Present yourself to the readers
King Sub are a five piece ska band from Devon, England. We play classic ska for the modern world with big bass lines, massive sax riffs and political lyrics.
We were formed at the beginning of 2016, from the ashes of ska/funk band Melosa, who were together for 10 years and were a fixture on the UK festival scene, as well as supporting the likes of Toots & the Maytals, Sly & Robbie & Jazz Jamaica to name but a few.
Who composes ?...How does it work in the band ?
We normally write as a group, usually with one person having an initial idea or concept and then we jam it out until we’re happy with what we end up with! We’re really enjoying working together at the moment so we’re finding it really easy to write together and come up with new stuff.
Who writes the texts ?..What are they talking about ?..How does inspiration come ?
Our singer Olly writes all the lyrics and they tend to be about politics, war, freedom……all the issues that the world is facing right now. The opening song on the album ’10,000’ is about the plight of the refugees stuck at Calais, the song ‘Karma’ is about the kids who grow up in the West and end up fighting for ISIS in Syria or Irag. Inspiration for songs comes easy with the world being in such a mess. We feel it’s important to write about the real issues not just more love songs!
Why the name KING SUB ?
Haha – that’s a hard question! We wanted to convey ‘bass heavy’ music and after much deliberation King Sub came from somewhere!
What are your personal musical tastes and your influences ?
Each member of the band has varied influences, our drummer Matt is influenced by The Police, Led Zeppelin and James Brown. Our bass player, Dan, comes from more of a rock, funk & hip hop background. Our sax player, Jack, has a jazz & funk influence. Olly is a big fan of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Paul Simon and Tom, our guitarist, is into all sorts of weird music…
Generally, what's the reaction of the public during your concerts ?
We write all of our music with the intention of making people dance so the reaction at our gigs ranges from ‘skanking’ crowds to mild hysteria. Everyone, including us, is normally exhausted by the end!
What's your best live memory ? And why ?
Our best live memory with this line up, would be our set at Beautiful Days festival this summer, we’d only just released our new album, ‘The Plan’, but we had a packed crowd watching us and they really loved the music, which was a great feeling for us.
What are your future dates ?
At the moment we have a few gigs planned in South West England between January & April 2017 to warm up for the summer and then loads of festivals, including Boomtown Fair & others in the UK and hopefully some in Europe too!
In studio, what was the ambiance for the album THE PLAN ?...etc.…
After years of recording in studios with an ‘in-house’ engineer or producer dictating what happens we were really lucky to be able to have unlimited access to a professional studio by ourselves. It was full of classic microphones and lovely equipment so we could really spend time getting the sound we wanted rather than worrying about running out of time or working nine to five. This meant we were fully in control and felt really relaxed with just the band in the studio. There was enough room for us to record live and most of the tracks were done in no more than three takes with no click track and very little overdubbing so the album sounds really alive and natural. It was then mixed at Olly’s home studio which meant we could really take our time getting the mixes right. It was a really nice experience and we had a great time recording it!
How does it work for the design of the CD ? and why this title ?
We had a lot of different ideas for the album cover and it was nearly something completely different right up until the last minute but then we came up with the concept of having a set of covers for the three singles and the album which is really cool. The guy on the album cover is meant to be the classic sleazy politician – smiling as he steals the world from under your feet.
With Management and booking, how do you work ? And with whom ?
We run our own label called WoodenGun Records and release our music and handle all our management ourselves through that. Even though that’s much more work for us it means that we are completely in control of what we do and don’t do. We’ve all had bad experiences in the past travelling miles to play rubbish gigs for no money so with King Sub we decided we wanted to do everything our own way at our own pace. We’re really happy with our new music and how it’s going so we’re happy to just see how it goes and where it takes us.
What are your projects ?
We’re currently writing loads of new music and planning to go back into the studio to record a four track EP for release next spring. Most of our energy is focused on getting the live show ready for the stage in the new year but we are also working on a couple of videos to put out on You Tube in the near future as well.
What do you expect from the future ?
We’re really enjoying playing and writing together so are looking forward to playing the songs to as many people as possible over the next couple of years. This project is still only one year old so we are just looking forward to seeing what happens!
What's your motto ?
If everyone’s cool - everything’s cool.
Website to remember ?
www.king-sub.com
What would you like to say to the readers ?
The world is becoming a very strange place and we’ve got to stick together and spread as much love as possible…now more than ever there is nothing more important than peace and love.
Check us out on Facebook, Soundcloud, Twitter ad Youtube - ‘wearekingsub’.
Our album ‘The Plan’ is out now on all digital music download stores.
