CHIK MAGAZINE

They make good music, they’re from The Vegas, and they're a pretty cool bunch of guys. We caught up with Ronnie, drummer from The Killers, and got his take on all sorts of weird and wonderful things.

I'm sick of crap journalists. We get asked how we got together ALL the time. I think if the person were a good journalist, they would do their homework and ask us some interesting questions.

My best friend is a journalist so I know all the tricks. We’ve had so many interviews where people ask all the same questions over and over that I've got in the habit of telling them to call me back when they've done their homework. If I were a journalist, I’d definitely do a little bit of research before I talk to a person.

We like our lyrics. I think we're a band that strives to have interesting songs and interesting lyrics. It's not all about girlfriends… and if it is, it has a twist at the end of it to make it a little more interesting.

We kicked off our career in a bar for transvestites. We used to play in this tranny bar called Sascha's, but then they changed their name to Trans. In Vegas there are just not a lot of places to play. Our friend Ryan - who is actually our merchandising guy now -was doing these DJ shows at a couple of different nightclubs and he landed this one at a tranny bar. It was actually really cool -they serve food and let 18 year olds in, usually in the States it's 21 and up. It was just a cool hangout, and Ryan would bring in different DJs, as well as DJ himself. Then he started bringing in a band and we started playing there about once a month. We would always have a really good turnout and a good time. We always got funny looks at first, because we're a Vegas band and Vegas bands aren't very good - they're a bit behind.

In Vegas, you can be whatever you want to be. Which is the best thing about the place. You can live a really normal life if you choose, but at the same time, if you want to live a crazy life - it can be the place for you.

I love when people dance to our songs. I think we're a band that is very much about writing good songs and good songs should incite people to do something. If dancing is one of those things, then that’s great. I really do love it when people dance. It means that they're having a good time and that they're not feeling like they have the spotlight on them.

The internet helped launch our career. We had a couple of demos that we posted online at lasvegasmusicscene.com. It was just a site that helped local bands out -it was like a hut where everybody could go and find out where Vegas bands were playing and what they were doing, what's going on with their record, or if they're recording... Our manager used to work with Warner Bros and he was on the internet scouting around and he saw The Killers. He liked the name, heard one of our songs and started the relationship that way.

I think anyone could call anything a commercial audience. But we’re a band that would never want to exclude an audience for the sake of looking cool to somebody who thinks it's cool to exclude an audience. Did that make sense? [Laughs.] At the same time, we're a band not willing to compromise our integrity and you’re never going to see us doing beer commercials because that is not what we're about. We agreed to do The OC because we were being portrayed as the type of band we actually are.