"The crowd erupts every time": The Killers' Dave Keuning on the birth of the band's signature tune
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The Killers’ Mr Brightside is not only a guaranteed wedding party banger, it's also the sales and streams gift that just keeps on giving.
It was already the longest-running Top 100 hit in UK chart history, and has now been confirmed as the most successful single never to reach the pinnacle of the British charts, overtaking similarly singalong-friendly anthem Oasis's Wonderwall.
This teacher was big on playing high up on the neck, which is where Mr Brightside is at with 2nds or 9ths in there
As of last week, it had racked up an astonishing 5.57m 'chart sales', which breaks down to a shade over 1m actual sales plus over 530 billion streams.
“This award means a lot to us," the band said this week. "Mr Brightside has been completely embraced by the British public and we can’t wait to celebrate with you all on the road.”
Of course, this sort of ear-catching, chart-smashing performance doesn't happen by chance, or at least not without a grounding in and passion for musical craft - in this case, the Las Vegas band's guitarist and the song's writer Dave Keuning's enforced jazz hinterland played a role.
Speaking to MusicRadar in 2019, he said “I remember my teacher, Mr Redman, actually took me to learn from a 20 year-old player in Des Moines who played jazz better than anyone in his state.
"That’s how I learned about voicings, knowing where to find the different orders you could play notes of a chord. I picked up how you could stay in one area and only move just a finger, but then go up three frets and do something different up there.
“I tried to find as many different flavours because it’s boring to stay at the bottom with D, G, C and E minor. Learn more voicings if you want to express different emotions through your guitar.
"This teacher was big on playing high up on the neck, which is where Mr Brightside is at with 2nds or 9ths in there.”
Speaking to MusicRadar in 2019, he said “I remember my teacher, Mr Redman, actually took me to learn from a 20 year-old player in Des Moines who played jazz better than anyone in his state.
"That’s how I learned about voicings, knowing where to find the different orders you could play notes of a chord. I picked up how you could stay in one area and only move just a finger, but then go up three frets and do something different up there.
“I tried to find as many different flavours because it’s boring to stay at the bottom with D, G, C and E minor. Learn more voicings if you want to express different emotions through your guitar.
"This teacher was big on playing high up on the neck, which is where Mr Brightside is at with 2nds or 9ths in there.”
Back in 2019, our sister magazine Music Week, caught up with Keuning too, and he revealed an unusual, if cosy, location for its inception.
"I wrote Mr Brightside in my closet," he said. "I had my amp set up in there. It was fairly soundproofed with all my clothes, and I had my Big Muff guitar pedal on.
This is where Keuning's Des Moines mentor's work paid off. "I was exploring different chord voicings and shapes and was playing this one voicing over and over again," said Keuning. "I decided to change the bass note and move it around in different directions – up, down, sideways, diagonal – and then into the pre-chorus."
"I remember playing the riff and thinking, ‘This is a really good intro, it sounds like the beginning to a story’ and I made a demo because it just felt good. It was four tracks of guitars, including the main guitar part, and that was enough for Brandon [Flowers, Killers frontman] to sing over it and come up with his own ideas.
Coincidentally, the band The Killers have just knocked off of the close-but-huge-cigar nearly-top spot, was part of the recipe. "Oasis caught Brandon’s eye [in a recruitment ad Keuning had posted to form the band]. We both liked Oasis, ’80s music, New Order, The Cure and U2, and that was our common ground.
Apparently, Mr Brightside is one that people never get sick of, because it’s been around this long
"There wasn’t a ton of other musicians to pick from that were even close to that in Vegas, there were a lot of metal guys and stuff."
Mr Brightside was in fact one of the first things the band put together. "We put the arrangement together at our second practice and I was like, ‘Wow, that chorus was fun!’ I wanted to play it again just so I could hear it. There is a real energy to it that still resonates today."
"I knew it was good right away. The only thing I didn’t know was if we’d get our chance because there are a lot of great bands out there that don’t. But I believed that if we could get a record deal we would get our shot to show it to the world – and we did.
Happily, The Killers' audience bore out Keuning's instincts about the song, even before their breakthrough. "I love playing Mr Brightside live, the crowd erupts every time we start playing the riff – at least since 2004 – but it was pretty big in the early days too," he said. "Obviously people didn’t know it, but they would comment that they liked it and we had an early demo version that was downloaded from a website quite a bit, so it was well-liked from the get-go.
It's a composition that Keuning is still proud of: "It’s a great song. The chorus is timeless and I’m proud that it has lasted so long.
"Some songs don’t survive the test of time and there are others you never get sick of. And apparently, Mr Brightside is one that people never get sick of, because it’s been around this long."
