Music N' Other Drugs

As a teenager obsessed with Zeppelin, Rush, and Sabbath, I’m almost certain that I never would have stumbled upon The Killers had it not been for my best friend in high school. When “Hot Fuss” was released in 2003, “Somebody Told Me” became one of his go-to tracks before every Buffalo Sabres game and I had no choice but to let the song permeate my eardrums through sheer proximity.

They wrote catchy songs that had a way of pulling the listener in emotionally, and, after a while, not even my heavy metal heart could resist. It was also around that time that WNY’s own Seven Day Faith was gaining traction, so my fandom of both bands grew simultaneously.

Fast-forward to 2025 and Rob Bilson of Seven Day Faith has now started a tribute to The Killers called Mr. Brightside – The Ultimate Killers Experience that plays Electric City on March 29. I had the pleasure of speaking with him earlier this week and his passion for the project should convince any longtime fan to come see the show for themselves.

MNOD: This Saturday marks your second show as a band. How did this project come about?

Bilson: I started the band in September of last year. August is when I had the idea and then we had, you know, I was looking for the right mix of people to play in the band and, you know, surprisingly it was really hard to find players to be in a Killers tribute. I thought it’d be a little easier and I originally wanted to stay away from what I was comfortable with and that was the Seven Day Faith guys. The guys I’m playing with my whole life, you know? My brothers, but I really didn’t want that to end up happening. There wasn’t a whole heck of a lot of interest and I don’t think it was because of the nature of the act. I just think everybody’s busy doing their own things, so then really the catalyst was Rob Burgio. Burgio had never really listened to The Killers, which was surprising to me, because, when Seven Day Faith was really rolling on our second record back in 2003 when ‘Hot Fuss’ came out for The Killers that was that was a really big influence on me for subsequent records, especially our fourth record. There are a couple songs on that ‘Put Down Your Hands’ record. In particular, ‘Wake Up’ was like 100 % influenced by The Killers. But anyway, so Burgio started listening over the course of about a month or two in September and October. He said he would love to do it and then we found Jeff Ward, who Rob had been talking to about a different band and practicing in October and then just you know it wasn’t the right timing for him so then you know things got slowed down a little bit. Matt and Kevin played with Burgio and other bands and then we were off to the races and we had a good you know eight weeks to get ready for the Caz show and you know once we officially announced we were gonna start playing the bookings you know have been coming very, very, very, very well, so it was exciting. We were excited about it being the first one. We were cautiously optimistic, because you know we really only rehearsed for eight weeks with the band fully, but we got to the show. I thought it was fantastic. The feedback we’ve gotten has been great. We put some videos up. I don’t know if you saw them. I’ll send them to you if you haven’t. I was really proud of it and now we’re off to the races since we have Electric City coming up. We have two back-to-back shows, actually. Electric City on Saturday. Then, we’re playing the following week at a place I’ve never heard of, but I’m excited about going to. I believe it’s called Wayland Brewing. Yeah, and then we’re off to the races. We’re playing the Gowanda Historic Hollywood Theater in May. We’re playing the Canal Concert Series in the Tonawandas in July. We’re playing Eden Corn Fest in August and then you know we’re at the Caz again in September for a Buffalo Bills kickoff and many other shows, so it’s been a really fun ride. It’s a great time if you’re a fan of The Killers.

MNOD: Given that I’ve known you all these years, I always assumed that you never listened to anything beyond 1989. What was it about The Killers that grabbed your attention?

Bilson: Ha, ha, ha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s funny that you mention that, because there’s a kid that sits next to me in the office and he listens to my music all the time, saying it’s always 1987 in here. It’s true. I would say I’m a very, very big fan of The Killers. I always say they got me through playing in the Faith and then with ‘Battle Born,’ which I think is their best record. I love it. For me, you know, I just I like to play in my studio at the house and write music and I still write for television shows, but we did the Seven Day Faith reunion stuff, as well. It’s actually kind of sad. It’s like there’s a complete disconnect with me from a soul perspective to original music or playing original music live, at least with the Seven Day Faith stuff, but there’s a connection that I have with these Killers songs mainly because they’re great stories and they’re great songs. It’s liberating. It was liberating to go on stage and it’s almost like performing with a mask on, right? When you’re up there playing your own songs and all the scars are out there for everyone to see, if you make a mistake or you forget your own lyrics or you know you’re not emanating properly, you kinda get self-conscious, right? You know going up on stage and performing the Killers songs and we did 18 songs and had no stress, because we’re doing somebody else’s music. It was really liberating. It was fun and it’s been enjoyable.

