It came as a bit of a surprise when The Killers were first announced as the headliners of the 2010 Good Vibrations Festival – a festival traditionally reserved for acts of more electronic and hip hop inclination. But as the line between ‘dance music’ and ‘rock music’ continues to blur, it’s becoming harder to pigeonhole acts like The Killers simply as ‘rock’ or ‘indie’. Take for the track Human off their 2008 album Day & Age. Posing the question, “Are we humans, or are we dancer?” the track has a distinctive dance beat and according to lead singer Brandon Flowers, that’s how it was suppose to sound. “It’s supposed to be a dance song, it goes with the chorus, If you can’t put that together, you’re an idiot. I just don’t get why there’s a confusion about it”. Touchy! But you probably would be too if you’d gone to the effort of branching out from your indie/rock roots, and hired electronic music legend Stuart Price to produce your album – and help develop further the plenitude of 80s synths heard on their first two smash albums.

Despite some questions about the band’s new direction with Day & Age, The Killers have continued to smash sales records and top chats across the globe, in particular those ‘End of the Decade’ polls that brought 2009 to a close. I ask drummer Ronnie Vannucci, who joins me on the phone while grocery shopping in his hometown of Las Vegas, if these polls are something the band takes notice of. “No, not something we keep an eye on. It always nice to be recognised by our peers, these are people that helped get out music out there, it’s a nice compliment.”

Not something they keep an eye on? Not the kind of answer you’d expect if you’ve visited the band’s official website recently. ‘The Year and Decade in Review’, ‘More Best Of Lists’ – just the name of a few ‘news’ stories on the site. Among all this self promotion is also a recent story apologising for the cancellation of the bands upcoming tour of Asia “due to unforeseen circumstances involving a serious illness of a close family member”. While no further explanation for the cancellation is provided, the statement does assure fans that, “At this time, the band’s Australian appearances remain scheduled as planned”. Lucky, as this Australian tour will be that last we’ll see of The Killers for sometime – or will it?

In a recent interview with Australia news outlet AAP. guitarist Dave Keuning dropped the following bombshell. “I’m not sure if people are aware of it but this [Good Vibrations] is probably our last shows for a while”, citing “burnout” as a reason. With the label ‘indefinite hiatus’ slapped on the story and spread across the world, it seemed as though AAP had itself quite a scoop. But when I asked Vannucci just days later to tell me about the break he was singing a slightly different tune. “No, because it hasn’t happened yet. We don’t really, I don’t know, we’ve got a few things up our sleeves but nothing definite, I’m sure there’ll be maybe a couple of months vacation involved but some of us are pretty active, some of us, more or less want a bit of a vacation”.

Confused about the conflicting information about the band’s future I pry a little further, asking Vannucci if this ‘break’ will perhaps instead be simply an ‘extended holiday’? “We’ll see, you know, we will see”. Although I’m unable to get a definite timeline for the break, I do manage to discover that the band (or at least some of the band) intends to continue working after Good Vibrations. “We’ve got a lot of what I like to call cutting room floor ideas, things, left in the rubble from the last record, so it will be interesting to look at those”.

With some new work potentially in the pipeline and a good 12 months behind them since the release of their last album, I ask Vannucci what fans can expect of their Good Vibrations set? “ Well, we tour around with some new ideas, but I think because Good Vibes is a festival and not our own show I think it would be probably best to not introduce new material at a place like that because we’re not playing to all of our fans, you know what I mean?” Yeah, I think I get the picture. So if you are planning on catching The Killers headline Good Vibes this year, at least now you now you’re guaranteed to hear the distinctive rock/pop/dance/indie hybrid that has made The Killers one of last decade’s highest selling and most popular acts.

The Killers will headline the Good Vibrations Festival in 2010. Check out ITM’s Festival Page for loads of news, interviews and more. National dates below…

Fri 12 Feb – The Enmore, Sydney
Sat 13 Feb – Good Vibrations, Sydney
Sun 14 Feb – Good Vibrations, Perth
Sat 20 Feb – Good Vibrations, Gold Coast
Sun 21 Feb – Good Vibrations, Melbourne