Kings Of Leon became one of the biggest rock bands in the world in 2008 – due to the success of a song that the band’s lead singer initially dismissed as a bit of a joke.
The song was Sex On Fire, the lead single from the Tennessee quartet’s fourth album Only By The Night.
It was written by all four members of the band – brothers Caleb Followill (vocals, guitar), Jared Followill (bass) and Nathan Followill (drums), and their cousin Matthew Followill (lead guitar).
In an interview with Australian radio station Triple J, Nathan Followill said it never their intention to name the song Sex On Fire.
“They were totally different lyrics,” he said. “Depending on whether a song starts with a melody or starts with lyrics, you know if it starts with a melody you just keep playing the melody over and over until you get it down and just throw in any lyrics that fit the verbal flow.
“It was actually going to be Set Us On Fire, but one of the sound mixers in the studio walked in as we were playing and said, ‘Sex on fire, huh?’ And it just kind of became a running joke, and we stuck with it.”
Speaking to MOJO magazine in 2009, Caleb Followill admitted: “We’d been messing around with the melody and the first time I said, ‘This sex is on fire’, I didn’t really know what I was saying. I just kinda laughed it off.
“But everyone around me convinced me that it was a hook. I didn’t disagree with them. It was a hook, although I knew it didn’t really make sense.”
Sex On Fire was the band’s breakthrough hit, reaching No.1 in Australia, Finland, Ireland, and the UK.
“It’s a strange thing,” Caleb Followill said. “I don’t know how that song did what it did, but it’s definitely one of those songs that I’m never gonna be ashamed of. Hell, it opened a lot of doors for us!”
In the same interview with MOJO, the singer also talked the inspiration for his lyrics in Use Somebody, another big hit song from Only By The Night.
He recalled: “The melody for Use Somebody came about on the road and that was a lyric from the road: ‘I could use somebody, somebody like you’.
“When I wrote that, we were very, very tired, it was dark and cold, we were in some country we weren’t familiar with, and I think we had all been fighting a little bit, and it just felt like a moment.
“When I got home I wrote the lyric, and it was one of the most heartfelt lyrics I’ve ever written. When we play it, I see people singing every word, and they’re not just singing – I can see a lot of people mean it.
“We might be musicians, and a lot of people think we live in a dream, but that’s not the case. It’s tough, being away, being in unfamiliar places in all times.
“Whenever we play Use Somebody and I see people singing it, I don’t know what they do for a living, I don’t know what they gain by it, but I know that a lot of people relate to it – feeling like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders and you wish someone could help you out.”
However, he also said that the words to another of the band’s songs were somewhat misunderstood – even thought the title of that song, Fans, is pretty much self-explanatory.
“It’s funny,” he said. “Every night that we play that song the fans sing every word but they have no idea that it’s about them! I’ll look at them and think, that exact lyric is about you, that lyric is about that guy, that girl.
“Any time I can find something to write about that doesn’t necessarily revolve around me, I jump right on it. I love to be able to tell a story, I love to crack a code, to see someone and try to sum up what I think their life is about in two minutes.
“A lot of times I’m probably way off the mark, but it’s fun.”
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