Besides all the sadness and strangeness The Lathums have experienced together, their relatively short time as a band led to some pretty wild things. A number one album in How Beautiful Life Can Be, for starters. Sold out dates at iconic venues, a Europe-wide tour support slot with The Killers and heading into Abbey Road for a recent acoustic session, for three more. It was frontman of The Killers, Brandon Flowers, a Lathums fan, who sent them a rough vocal demo of him performing their peppy single, How Beautiful Life Can Be, from his hotel room to theirs. Later, Alex performed the song on stage with Brandon in Amsterdam. “It’s mad that, for the past four years, we’ve not worked a day in our lives. Every day is a weekend!” says Alex.
Brandon Flowers may be one fan, but The Lathums seem as excited by humbler devotees. Like, for example, a classroom full of primary school children: “We went into a school the other week, and they knew us! They knew who we were and they liked the songs!” The trio are also delighted to note that several older fans have picked up instruments because of them: “There are bands kicking about that came to our gigs on the first headline tour we had.” What’s obvious is that The Lathums are proud of each other, and proud of their band. For Alex, it may be a way to deal with his sadness, but it is also a dream he never knew he had coming true.
