Kings of Leon: more groups should cancel tours when they're feeling burned out
Niel McCormick

Fans seem to be concerned about the future of the Kings Of Leon, following the cancellation of an American tour, citing lead singer Caleb Followill’s “vocal issues and exhaustion.” Personally, I think more bands should cancel tours when they are feeling burned out.

Life on the road is exhausting. Every musician knows that. Keith Richards blamed the origins of his prodigious drug intake on the relentlessness of touring in the early days of the Rolling Stones, comparing his existence to that of a World War II bombing pilot who “had to keep going at all costs”. Only, of course, in his case, the one getting bombed was Keith himself. Later on, when the Stones were hugely rich and famous, and no longer on the non-stop fly-by-night schedules of their youth, drummer Charlie Watts eloquently described twenty five years of the Stones as “five years of work and twenty years of hanging around” (by now, of course, it should be extended to about eight years of work and forty years of hanging around). The problem being, of course, that the hanging around can be even more damaging than the work, endless travelling from place to place, hours to kill on coaches and soulless hotel rooms, all for a short, intense burst of high-adrenaline, ego-boosting performance. The famous equation is sex and drugs and rock and roll, but there are limits to the amount of time you can fill with sex and rock and roll, its the bit in the middle that really takes its toll. You are far from home, far from the stability of domestic routine, on what might seem like an endless bar hop. Bands get frayed and worn, and slowly start to come apart at the seems. There is a saying amongst groups: “every tour goes on a month longer than it should.”

It can be particularly hard for singers, whose vocal chords have to be preserved at all costs. If any of the musicians are hurt or suffering, as long as they can pick up their instrument (or find a replacement who can) the gig will go ahead, because that is how the band (and everyone connected to it) makes its money. Generally speaking, the only reason for cancellation will be if the singer’s throat is in such a bad state he can’t even croak. This means if they are feeling a little ropey, they tend to be propped up with steroid injections to the throat and banned from talking, anything to keep them functioning in the two hours that matter.

We know that Kings of Leon band leader Caleb Followill walked off stage in the middle of a set in Dallas, Texas, saying he was going to vomit. Although there is no suggestion that this regurgitation was in any way connected to the group’s music, it is well known that there are tensions within the band, who are made up of family members (three brothers and a cousin). It’s not hard to understand why that might be problematic: how would you like to spend months in a tour bus with your siblings? But while people who have worked all week at hard jobs to earn an honest wage which they spend on tickets to a show might find it hard to have sympathy for a pampered and overpaid star complaining that he is tired, it’s not hard to see what can happen to musicians who are pushed beyond their own limits, whatever those limits might be. The story of rock and roll is littered with tragedies that could have been avoided if people had just taken better care of their health, both physical and psychological.

Bands break up because they burn themselves out, they burn out their friendships, they burn out their creativity, and they burn out their own reserves of purpose and energy. And all too often it is a case that those around them have facilitated this burn out, by over-working them. It’s an insecure life with an uncertain future, and when the work is there, and there is money to be made, the impulse is to press on whatever the cost. But look at our own most famous sibling band, Oasis. They had just two days to go on their tour when, emotions and relationships frayed, they broke up after one argument too many. Many of those around the Gallagher brothers had spoken about how they saw it coming, but nobody acted in time to prevent it. Even Noel Gallagher has spoken of his regrets about the outcome, saying that if they had gotten through those two shows, they would have taken a break, cooled off, and Oasis would still be a going concern. Sometimes cancelling is way of averting disaster, rather than exacerbating it.

I remember talking to Neil Finn about the break up of Crowded House, following the departure of drummer Paul Hester in the middle of an American tour. Hester’s girlfriend was pregnant at home alone in Australia, they were moving house, he was understandably missing her and anxious about the future, and he just hopped off the tour bus one day and went home. The band continued with a replacement drummer (borrowed from one of their supporting acts) but subsequently called it a day in 1996. They reunited in 2007, although by then Hester had tragically taken his own life. Contemplating the sequence of events with a great sense of loss and futility, Finn suggested that the recent spate of band reunions has a simple cause: most bands shouldn’t break up in the first place. “It’s the neuroses of bands that gets to people, the intense scrutiny that comes with the industry, the feeling of having to submit to the group ethic all the time and losing your own individuality. Management, to me, is a much misunderstood aspect of the business. It should be far more about the people and less about their career. When things were getting a bit difficult, we probably would have benefited from somebody saying ‘fuck the tour, let’s get you guys off the road and preserve the spark’, but the neuroses swallows everyone up.”

So rather than the cancellation of the Kings Of Leon’s tour being taken as a cause for concern about the future of the band, perhaps we should celebrate it as an outbreak of sanity in an insane business.