I was never a super-fan of The Killers, but I liked their music whenever it came on the radio. Brandon Flowers is a good-looking guy with a great voice for pop-rock. I was pleasantly surprised when I read Lainey’s post about Brandon last week – Brandon and The Killers are taking a break, and Brandon is releasing his second solo album. He’s written all the songs and he’s preparing for a big push, with concerts all over the place. Brandon sat down with The Daily Beast to talk about his album, the state of music today, Mormonism, Mitt Romney and so much more. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:

The state of music today: “When I listen to a rock radio station in Las Vegas, I don’t hear rock ’n’ roll. I don’t even hear fragments of it, and it’s frustrating. I’m not in the most rock ’n’ roll band on the planet, but you can trace what we do to those roots, and I can’t hear it on the radio anymore. And I don’t hear anything that’s good. I’m not being a dick, but I don’t hear anything that’s good. Everyone goes into their living room, fires up their computer, and are just putting stuff out, and they haven’t earned the right to be where they’re at. These kids that make these keyboard records, it drives me nuts! It’s like, ‘Do you hear New Order? Do you hear it? Because yours is not as good as that! Go back and work harder.’ It’s so strange to me, and there’s so much of it.”

He doesn’t drink: “When I stopped smoking and drinking, instantly the shows started getting better. I sang better, I had more longevity, and I felt better. That was about eight years ago. And being committed to my wife and family, I can’t think of a downside to it. There are people in the past who’ve done the sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll thing and made it happen for them, but I knew even when I was young that that wasn’t going to work out for me. You’re more yourself, and you’re more wholesome. I believe in God, so I believe it’s the way that He intended us to be.”

Mitt Romney & Mormonism: “It’s still a very misunderstood thing. There’s weird rumors, and somebody just needs to clear it up! I think Romney would even admit that he wasn’t a great ambassador for it. His answers weren’t great, and it made it even worse; it seemed like he was hiding something. But there’s really nothing to hide. You can find out what you need to find out! It’s all there.”

The Church of LDS’s stance on same-sex marriage: “Do Catholics perform same-sex marriages? I doubt our church ever will perform them. I doubt it. But I was always taught that everyone on this Earth is my brother and sister, so maybe from an outsider’s perspective it looks worse than it really is, but we don’t teach fire and brimstone.”

[From The Daily Beast]

I knew he was a Mormon and I knew he got married young and started a family young. But I guess I didn’t realize that he took his faith so seriously and that he credits going back to the church as one of the ways that saved him. To be fair, it didn’t really sound like Flowers was a total mess with drugs and alcohol, just that he had a “wild streak” and spent several years in a party-heavy environment. He even says that he didn’t go to rehab, he just decided to stop drinking one day and stuck to it. Anyway… he sounds like a nice guy.

Photos courtesy of Getty, WENN, Brandon’s Twitter.