The Bandit

Album: When You See Yourself (2021)
Charted: 74
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Songfacts®:

  • Here, frontman Caleb Followill recounts a story of a bounty hunter chasing a bandit.

    Must catch the bandit
    Reckless abandon
    Rundown and stranded
    Must catch the bandit


    The lead single from the When You See Yourself album, Kings of Leon released the song on January 7, 2021. Though Caleb Followill has said the album is the band's most personal one to date in terms of lyrics, this song is entirely fictional. "It's got an old Western vibe, about an old bounty hunter. And he's out to catch a criminal. They've developed an admiration for one another. One is the yin and the other is the yang." Caleb explained to the UK newspaper The Sun.

    "And so they spend their whole lives chasing each other," he added. "It is a never-ending game of hide-and-seek and it defines their life."
  • Recorded at Nashville's Blackbird Studio, When You See Yourself is Kings of Leon's first album in four and a half years. British producer Markus Dravs (Arcade Fire, Mumford & Sons) helmed the record; he was also behind the boards for the band's previous longplayer, Walls.
  • Casey McGrath directed the mainly black-and-white music video with various moments of color interspersed throughout. The clip shows the band tearing through the track live on a sparse sound stage. McGrath previously worked on the group's documentary Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon.
  • This climbed to the top of Billboard's Adult Alternative Airplay chart, giving Kings of Leon their fourth #1 on the tally. The band previously visited the summit with "Use Somebody," "Radioactive" and "Waste A Moment."

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