The Killers are in the ‘early stages’ of writing a new album, Brandon Flowers revealed in an interview with NME, with hopes to get the album released by the end of 2016.

The new album will be their fifth studio album, with no release date set Flowers stated “In a perfect world I think the end of 2016 maybe, there’ll be something.” Perfect world provided, this will be the first Killers album in four years, after 2012’s Battleborn.

With the band coming up to their 15th birthday Flowers admitted there are new challenges the band face in the studio, saying: “When you get older you get more accustomed to doing it and it gets harder in a way. It’s easier to write a song and finish a song now, than when we used to really slave over it and the songs would be too long or we don’t know exactly what we’re doing.

“Now it’s more second nature [but] it’s harder to sift through what’s terrible and what’s great, because it’s so easy to complete a song. So I think that’s where you get a lot of bands being complacent and just going through the motions. You get a lot of bands that don’t do great things later on, and so hopefully because I’m aware of that we can really do something better and something great this time.”

But the Killers frontman is positive about writing the new album, saying “I think if we can just get on the same page and really apply what we’ve learnt from over a 1000 shows now and playing clubs and stadiums and all of that and really apply what we’ve learnt over the years that’s what I’m excited about.” He also added “We never really set out to do anything, you just sort of wait for lightning to strike. That’s the best way, but it’s elusive, ol’ lightning.”

Flowers released a solo album earlier this year called Desired Effect. Asked whether he was planning on releasing more solo material in the future he said: “If The Killers want to take a year or two off then there’s no reason for me not to make a solo record but if the fires are burning in the band then there will be a Killers record.”