The roots of the new Kings of Leon album can be traced to a gnarly X-ray of singer Caleb Followill’s injured foot. The band has seen the evidence: an almost incomprehensible injury that grounded its frontman and sent him into a period of deep contemplation.
Kings of Leon had already begun writing what would ultimately become the album O My Beloved in their clubhouse recording studio in Nashville. One night, Followill was at home with his family, settling in for a personal Naked Gun marathon. He was enjoying the ridiculousness of The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear when his two kids interrupted with a game of tag.
“I thought I would show them some of my moves,” he recalls, “so I tried to hurdle the couch and my back foot caught it. And I went down heels-first and heard a pop and looked down and my heel was in the middle of my foot as opposed to the back of it.”
After his foot was put in a cast and an upcoming European tour was cancelled, Followill slipped into a funk. He felt guilty, even questioning whether it was time to put the band on hold and stay home indefinitely. Then, one day, he picked up an acoustic guitar as a new song came to him.
“The lyrics just started pouring out, and it was almost like it was someone else saying, ‘No, don’t give up,’” he says. The words weren’t bitter or depressed, but were filled with gratitude for his family and the life he’d created.
That song, “My Whole World,” became the album’s first single. Set against acoustic chords, Followill sings: “We’ll go throw the ball around / Try not to let it hit the ground / While the kids make a beautiful sound … I’m grateful today for / My whole world.”
The song’s gratitude extended beyond his immediate family to the musical life he’d built with his brothers—drummer Nathan and bassist Jared—and their cousin, lead guitarist Matthew Followill. They first emerged in 2003 with Youth & Young Manhood, a blast of frayed guitars and desperate passion that introduced these four young Southern rockers in flared jeans and mustaches. Then came Grammys and platinum records, and decades of good times and struggle.
“A lot of bands have looked up to us for being able to stick it out and go through the highs and lows,” says Caleb, speaking from his Nashville home on a video call with his bandmates. “It’s not just because we’re brothers. I think it’s all of our family that came before us that forced us to love our family. We would go to family reunions when we didn’t want to, and then we’d be crying when we had to leave.
“So it kind of shaped us to have that relationship with our family. Every time we feel like maybe this thing’s run its course and it’s time to hang it up—I can still hear all those uncles and family members saying, ‘No, you can’t. That’s not an option.’”
That sentiment is part of what fuels the warm, organic sounds of O My Beloved. The songs are soulful and introspective, with understated instrumentation, while also leaving room for an occasional hard rocking eruption on guitar. It’s also not the first Kings of Leon album to emerge from Caleb’s broken body. The band won four Grammys for 2008’s Only by the Night, an album written while Caleb recovered from a serious shoulder injury caused by a drunken scuffle between Caleb and big brother Nathan.
“I didn’t take any Percocet this time,” Caleb says of this injury’s pain relief of choice.
Matthew adds, “This time he was on ibuprofen and Tylenol.”
“And strong coffee,” Caleb says. “I had a cast and I’m claustrophobic, so it was a lot of long sleepless nights and panic attacks. It was pretty rough for a while.”
As Caleb recovered from his foot catastrophe, the band got back to work on their 10th record, but now with a new vibe of humanity they all have grown to share. At this point, all four Followills are married with kids, ages 7 months to 15 years.
“I honestly missed a parent-teacher conference to do this,” says Jared.
All of the band immediately recognized the message within Caleb’s new round of lyrics and signed on.
One of the songs written before Caleb’s injury is the harder-rocking “Make It Count,” with lyrics that already fit with the tenor of his newer songs. On “KOYSAR” (aka “Kick Off Your Shoes and Run”) Caleb sings to a gently galloping beat and layers of plucked guitars: “Kick off your shoes and run / Don’t let them turn you away / Your life is better when / You have something to say.”
O My Beloved also marked the first time Kings of Leon self-produced an album. They worked diligently every day beginning at 10:00 a.m. and leaving by 4:05 p.m. “We pride ourselves on our punctuality,” says Nathan.
“I was like, ‘Guys, we own all the stuff to make a top-tier sounding album. Let’s just do it ourselves,’” Matthew says of the new sessions in their studio. “I feel like making albums is the best part of our job. As long as the music is coming, we should just keep doing it, because that’s actually the fun part. We hang out and you get to be creative all day.”
The organic flavor of O My Beloved might indicate a larger path forward for the band, rather than a one-album experiment. “We learned too much on this one to just go back to our old kind of tricks,” says Matthew. “I really hope people like it a lot because I would love to just make more music like this. If we get the chance, it’d be nice to make more music without all the [effects] pedals, and where we just focus on one part at a time and let everything shine through instead of hide everything and let it be noise in the background—that people hear the song.”
Nathan jokes, “I thought he realized I’m getting closer to 50 and wanted to give me an easy drum record, so I was very appreciative of that.”
The album’s cover art, with its modern arrangement of images of sky and water, again reaches back to the band’s shared childhood.
“A lot of our imagery growing up, and the way that we did, there was always water,” says Caleb. “We would meet up at the creek or the river or at family reunions—everything was kind of around water. The photo that I think inspired that water aspect was actually all of us jumping off a bridge together as children with our uncles.”
During their upbringing in the South, they were often surrounded by the sounds of country music and classic singer-songwriter records. Of late, Caleb has been listening closely to songs by immortals like Townes Van Zandt, Blaze Foley, Vern Gosdin, and Keith Whitley.
“When we first came to Nashville, the goal was to be great songwriters and to write that great song that people sang,” says Caleb. “I feel like it has shifted back to that: ‘Say something meaningful and see if it resonates with people.’ That was a big goal of mine.”
While Kings of Leon has enjoyed great success through the years, Caleb says he’s always seen his band as the underdog.
“Even amongst the band, if somebody comes in with a melody or something, your goal is to have those guys go, ‘Hey, I like that,’” says the singer. “There’s that competition and us always trying to prove ourselves to the world. I feel like that is what keeps us going. And 10 albums in, it still feels like we’re still going, ‘Oh, this is the one! People are gonna get it this time.’”
Caleb never did finish watching Naked Gun 2½, afraid of jinxing himself, though he did move on to Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult without incident. He also knows the band has a North American tour coming in 2027, beginning May 8 in Bristow, Virginia. He plans to be careful until then.
“Yeah, we’ve got a lot of plans in the works, so I’m wrapping myself in bubble wrap and I’m going to get through this,” Caleb says. “And then I’m gonna take up motorcycle riding just for some more inspiration. And get a pogo stick.”