I didn't know that either.

He played on Leonard Cohen stuff.

Just, he's played on everything.

And inc- yeah, incredible.

He owns One of Us.

[laughs] It's like, it's like Charlie featuring Brandon, that song.

There's lots of decal of your face on an 18 wheeler smiling like you would If we were over to your place on Thanksgiving in the neighborhood You were from the true North strong and free But we never raised a fuss You were always one of us You were always one of us Oh, there ain't a thing to discuss Miss you like the rain Miss the bus Road sign reading Someplace bluebirds sing

And that wasn't e- even initially, that wasn't initially going to make the album, right?

It's a beautiful song.

Gosh dang, you got me.

So I have, um, four sisters, and my oldest sister, she's almost 17 years older than me.

And, you know, I'm LDS.

I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Some may call us Mormons.

We try to get away from that [laughs] now, but it's a mouthful, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

[laughs]

Can you tell us a little bit about the studio you

perform in? Yeah, Iconic Studio RCA.

It's just a special room.

I've been lucky enough to go record in a lot of rooms, and it's just it's just there's so much history in this room and it's just a great sounding room i didn't um anticipate you know loving that i was going to love it so much but it just became a big part of the recording and so the what we'll watch here these these these live versions of the songs is pretty similar setup to to how we would have set up when we actually recorded these songs

They cut all the shifts right before the summer.

Then the bastards forced me on to swing.

I'm parking some white sedan while the owner tries his hand rolling dice.

going to watch the live performance to get this one back to Nashville.

The album was inspired by Brandon's return to his hometown in Utah, and the memories of his childhood that that prompted.

At first I was a little bit, uh, like an adolescent I think.

[laughs] Um, but now it's just, um, we're really fortunate that we're able to raise the kids in Utah, and, you know, I take them to the park where my dad taught me to ride a bike.

The pond is fed by July melted snow.

The seasons did have a big impact on me, and it's actually crept its way into quite a bit of the songwriting.

Last thing that I heard

Is it all worth it?

I don't know.

Could you tell us a bit about gathering this group of, of session musicians?

I wish I had anything to do with it, but it was, uh, r- it was the producers [laughs] that had assembled this band, and, uh, th- they kept saying, "We gotta go to Nashville to record," and I d- I, I honestly didn't...

I'm embarrassed to admit it.

I didn't understand what they were o- going on about.

Like I j- and okay, yeah, there's studios in Nashville.

There's studios in LA.

There's studios in Las Vegas.

Live from World Cafe, Brandon Flowers, Miss America.

Yeah.

But I thought, "Well, this is the best that they got.

This is...

So this is it.

I can deal with this." And then the record came out.

I go back to Virgin Megastore, and me and Keuning, our guitar player for the band, we go in and we're gonna pick it up, and it's called Is This It?, and I'm not ready.

I'm just, wasn't mentally prepared.

Yeah.

None of it was necessarily intentional,

but I think some of that stuff is just unavoidable.

I think so too.

Yeah.

And so, uh, there's a little, I hear a little Christofferson in there and Dan Whalen Jennings and yeah.

And, uh, but just the, that, that, you know, that the fabric of country music and the stuff that, that I've absorbed and it's kind of my other education.

I look at it, you know, that the music that I got from my father.

It's

How long did you work on it yourself before you went to Nashville? Nine years? Yeah.

One song is about four years old, though.

And I just chipped away at the record.

And then it just starts to reveal itself.

And the producers that we worked with, Jonathan Rado from Foxygen and then Sean Everett, They just kept talking about going to Nashville, and I didn't quite get what was going on.

I'm totally ignorant, right? I mean, I know about country music, but I didn't know about the hired guns that you get there and the way that they work and how musical and efficient they were going to be.

And it was incredible.

I feel like he's been on the show before, and I just feel like he has such a... great attitude for a guy that's been doing it this long and it's been so there's been so many ups and downs with the the Morrissey of it all that I feel like he's really he's really come out the winner as far as that whole game goes

So what did you

learn? I think there was just a sense of...

of gratitude.

I was sitting there and I would watch these, because a lot of the guys were older gentlemen.

And we would go back after we would play a track and we'd go in and listen.

And I was just watching and thinking about the experience that these guys have and the music that's in them and what they've offered the world.

They've been a part of so many great records.

And it's very