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King Kool

Reviewers have fought to outdo each other with descriptions of King Kool’s sound and feel, with Music Maker dubbing it: ‘a tsunami of edgy, snarling, garage rock and punk, spewing forth with all its greasy invective of fear and loathing’. Regulars at Peterborough’s Willow Festival and Attica Live, KK have a tour kicking off in July to mark the release of a new album – Scuzz Bombe. To call the album ‘home grown’ is an understatement. Fen dweller Dan Donovan isn’t just singer, guitarist and primary songwriter – he also took the photos, designed the sleeve and shoots all the videos for the band (and for various other bands, too). Toby Venables talked to him…

PEOPLE HAVE GONE A BIT MAD DESCRIBING YOUR MUSIC – ‘FULL OF VENOM, BILE AND GREASY SEX’… HOW WOULD YOU SUM IT UP?
I flit between Dylan, Tom Waits, and the more early Stooges, lots of Iggy, Queens of the Stone Age, Pixies, you know. And I like a lot of ambient stuff, Sparklehorse. But artistically, I would say KK leans a bit more towards the trashier side of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

THE SOUND YOU GET FROM THE GUITARS – ‘JET ENGINE GUITARS’ THEY’VE BEEN CALLED – COULD STRIP FLESH FROM BONE. IF ANYTHING, ON THIS ALBUM, THEY SOUND EVEN BIGGER…
One thing I’ve done for the first time on this album is double-track the guitars. They’re panned to left and right with the bass tones in the middle, to give a wider, layered sound that replicates the live sound a bit better.

IT WOULD BE REMISS OF ME AT THIS POINT NOT TO MENTION THE IMMENSE DRUM SOUND, AND KK’S OTHER HALF, PAS…
What’s different about Pas is that he’s a front man. Ideally, a stage set would be drums at the front and me at the front, and we both share the front! He’s such a visual, integral part of the show. For me, that’s what I always wanted. I didn’t want me stood in front of a drummer. I wanted it to be two people who were part of this thing. There are elements where I take the lead, but he’s an awesome drummer, and I can’t do that. On stage, all things are equal.

YOUR SONGS ARE FAR MORE THOUGHTFUL THAN ‘VENOM’ AND ‘BILE’ MIGHT SUGGEST – WHAT ARE THE THEMES OF THIS ALBUM, AND WHERE DO THEY COME FROM?
They touch on the big issues of what to do with this wealth of information we have about the human race. We watch the news and there’s turmoil and happiness and greed and generosity – all these extremes. A lot of the songs are observational. Tic Boom, for example, was written about various things – the peaceful takeover of the centre of Bangkok, where the government steamed in. It also relates to the Arab Spring – about regimes that had been there for years, but were suddenly challenged. There’s a line in the song: ‘A stone is thrown at the giant, the giant grinds and we all stare…’ So there’s no conclusion. It’s about these tensions that are like unexploded bombs.

HENCE THE TITLE OF THE ALBUM, AND THE BOMB ON THE COVER?
That’s actually a piece of graffiti that has been done around Texas, but has also been seen in Amsterdam. It’s a perfect image – also because it’s subversive. It’s street art. I did a lot of poking around but couldn’t find the originator, so there’s a credit to the unknown street artist. But the bomb is all tied in with the message.

AND ‘SCUZZ’?
Scuzz is the grit, it’s the dirt, it’s what’s real. Its also related to music – heavy music. It seemed our music was generally like that. There’s no gloss on the CD – literally. The cover’s not gloss varnished or laminated. Even the card is printed inside out to get a rougher texture!

Scuzz Bombe is out now. To buy the CD or download, find out the latest gig news and view the videos, visit www.kingkool.co.uk

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