Ahead of the launch of their fourth album next week, bogo-hillbilly, hipster-sensitive, indie-rock brotherhood Kings of Leon have hit out at freetards for failing to repay them for their toil.

Frontman Caleb Followill launched a broadside against internet pirates: "There are a lot of people online that say, 'these guys have a wonderful life, screw them if they don't want me listening' – you don’t know what it's like! Literally, sometimes I jump out of bed at three in the morning and go and write something down because I just had a dream and I thought of something."

Oh dear.

The wounded artiste wasn't finished. He explained: "You don't know what goes into writing a song, let alone an album. It's not a day at the office – you're putting your heart and soul into something and for people to not respect that, that's crazy. But when you have people that do it the right way – that's pushing your artform."

His brother and guitarist Matthew offered a less pious take on the travails of an international rock band: "We don't wake up, take a shot of Jack and do a line of coke. We wake up and start singing or playing guitar... and then we party."

The Kings are pushing their artform this time around via an exclusive free web streaming deal with Last.fm, the CBS-owned web radio outfit. Listen here. Only By The Night is out to buy on Monday, but has been widely available unlicensed via BitTorrent and filedump sites for about a week. ®

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