attending an Oasis concert at the Hard Rock Hotel during The Tour of Brotherly Love, Flowers realized his calling was to be in a rock band and began searching for like-minded musicians. He eventually came across an ad posted in a Las Vegas newspaper by Dave Keuning, a 25-year-old guitarist who had moved to Vegas from Iowa a year earlier. When the pair met, they bonded over similar musical influences and immediately began writing songs together in Keuning's apartment. They named their band the Killers as that was the name of a fictional band in the music video for the New Order song "Crystal". In November 2001, they headed to Kill the Messenger Studio in Henderson, Nevada, along with recently recruited drummer Matt Norcross to begin recording a demo; they recorded two tracks: "Mr. Brightside", which was the first song Flowers and Keuning wrote together, and "Desperate". A month later, they recorded two more, "Under the Gun" and "Replaceable", with Keuning's roommate Dell Neal on bass. Keuning and Flowers played their first live show together at an open mic night at the Cafe Espresso Roma in Las Vegas in January 2002; the pair, joined by Neal and Norcross, began playing venues around the city where they would also hand out free copies of their demo. The Killers brought a unique style to the small Vegas music scene which was predominately filled with punk, nu metal, and rap bands; one local reviewer stated, "The Killers, thankfully, don't come across like any other band in town", and described their sound as a mix between the "pop styles of British music and the lo-fi fuzz of modern indie rock". However, the Killers, whose early live sound was also described as erratic, had, by the summer of 2002, fired drummer Matt Norcross and replaced him briefly with Brian Havens, who was also eventually fired. Bassist Dell Neal later left the band due to personal reasons. Ronnie Vannucci Jr. joined the Killers shortly before Neal's departure. Vannucci was well known on the Las Vegas music scene, having played in numerous bands since he was young. It was while he was drumming for other bands including Daphne Major and Romance Fantasy in 2002 that he had met the Killers. Ronnie's first show with the band was on August 30, 2002, at a club called The Junkyard. Playing bass for the Killers that night was Mark Stoermer,