Jared Followill was born on November 20, 1986. He became the bassist in Kings of Leon alongside his brothers, singer and guitarist Caleb Followill and drummer Nathan Followill, and their cousin, guitarist Matthew Followill. Before playing on “Sex on Fire” and “Use Somebody,” Jared was a teenager learning his instrument as the family band began making records.
His childhood had already involved plenty of travel. The brothers accompanied their Pentecostal preacher father through the American South, with church music forming part of their upbringing. When Caleb began writing rock songs, Jared also became a useful listener. In a 2011 Guitar World interview, Caleb remembered playing him an early version of “Molly’s Chambers” and asking whether kids at school would like it. Jared thought they would. Before he had a bass part to contribute, he could offer his older brother a younger listener’s perspective.
That changed quickly. Recalling the start in a 2024 SPIN interview, Jared said he received his first bass in early 2002 and recorded the band’s first EP that summer, roughly a month after he began playing. Kings of Leon’s debut album, Youth & Young Manhood, followed in 2003. Caleb later told Guitar World that Jared began with little sense of timing but picked up the instrument through learning scales. The band rehearsed repeatedly each day, giving that education an immediate purpose: songs they could play together.
By Because of the Times in 2007, Jared had firm ideas about how those performances should sound on record. He told Mix that the band initially differed with producer Ethan Johns over the scale of the recording. “I want people to hear what I hear when I’m onstage playing with these guys,” Jared explained. The eventual compromise left plenty of room for his bass. On one song, he asked for more of it in the mix; according to Jared, Johns instructed an assistant to raise it by 1.5 decibels, expecting the result to demonstrate that it was too loud. Instead, the room agreed it worked, and they kept the change. It’s a small studio decision that says something concrete about his priorities: the bass deserved to be heard.
The group’s writing process gave him room to shape the music, too. Matthew told Guitar World in 2009 that a song could begin with Jared’s bass line or one of his own guitar parts, with the others adding their ideas. Jared played bass and shared writing credits on “Sex on Fire” and “Use Somebody,” both from 2008’s Only by the Night. “Use Somebody” went on to win Record of the Year at the 2010 Grammy Awards.
For 2024’s Can We Please Have Fun, the band worked at Dark Horse Recording in rural Tennessee, a setting Jared compared to summer camp in his SPIN interview. His account of the writing showed how directly the brothers were working together. When Caleb had a promising song, he would message Jared, who would drive over and listen in his brother’s office. From there, Jared would begin developing his own ideas around what Caleb had played.