MNOD: With how the Bills adopted Mr. Brightside as an anthem this past season, the timing for this band really works.

Bilson: That was complete coincidence. Like, literally in August, I was thinking about actually using some friends to start the band and my fire was kinda lit. Like, man I wanna get my name back out there and do something. I had this Killers idea and I was like you know what names are available and I said I can’t believe Mr. Brightside’s available and I bought the website name and I got all the socials and this is like too good to be true, as nobody is doing this in the states and sure enough nobody was. Then, all of a sudden, I was at the Bills game against Jacksonville. I think it was the Monday Night game and they started doing Mr. Brightside. Then, it exploded, and I was like this is just like all the stars aligned, but it was complete coincidence.

MNOD: So, when you look back in the Killers catalog, do you guys pull from each record?

Bilson: For the most part. I mean, you know, the set is heavy on ‘Hot Fuss’ and ‘Sam’s Town,’ but again I’m a huge fan of the entire catalog so we go from songs like ‘Somebody Told Me’ to ‘Jenny Was a Friend of Mine.’ We have a nice healthy mix of ‘Sam’s Town’ with ‘When You Were Young’ You know the rest of the catalog and how you start focusing on ‘Read My Mind’ and ‘Human.’ We even dabble into the newer stuff. Like I said I’m a huge fan of ‘Battle Born,’ so we do ‘Runaways’ and we do ‘The Way It Was’ and then Brandon Flowers’ great solo record ‘The Desired Effect’ and then we do a new song that they just put out as their most recent single, which is ‘Bright Lights.’ You know we do that, as well, so yeah, I think we have a pretty fine mix of every substantial record that has been put out. I’d love to do a ‘Pressure Machine song or an ‘Imploding the Mirage’ song or two. It would be wonderful, but, you know, I would say if someone was looking a complete definition of what The Killers experience is, it’s 98% the first four records, ‘Hot Fuss,’ ‘Sam’s Town,’ ‘Day and Age,’ and ‘Battle Born.’ We’re looking over the summer right now. We’re at an 18 to 19 song set and really it’s amazing nowadays with Spotify and the analytics that we have available to us that we didn’t have with LPs and cassettes, but you know we really do it. We’re doing this for the fans as well as ourselves, so you know like most bands nowadays we tried to stay pretty close to the Top 20 on Spotify right so as anybody knows you can go on and if you look at the analytics. You’ve got ‘Mr. Brightside,’ ‘Somebody Told Me,’ ‘When You Were Young,’ ‘Human,’ etc. The only song that we don’t do in their top in their top 20 most played is ‘The Man’ and we will be adding that this summer. We’re gonna add a couple songs off the two most recent albums. Probably ‘Caution’ as it’s a really great song. I love ‘Caution.’ And ‘Run for Cover.’ We might do that one, as well, I think it’s pretty impressive if you’re a Killers fan. I think you’re gonna hear what you would hope to hear if you went and saw them.

MNOD: I saw a couple of the videos that you guys posted from the Caz show. It looks like the crowd response was pretty good.

Bilson: Yeah, I mean the crowd is very into it and you get into a situation where it’s give them what they want and they’re happy right and really want to sing along to all the songs. I wanna sing along and have a great time and just give them give them the best of the best, you know?

MNOD: Yeah, it seems like this area in particular is a pretty strong market for tribute acts.

Bilson: Well, you know what’s crazy is now we’re talking to three different booking agencies across the country, because really no one is doing this. In fact, we just met with a booking agency that handles hundreds of tributes out of California and they are one of the largest bookers across the country. No one’s doing The Killers. They don’t have a Killers act, so it’s your top acts are the Journey tributes to Fleetwood Mac to the Eagles. Run down the list right?90s stuff like No Doubt. So I think it’s a market that’s untapped, but to your point it’s a market, right? Buffalo right now is a hot market and we’re being booked like crazy. because people are enamored with the Bills and Mr. Brightside. Insert a town somewhere in America or a city that isn’t on The Killers list of touring and you’re probably not gonna be well-received, but I think there’s a great market and we’re excited about it.

