LET'S get straight to it. Are The Killers disposable synthpop poseurs or American rock legends in waiting?

Meeting frontman Brandon Flowers in a Dublin hotel last week, the signs are mixed. He's just spent the day in a well-known Dublin spa and is dressed like a model from a Diesel jeans magazine advert. When he sits down he starts playing with a yo-yo, giggling a little awkwardly at the ice-breakers.

Flowers, originally from Utah, was born almost 26 years ago and recently married the girl he met before his band's debut album, Hot Fuss, became the overnight sensation of late 2004/early 2005.

Like his onstage gait, in interview he is shy, self-effacing, talks lovingly of his family and then, boom, he comes out with something random and supercilious.

Flowers formed the band with Iowa-native and guitarist Dave Keuning in Las Vegas in 2002.

They wrote a bunch of songs, played a couple of gigs in front of no one and almost instantly became huge. That said, there have been a couple of blips in The Killers' rise to fame. The original bass player and drummer were jettisoned early on. Today Flowers describes the former as "a sweet guy" who "doesn't have any resentment" towards the band, while the latter, true to the spirit of litigious Smiths drummer Mike Joyce, claimed to have written 'Mr Brightside' after the band struck gold. "It didn't go to court or anything, " says Flowers. "He had
nothing to do with the song apart from being the first drummer to put a beat on it. . . Our drummer now is very creative but that drummer wasn't."

If there is one moment when The Killers felt they had arrived it was at Glastonbury in 2005. They declined to fill in the headline slot for Kylie but blew away the Pyramid stage earlier on. Flowers recalls the euphoria of feeling validated as well as the attendant fear that the honeymoon was finally over. "It was amazing but shortly after that all the questions started entering our brains: how did you do it? Can you do that again?"

Cue the follow-up, Sam's Town: a big, bombastic, immaculately produced (by U2 collaborator Flood and Alan Moulder) stadium rocker. Hello, this is the United States calling. "We grew up so much by going out on the road, " says Flowers. "It was the first time any of the band had been outside America. It was a big awakening.

It all hit me, what we had done, when I sat down to write the album.

"I started to realise how many records we had sold and there were all these people anticipating our next record. And there were all these people doubting us and I realised how important it was - how important music was in shaping me as a person - and that's when it all came down on my head and on my back. I wanted to write lyrics that meant something."

Sam's Town eschews the throwaway pop song for something much more difficult to swallow. Gone are the Simple Simon melodies and Gary Newman synth flushes. In comes the layered guitar and dense lyrics, even horns.

If, sonically, the help of Flood aids the step up, lyrically the album is an attempt, albeit through characters and the setting of the fictional Sam's Town, by Flowers to tell us who he is. He knew exactly what he wanted to do. "The band hated it at first; they didn't see it the way I saw it. Sam's Town is sentimental for me. It reminded me of The Doors. I found no flaw in it but it took a while to bring the band around."

Released late last year, Sam's Town has critically endured a case of good old hometown begrudery. "It's really difficult, " says Flowers. "We had great reviews over here but at home it still baffles us. In America they don't get it.

It's supposed to be this big American album and everybody else likes it but in America it's not happening. . . I almost have to adjust my brain from one side of the Atlantic to the other."

Flowers claims the American press "are more interested in my Nikes and writing about why my facial hair doesn't look thick enough to write songs as important as 'When You Were Young'. If Bob Dylan had written 'When You Were Young' it would be one of the best songs that anyone has ever heard in their life. It would be next to 'Blowin' In The Wind'."

The American establishment quite obviously don't share Flowers' belief in himself. Why? "I don't know if it is my face. Maybe I look too young? Because we wrote a pop song called 'Somebody Told Me' - because of the lyrics of that song? Maybe because [Sam's Town] is too big a jump. We still want to be playful and we are still excited. We don't want to be dead serious. We want to write exciting songs. Maybe we came across the wrong way or something."

Coming across the wrong way is another way of explaining the criticism Flowers met with his English-accented vocal delivery and Sam's Town is a conscious attempt to address that. "I went back and listened to Hot Fuss and I was a little bit embarassed [at the English accent]. I didn't mean to do that. . . I started thinking about where I'm from and who my dad is and my mom. And I'm really proud to be Brandon Flowers. I don't know anything about England, I don't know anything about Ireland or Germany."

Then there are his religious beliefs, which apparently don't go down well with the liberal US media and music industries. Proud to be a mormon, Flowers is aware that extreme elements in the church can give the religion a bad name.

"I hate when people ruin it, " he says. So what's the best thing about being a mormon? "There are a lot of things that I see that are. . . In America we are separating church and state so much now - I mean we are not near where you guys are over here but I see it as a bad thing. I don't like it. I don't think that bombs should be dropped in the name of God but there are so many great things morally that come from the belief. I'm somewhere in the middle. For me personally I am not ashamed to say that I have this belief.

"I wonder does he enjoy the certainty of knowing where he is going to go when he dies. "I guess that's what it is but a lot of people misconstrue that and say that people who believe in heaven or hell create it for themselves. . . or say that for the most part they are poor people who are looking for something better when they die or people that aren't educated that are just hoping for something or creating something.

"That is offensive to me - for obvious reasons. My parents are poor people. The more I get to go to parties with all the liberals and the more I go and listen to these conversations the more I realise that I am not just offended that they are talking about my parents.

I just really believe in it. I do and I can't help it. I have questioned it and I've come back [to it].

"There are so many different levels. There are scientists that believe God had a hand in evolution. There are people who are open to it and aren't quite sure and I have come to the conclusion that. . ." You are happy with what you've got? Flowers cracks up laughing and spins his yo-yo once more. It's showtime.

The Killers headline the Oxegen festival on Sunday, 8 July