Kings X

Doug Pinnick: vocals/bass Ty Tabor: guitars/vocals Jerry Gaskill: drums/vocals

After six albums, King’s X have been there, done that, and then some. They’ve played venues of every imaginable size (from Woodstock II to the tiniest dives of the Midwest) with everyone under the sun (from Pearl Jam to AC/DC to Alice In Chains, who used to open for them). A power-trio in the best sense of the term – all three members are strong singers as well as jaw-droppingly proficient musicians – their distinctive sound combines incisive songwriting with powerful guitars and celestial harmonies. The band’s years of hard work – and their near-transcendent live shows – have earned them a rabid cult following that packs sold-out venues virtually everywhere they play (and has made their online area one of the most frequently visited on Atlantic’s Website). Yet for all that, the band hadn’t made an album that they were completely happy with… until their new Atlantic outing, “EAR CANDY.” “I think this is the best record we’ve ever done,” says bassist Doug Pinnick, “because we actually got to do what we wanted to do. This is honestly the first time I’ve ever been in a studio and enjoyed it, because we were always worrying about a million different things that aren’t really what you wanna be thinking about when you’re making music. I think we all feel differently about what we do than we did a couple of years ago, and we’ve made so many records that there’s nothing to prove anymore. So we just said, ‘We don’t give a shit what anybody thinks about us or this record. We’re gonna go in and do an album for us and have fun.’ And if that’s what makes a good record, then we’ve got one.” “Personally, I think it’s my favorite since ‘Gretchen Goes To Nebraska’” [the band’s second album and many fans’ favorite as well], says guitarist Ty Tabor. “On that album I really got to stretch out and experiment, and on this one I felt the same freedom to do anything I wanted. It really helped me to enjoy playing on an album again.” That freedom brought the band members closer musically than they’d been in years. “‘American Cheese’ is one of the first songs that the three of us have built from scratch,” Doug says. “Jerry just played a couple of notes on the piano, and we built the whole song around that. Usually, we bring in finished songs that we’ve demo’ed at home, and some of them get changed around by the band, and some don’t. But this record is really three guys together – it’s not a Doug record or a Ty record or a Jerry record, but it’s a perfect King’s X record.”

Six albums equals six different bios, so suffice it to say that King’s X originally formed in Springfield, Missouri in 1980, relocated to Houston in the middle of the decade, and released their first album, “OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET,” in 1988. Throughout, the only constant has been the three band members. “In the beginning, we had another guitarist,” Doug says. “One lasted for about a month, and another for about a year-and-a-half. And they both said, ‘You guys are a three-piece band, and nobody else will ever really fit in.’ We’ve been told by a lot of people, and we feel ourselves, that there’s just this magic between the three of us. No matter how nervous or tired or shitty we might feel, as soon as Jerry goes ‘1-2-3-4′ and we hit that first note, this weird connection locks in.” Doug then launches into a hilarious and probably very accurate account of what goes through his mind (and undoubtedly many other musicans’ minds as well) while onstage: “‘Man, am I gonna be able to hit this note here? Should I scream here? My voice is hoarse – am I off-key? I can’t hear the vocals! I don’t know if I’m in key with Ty or not, oh no! The kick drum’s not loud enough, I’m losing the beat! Oh man, my bass isn’t sounding right, and I can’t go back to the amp to fix it ‘cuz I’m singing, doggone it!,’” he laughs. “The rest of the time I’m trying to communicate with the audience!” King’s X has looked out over many large crowds, but the band admits that playing Woodstock II gave them the worst case of butterflies they’d had in a long time. “It was just so much ridiculously bigger than life I can’t even explain it,” says Ty. “Stunning. Huge. Overwhelming.” He uses similar adjectives – and this is not a man prone to overstatement, in his playing or his conversation – to describe the band’s 1994 tour with Pearl Jam. “That tour was sort of like a wake-up call to me, because I didn’t think that kind of thing happened anymore,” he says. “Touring with those guys allowed me to see that it does go from generation to generation – where whole groups of kids relate and respond to something in a major, powerful way. It was especially meaningful because we’ve known some of the guys in the band for a long time – [Pearl Jam bassist] Jeff Ament has been coming to our shows for years and years, and he’s usually hanging out backstage whenever we’re in Seattle.” (Solidifying the connection even further, Doug and Ament both played on the forthcoming album from L.A.’s Tribe After Tribe.) “EAR CANDY” finds the band moving through a wide variety of styles, yet always sounding unmistakably like King’s X. From the driving rhythm of “Sometime” to the soaring and ambitious “A Box” to the psychedelicized “What I’m Gonna Do” (which pairs African-style drumming with acoustic guitars to dazzling effect), the album finds the band perusing its own musical and personal past, while plotting a strong course for the future. “‘Mississippi Moon’ is kind of a sentimental tune,” Ty says. “It just reflects on growing up in Mississippi, and that always brings back really good memories for me. And ‘Life Going By’ expresses some of my feelings in a way that I hadn’t been able to get them out before, so that one has some special meaning as well.”

Doug notes, “Personally, my favorite song on this album is ‘Picture.’ About two years ago, I went to a family reunion, and out of the blue, my Dad showed up! He left when I was really little, and I hardly know him. But I thought, I’m gonna take a picture of me and him and my Mom. So I put my arms around both of them, and when I got the picture back, it really changed my life – I realized where I had come from, and who I was. “Anyway, we had everything on the track recorded except for the vocals, and I had no idea what I was going to sing – and then I thought about the picture. I wrote the lyrics in ten minutes, and went in there and nailed the song in one take.” That sense of spontaneity and liberation imbues every song on “EAR CANDY.” “We always used to worry so much about how well our albums would sell,” Ty says, “but I like this album so much that nothing else really matters! It’ll all take care of itself.”