Our world is an unlikely one, and Birkenstocks and tie-dye — once the epitome of hippie anti-style and as glamorous as trail mix — are more chic than ever.
However, in the early 2000s, singer-guitarist Marcus King I went to middle school in Piedmont, South Carolina, but it wasn’t. In a recent interview, King recalled being teased by “both teachers and students” for showing up to class dressed as Deadhead.
“I was like, ‘I’ve been saving up money for this Birkenstock for a long time!'” said King. “‘I’ll wear it all year round!’ So I always stood out a little bit.”
King’s second solo album is fueled by the same relentless out-out spirit. “young blood” A collection of muscular hard rock songs in the decidedly hairy tradition of James Gang, Grand Funk and early ZZ Top. ” as a verb.
But even in this regard, King, who looks younger at 26, has a baby-faced, goofy, almost triangular smile and a hobby of a time traveler. He grew up with his father, blues musician Marvin King, and his record collection was filled with music like this.
“I used to spoon these riffs with my Gerber applesauce,” King said in a video chat from Italy. “My father gave me records to listen to while he was away from work, and I learned by listening to them.”
When King was young, his mother left the family. Although they maintain a relationship, King has said that her absence “created the first sense of loss and grief in my life.”
In King’s memory, he was around four years old, home alone, strumming his father’s Epiphone Eldorado. When King got his own guitar it became his closest friend. From the beginning, he was also very good. He was just 11 years old when he made his professional recording debut with Marvin King’s album Huge in Europe. On the cover, he’s a genius of diminutive size, wearing a wide-brimmed Stevie Ray Vaughan hat.
By his teenage years, King said, “I didn’t want to be just a kid guitarist.” He began listening to more jazz, paying more attention to vocalists, from Aretha Franklin to David Ruffin to Janis Joplin, trying to emulate their tone and phrasing on his own instruments.
As soon as he was old enough to get a learner’s permit, he was booking shows at every venue within driving distance. “It’s kind of a scary place to be in a club and have to stand your ground,” he said. His extracurricular activities caused him to be chronically late for school. “They were so bad about it,” he said. “They tried many times to put me in a juvenile hall for truancy.”
He eventually dropped out, and went on to tour incessantly after that, sharing stage and festival bills with the jam circuit’s elite. He created his three well-received albums of soul-influenced Southern rock, as the leader of his band Marcus King, and was nominated for a Grammy Award for his first solo album. “Eldorado,” Released in 2020.
Produced by Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, “El Dorado” takes in vintage AM radio pop, nudie suit country and even psychedelia, bringing a surprising subtlety to King’s unusually weathered vocals. But when King and Auerbach began plotting King’s next album, they soon decided to go in the opposite direction and go for something more raw and direct.
At least initially, it was a practical decision. “He’s been on tour and tours and the venues are getting bigger and bigger,” Auerbach said in an interview.
However, the momentum changed in April. “Everything fell apart in my personal life,” King said. He suddenly dropped his eyes and squinted behind his round, tinted sunglasses.
This album will be a document of this tragic time. “Every part of me believed this was going to be my last record,” said King. I was already on that path. “
King started sneaking Postset beer while hanging out in bars as a teenager. As an adult, he said he turned to alcohol and drugs to cope with the pain of a grueling touring schedule. “If you’re tired and need to get up and go out, there’s something you need to get you up. And if you’re feeling really depressed, there’s something that makes you feel less depressed,” he said. “And when you get a hangover, repeat all those things and it’s gone.”
This was especially unwise given that King was also taking prescription drugs. “Many people argue that pineapple isn’t good for pizza. But I can say that about the fact that antidepressants and alcohol are incompatible.”
Things got dark. Raised in a Pentecostal church, where his father believed in messages from God and his mother often spoke of premonitions and spirits, King began seeing ominous signs and symbols everywhere. The music of the British rock band Free seemed to follow him. King’s investigation of the band’s lead guitarist, Paul Kossoff, revealed that he died of a pulmonary embolism at the age of 25 after years of drug use.
King was 25 when he read this. He couldn’t believe it was a coincidence. “When you start creating these signs in your head, they start popping up everywhere,” he said.
Meanwhile, his relationship with his girlfriend was going down the drain. It was April when they booked a staycation in Nashville, hoping to rekindle things. It didn’t work. One night, walking down the street after dark, he encounters what he describes as a “faceless being.”
King says he wasn’t wearing glasses at the time, but he was also sober that night. Whatever he actually saw it felt like a message.
“Youngblood” It was on going and its tracklist tells a story from the abyss – “It’s Too Late”, “Lie Lie Lie”, “Pain”, “Dark Clouds”, “Worse Than I’ve Ever Had” Blues”. But the tone of the music itself is rebellious rather than despairing. King calls it “something like a real roar,” an attempt to rise from the ashes.
“I’ve been through a lot of what Marcus is going through,” said Auerbach. “I can empathize, and I’ve tried to be supportive the whole time. It was hard when he got into writing sessions, sometimes he was late because the house was bad. I felt sorry for him.” But looking back, it definitely ignited my creativity when it came to making records.”
These days, King believes the strange night in Nashville isn’t an omen, it’s a warning. put it together or elseHe’s engaged to someone new — singer Brillie Hussey says he “pulled me out of that crevasse” — and he still enjoys the occasional glass of wine, though he uses “non-oppressive techniques” to deal with any demon that appears.
Music is one of those techniques. He was in Tuscany to put the finishing touches on another new record. At the suggestion of a producer he will not name, he worked in a studio housed in a former 12th-century church.
Another new album?
“I tried to keep a diary,” said King timidly. “And I can’t keep up with the damn thing. So I let it all build. And I’ll put it on the record.”