Kings of Leon has been living two separate lives, drummer Nathan Followill says, and only recently has the band been able to bring them together.

Prior to the release of Only by the Night (2008) and the Grammy Award-winning single Sex on Fire, the Nashville rock quartet — made up of three brothers and a cousin — were stars in the United Kingdom, where they had 15 charting singles and headlined arena shows.

At home, though, they were virtual nonentities.

“In the UK and Europe, our security guys would have to walk with us, because people wouldn’t leave us alone and it was just crazy,” the 30-year-old Followill says. “Then we would come home and the only person that knew us was our mom, who was there to pick us up.

“We’d almost given up on the idea of ever being big,” he says, “especially in America. Then this record comes along and a song with the words ‘sex’ and ‘fire’ in it turns everything around. Who would have known?”

Sex on Fire, which topped the Billboard Alternative Songs chart, did indeed help drive Only by the Night, Kings of Leon’s fourth album, to platinum sales in the United States. It also launched another single, the Top 5 Use Somebody.

But the truth is that there was a bit of heat on the band even before that happened.

Followill and his brothers, singer-guitarist Caleb and bassist Jared, have been playing some form of music together all their lives. The sons of travelling Pentecostal preacher Ivan “Leon” Followill — and the grandsons of another preacher, also named Leon, hence the band name — the brothers were often called upon to play instruments and sing at his services and revivals around the South.

“We knew it was a different kind of upbringing,” 22-year-old Jared acknowledges. “Looking back, we think it’s kind of cool that we did that. We’re not ashamed or anything. It’s something that makes us unique. We don’t feel like we were held back from anything in the world.”

That includes music. Though Jared says that their mother, Betty-Ann, “never wanted us to listen to rock ’n’ roll,” their father would play it on the radio when she wasn’t in the car.

“My dad used to listen to old-rock stations,” the bassist says, “and you’d hear stuff like The Band, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, that kind of stuff. It wasn’t a big part of his life, it was just stuff he’d listen to to pass the time while we were driving.”

The beginning

The brothers’ own tastes eventually expanded, especially after their parents divorced and the boys moved to Nashville with their mother. There they met a songwriter named Angelo Petraglia, who helped them hone their talents and also introduced them to other types of music.

“I went through a Cure stage,” Jared recalls, “and then I heard the Pixies, who really changed my life. It was just so different from anything else. They did exactly what they wanted. They didn’t care about anything but (the music) they wanted to make.”

Nathan and Caleb were the original members of the band, signing a recording contract as a duo with RCA Records in the early 2000s. The label suggested that they put together a full band, so the brothers recruited Jared, who was only 16 at the time and had to be taught to play bass, and their cousin Matthew, who took over lead guitar.

“This is the first band any of us were ever in,” Nathan says. “Most bands play together five or six years before they ever get a record deal. We formed because we got a record deal.”

Familiarity breeds a bit of contempt, however.

“Sure, we get in fist fights every once in a while, just like all brothers,” Jared acknowledges. “We argue a lot, but it’s nothing we can’t get over. We’ve been so close our whole life, physically close, in our car together. We’ve been our only friends at points. So, yeah, we’re used to arguing. We learned to get over it and get on with it.”

An initial EP, Holy Roller Novocaine (2003), generated buzz for Kings of Leon’s first full-length album, Youth and Young Manhood, which followed later that year. It was well received: Rolling Stone gave the album four out of five stars, while Britain’s New Musical Express dubbed it “one of the best debut albums of the last 10 years.”

“We never expected that,” Jared says. “When people called and told us that they were saying that stuff, we were like, ‘Really?’ We didn’t know what to say about it. It’s cool. We’re glad people like us, but we’re not trying to be the top band or anything like that. We’re just making music we want to hear.”

Anonymity

Kings of Leon’s general visibility, if not its American record sales, grew through two more albums and tours opening for U2, Bob Dylan and Pearl Jam. The disparity in their popularity at home and abroad seemed strange, Nathan admits, but he also sees a benefit to it.

“I think it actually helped us,” he says, “in the sense that we never got tired of it. We always looked forward to going to the UK and Europe, because we were huge over there, but we also looked forward to coming home, because there was a certain level of anonymity.

“And it kept us hungry and humble,” he adds. “It’s kind of hard to be cocky or get a big head when you come home and nobody knows who the hell you are. It definitely kept the fire under our b***s. But everything happens for a reason, and we’re really enjoying where we’re at right now.”

The Followills chuckle when they talk about the reaction of some of their longtime fans to the group’s more recent spate of success. The band has “three kinds of fans now,” Nathan says: “those who know only Sex on Fire, which won a Grammy as Best Rock Vocal Performance By a Duo or Group, those who were turned onto the band by that song and have gone back to pick up the rest of its catalog and, finally, “those die-hard fans that refuse to cheer or sing on Sex on Fire, just to show us that they’re not fans just because of that song.

“There were these two girls at our show in Vegas,” he recalls, “and they sat there and honestly just crossed their arms and were shaking their heads back and forth and refusing to sing when we got to (Sex on Fire) — but then sang every word to every other song the rest of the night. It was pretty funny.

“I’ve gotten a couple of farewell e-mails from fans,” Nathan adds, “saying that it was a good run but that we’re to the point where they have to share us with too many people who don’t like us for the ‘right’ reasons. But those same people sent me e-mails two months later, acting like nothing happened, and they’re back on the bandwagon.

“If everyone liked you it wouldn’t be any fun, so it’s good to have that variety in there.”

Things should keep hopping for Kings of Leon. The band is planning to release a live DVD filmed in July at London’s O2 arena, but is even more excited about a remix album that will feature the group’s songs revised by the likes of Kenna, Lykke Li, Pharrell, Mark Ronson, Justin Timberlake and others.

“It’s neat to have these people, whom we would have jumped at the chance to work with ourselves ... , coming to us before we even get a chance to ask them,” Nathan says. “It’s amazing to hear your song played by these people who are so creative. Most of the time it takes me two or three listens to even wrap my head around, ‘Oh, man, that’s our song’. ”

The success of Only by the Night has kept Kings of Leon on the road for nearly a year and a half. While the group craves a rest, nonetheless it has already started to work on fresh material, mostly created during pre-concert sound checks, which Nathan — who is scheduled to be married in November — describes as “all over the place. There’s stuff that sounds like Radiohead, there’s stuff that sounds like Thin Lizzy, there’s stuff that sounds like The Band. We’re pretty much to the point now where ... we can be experimental and try stuff we would’ve been scared to death to try on the first couple of records,” he says. “Now we find ourselves being a little more adventurous.”

And it’s that kind of material, the drummer says, that will likely bring the four Followills back to the studio sooner rather than later.