James Bay struggled to keep his cool working with The Killers' Brandon Flowers

4 October 2024, 14:58 | Updated: 4 October 2024, 15:03

James Bay talks working with Brandon Flowers. Picture: Mariano Regidor/Redferns/Getty, Samir Hussein/WireImage/Getty

The singer-songwriter has talked about working with The Killers frontman on his recent single Easy Distraction.

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James Bay struggled to "keep [his] cool" when recording with Brandon Flowers.

The singer-songwriter teamed up with The Killers frontman on recent single Easy Distraction and he admitted it was an "unbelievable honour" to work with the Mr. Brightside rocker.

He gushed to The Sun newspaper: “All the time I was trying to stay focused and keep my cool and not think, ‘I’m making a song with Brandon Flowers’.”

The collaboration came about when Flowers praised Bay's breakthrough hit, Hold Back The River, and a mutual friend told the Hitchin singer that the Las Vegas rocker was keen to work with him.

"I said to my friend Rob, 'Sign me up as I’d love to have a go'," recalled the 34-year-old singer. "So, he sort of connected the dots, and I was able to go out to Utah which is where Brandon lives and he has a rented ski lodge that The Killers turned into a studio, which is really exciting."

Listen to the single here:

James Bay - Easy Distraction (Official Lyric Video)

Though the single, which features on Bay's fourth studio album Changes All the Time, has a Killers-esque sound Bay admitted that he was proud that the "germ" of the song came from him as he'd come prepared with "homework".

The Wild Love singer recalled: "When I first played the track, some people would say, ‘I can hear a bit of Killers in it’ meaning they hear Brandon’s writing input.

“It had this double height hallway where they put drums in that sort of Led Zeppelin way — it’s wonderful. It was very informal and we’d go for breakfast in the morning and Brandon would drive us there.

“When I first played the track, some people would say, ‘I can hear a bit of Killers in it’ meaning they hear Brandon’s writing input.

“But as much as I wanted it to sound ‘Killersy’, because I’m a fan, I’m proud to say that the germ of the idea that started that song is the verse and melody that I took in. That was my homework. I took it in, and I said, ‘What do you think of this?’

“And Brandon had a listen and went, ‘Oh, yeah, let’s give that a go. Let’s see if we can put some lyrics to it.’ And he jumps up on a microphone and gets his phone out and jotted down all his lyric ideas. It was very prolific and unbelievable."

Changes All the Time - which also includes the single Up All Night, Bay's collaboration with the Lumineers and Noah Kahan - is out now.

Stream the album below: