she's being like being school tardy. To me, I thought it was like she's too cool for school, you know. Yeah. It was more of like a cutesy to me.

Just a too cutesy, almost even like throwaway lines about details about her. She's lactose intolerant or she just doesn't like milk. it grosses her out, and that she's constantly the tardy one, always a little bit late. It's definitely coming from admiration, I'll say that. You can tell he's saying, he's spreading up about it. It's a loving memory of details about somebody that's no longer in his life. I mean, he talks about losing, he chased it away. It's his fault you can hear it.

He can see they're watching a play from the matinee, and it's probably some tragic play about lovers, you know, ultimately either killing each other or falling away from each other and wishing they would kill each other. And he says he chased it away, dude. it's self-aware. It's very self-aware, isn't it? The first record ain't.

It acts like it is, but that's just them coming out swinging because that's their whole fucking life. And they just heard jumping Jack Flash for the first time. Holy shit, right? Like, they want to do that.

But this one is self-aware. And it's like a journal. It's like Follow Will's journal. So he was saying that, like, he was writing these lyrics down, like on the road. So I think he,

I think he was probably with this chick. Yeah. So, like, it's funny, we all had different interpretations of like the milk and the being tardy and stuff. There's a quote from that interview that I played earlier. He says, I don't expect you to understand what I'm saying. I'm trying to speak my own language. So there you go. Well, there you go.

Up for interpretation. Yeah. Yeah, dude. I get that. I totally get that. You know, poetry can be so goddamn subjective. That's incredible. Yeah.

And it really does mean whatever you want to interpret it to mean, right? Maybe she's lactose intolerant. maybe she's uh you know she doesn't know what's good for her i like the idea is follow well seeing himself as milk like it's something good for you yeah it's like haven't you seen the commercials it's fucking good come on lady yeah does the body good yeah legendary song though man about an unknown i mean it's essentially like a it's like what's her name that caused the battle in troy or whatever after not after day what's your name that cause old ships to sell that's my version of it bro this song compelled she must have been i mean my god dude

The bartends the party, bro. Hourglass body. And she'll, you know, lend out her toothbrush for you. Let's jump to the bucket. This is the second single that we're hearing on the record. See, this is Stroke solo to me. Oh, yeah. Outwritten, I mean, that's to me.

And that also is their prime form, I think, their first record sound. Great sound on that song. And the way he's singing, too. It's cleaner. and it's kind of, it's not so exaggerated like on some of, you know, like, ah-ha, on that track. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love that track.

And it's dark. It's called the bucket. You go kick the bucket. I'll swing. I mean, come on, man. I didn't know what the song was about until I read the interpretation of it. So, dude, this song is, what a beautiful, like, letter to his brother in a way. So, like, this is about, apparently the song is about Jared, who was the youngest member

of the band. I guess he is. Yeah, he is the youngest member of the band. and struggled with the fame at a young age. So, like, if you read some of this stuff. So he was, so he was 17 when this song was released. Yep, I remember that. I remember, yeah.

That means he would have been like 15 on their, on their EP. So young. Yeah, yeah. Ridiculous, dude. So down here, yeah, so let's read the line. You kick the bucket and I'll swing my legs. Always remember the pact that we made. Too young to die, but old is the grave.

Man, that sounds like an old medieval line that you could read on a cemetery headstone, Travis, what you just read out to me. like a foreboding like right but also but also like I'm here for you we're here we're in it together exactly you can kick that bucket if you want but I'm the one that's going to be swinging choking and then exactly and in the outro I'm I'm going to show you the way he says it over yeah hey man love that yeah so he says here normally this is this is a genius annotator hurting guru uh he says here normally kicking the bucket means dying in this context two brothers talking to each other about hating the tour however

Jared is the one standing on a bucket with a noose around his neck, asking his brother to kick the bucket and let him be gone. Caleb refuses since they've made a pact, and Jared is too young to die. He was only 17 about to turn 18 when the song was released. So it's just like him trying to help his brother work through the fame that they're all sort of like gaining at the same time. And like he's the youngest one.

I mean, think about it, they probably did have a lot of like, we got to take care of Jared, you know what I mean? Pretty dope to then also put that out. Like, I mean, as soon as you're writing that type of song on said record while you're experiencing those emotions is a lot. I mean, that's pretty. As a single. Yeah, exactly. And I like the beginning of verse two.

Look at the shakies. What's with the blush? It's kind of like they're poking fun of him. Like, look at him. He's shaking. He's getting all nervous before the shows. Look at these blushing. Bro, never even caught that.

Love that. And that's where we're going to leave things for part one of our conversation about aha, Shake Heartbreak, Kings of Leon's second record. And we're going to pick things up next week. We've got seven more tracks to go. Thanks as always for listening. My name is Travis. You guys take care.