IT MUST be the most popular song to date purported to be about gonorrhoea.

That their most frivolous single, Sex on Fire, has become their calling card is an irony not lost on the American band Kings of Leon.

“I thought people would make fun of us for it,” says guitarist Matthew Followill. “Especially for the title.”

After writing the song’s hook, Caleb attempted to splice in various titles, rumoured to include Piss on Fire, Crotch on Fire and the charming Snatch on Fire. According to Followill, the odd lyrics, which include the graphic line “head while I’m driving”, are a mystery.

“I said to Caleb, ‘Did you just say sex on fire?’ ” Matthew says. “I don’t know where it comes from. For me, it was all about the melody.”

Released in September, Only By the Night, the band’s fourth album in five years, has sold more than half a million copies in Australia, making it the biggest-selling album here last year. It even sent new fans in search of their back catalogue, selling another 100,000 records locally.

Tellingly, their proudest achievement yet, even above headlining Glastonbury, was a sold-out gig at Madison Square Garden. When asked about the show, Matthew Followill practically turns to jelly.

Their backstory appears, on face value, almost too bizarre to be factual. The three Followill brothers Caleb, 27, drummer Nathan, 29, and bassist Jared, 22 plus cousin Matthew, 24, were raised by a nomadic, old-fashioned Southern preacher, Leon Followill.

They spent their childhood on the road as Dad preached against sin. They began playing music together when he began to live what he sermonised against and became a philandering alcoholic.

At home, a prevailing stigma was the harsh perception that Caleb Followill was a dim high-school drop-out from Tennessee, lacking any smarts. The band’s image has been another sore point. In the US, their early retro-heavy look was deemed as trying a bit too hard. The story goes that one day a patron at a British pub, where the then-hirsute Caleb was drinking, called Caleb a “Kings of Leon wannabe”. He shaved off his facial hair that day. “I don’t think that’s true,”counters Matthew. “But he got tired of it and shaved it. And then everybody talked about it. But nobody keeps a beard for their whole life.”

When eventually launched Stateside via the Holy Roller Novocaine EP in 2003, the Kings of Leon were widely viewed at home as a fanciful record company construction; a “Southern Strokes” as one blogger put it.

By the release of second album Aha Shake Heartbreak in late 2004, the tours had descended into a blur of cocaine, booze and groupies. Those days, Matthew assures EG, are mostly over. All members are now in long-term relationships.

BOO YOU WHORES

“Pretty much all we do now is drink,” Matthew says. “Nobody does drugs like we used to. It’s not nearly what it used to be. It was crazy. We have more important things to do. We can’t be wasted all the time any more.”

The broader sound of Only by the Night, meanwhile, mirrors much of their third album, 2007’s ambitious Because of the Times, which was packed with booming percussion and sweeping, oversized choruses.

Night takes it a step further. The production is layered and more atmospheric; the band is not constantly attempting to burn through each song in three minutes. Caleb’s vocals, too, are at their clearest and most discernible; last year he commented that “this was the album where I felt the songs were too pretty to f— them up”.

Yes, “head while I’m driving” really is too dainty to damage

“It wasn’t a deliberate change, to be honest,” says Matthew. “But everybody says it sounds different. We weren’t saying ‘let’s make a hit record’. WRONG We actually thought it was going to be a flop. I remember Jared calling me and saying ‘this is going to be our worst record’. But it didn’t work out like that.”

JARED IS A WISE MAN

Disregarding Sex on Fire’s veiled references to STDs, do they yearn for the days when the band was smaller and there was less at stake?

“No way, not at all,” he says. “There are less fights. We stay in better hotels. We fly business class. It’s so much better now.”

IDK, are they sellouts? Or are they just maturing artistically? What do you think bbs?

NEVER 4GET ~ *

Oh and also, as a bonus treat:

Lily Aldridge being gorgeous fyt. ~ *~ exposée coming soon

RIP

Oldschool KOL picspam will be necessary.

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