MNOD: The Riviera Theatre in North Tonawanda has tribute acts every weekend and they always appear to draw really well.

Bilson: I just saw that they reached out or somebody reached out to Burgio about that and we’re definitely interested in that. I saw they have a ton of tributes coming. I think it’d be a great fit for us, too. Also, I don’t wanna oversaturate the market, because we’re in a really interesting position right now. It almost is mirroring what I was used to with Seven Day Faith. Like Seven Day Faith really started to break. We broke here. And you’re on the radio, everybody wanted us, but you know we played like 10 shows in 10 weeks and then by the time you get to number seven you know it’s five people instead of 5,000 right? We’re trying to make sure that doesn’t happen, but you know on the flipside The Strictly Hip plays all the time and I think that when you find a band that writes the kind of songs and music that are so impactful and so pleasing to the ears and the mind like The Killers and The Tragically Hip, I don’t think you’ll ever run into that problem. I think people will come and they will watch. You might not be able to play you know 1000 seats all the time, but every week you can go and fill 80 to 150 people and you’re gonna make them happy. That’s what it’s all about.

MNOD: I wanted to ask about Seven Day Faith. I know that you guys have done some shows that last few years here and there. Do you have anything planned on that front?

Bilson: No, we don’t unfortunately. You know, we were blessed and honored to be inducted into the Niagara Falls Music Hall of Fame in 2020 and you know with Covid we were inducted, but we were able to celebrate in 2021 so then Rob Ferenc came in. He lives in Nashville now the drummer. Your mom knows Rob very well. I believe it was such a pleasure to have Rob in town for the ceremony and then we we did a show that summer in 2022 with Rob. Without the original members, it’s not the same. We tried to put it together with our honorary member, Johnny Misso on drums and it’s just not the same, so I think as it stands right now you know unless something changes or Rob could come in, there’s really not an appetite to do it. A Seven Day Faith idea I’ve toyed with is that I would absolutely love to do another record. You don’t have to get everybody in a room for that anymore. I think there’s a lot that can be said through music with Rob Ferenc, Rob Bilson, Rob Burgio, and John Rosini. I would love to do that and I’ve pined for it with the guys over the years and you know I’d like to say in the next couple years that we will do it. And, if not, if not, it won’t be because I didn’t try it. You know it’s hard to get it done, but I’m excited about that and we’ll see what happens. But you know maybe Rob and I plan together now and that might spark a little bit. I would love to do it, but there are no plans for me. I have a fire in me now that I didn’t have before and you know you might hear new music from me coming soon. I’ve actually been dabbling in you know writing some new stuff for a single or two. I got a really cool song that I think people would dig. There’s not really a title for it right now, but you know it’s kind of a throwback to the ’80s, which is which is my thing. And then I found an old video of Jani Lane from Warrant, who I love as a songwriter. There was a video that came out in the ’90s called ‘Quality You Can Taste.’ It was when bands put out VHS tapes of their songs and he had a couple of unfinished songs on there that I’ve always toyed with and I actually I’m a huge fan of his and I’ve been reworking two of his songs and they were only a verse or chorus and I’ve added like extra versus an extra choruses so you know maybe as a passion project I might you know put together a couple of unfinished Jani Lane songs with my own flavor to them. Sooner rather than later, you’re more likely to see Rob Burgio or Rob Bilson from Seven Day Faith on stage doing The Killers and then maybe some Rob Bilson solo music to come out before anything Seven Day Faith related. You know, I always jokingly say that we were famous in a 40-mile radius. I mean, we really were and by no means is this meant to sound narcissistic at all, but the reality was that we were as famous as you can get without expanding to other cities or countries. I mean, it was a great ride, but I’m so content with the memories and I appreciate the memories and I appreciate that everyone supported us and, in a way, I don’t have to relive it or think about it to make myself happy. It was just was a great time in my life. We’re honored that people out there still remember us. I get people that message us and it might be five people or 10, but you know the fact that there are still people that appreciate the memories that we provided and that they provided to us. I mean, you can’t ask for anything more than that in life. I mean, if you touch one person, you’re lucky and, if you were able to touch hundreds, you’re blessed.

Mr. Brightside – The Ultimate Killers Experience plays Electric City on March 29.

See http://www.electriccity.com or https://www.facebook.com/people/Mr-Brightside/61564868206351/?_rdr for details.