On The Road Again: King 810 Break Down Their Upcoming Tour
‘It’s kind of funny. I remember that the things that you’re saying about having dangerous shows and how that was frowned upon, which is hilarious. I thought we played extreme music, but I guess not. Now bands known for violent shows are winning Grammys, so maybe we were just a little too ahead of things.’
King 810 arrives in Australia shortly with quite the reputation. Not the manufactured type of pretty boys fronting emocore bands reputation, real life spilling-their-beer-is-the-least of your worries dangerous reputation. Arrests, banned videos and no shortage of controversial rumours, or truths, about the bands live shows. So, on the eve of their upcoming tour of Australia, I sat down with David Gunn to discuss the bands legacy and how it reflects their hometown of the often-controversial Flint, Michigan.
‘Sometimes I feel like if we didn’t wear it on our sleeve so much, we would be a little bit more than fairly successful. It’s always been a part of what we’re doing since the beginning for better and for worse. So, you take the good with the bad. That’s kind of a little bit of an analogy for the town. It’s also the same thing with us basically. Here we are a hundred years later and the records that we just did are called ‘Rustbelt Nu Metal’, so it’s still kicking on. I guess we haven’t run out of things to do or say, we haven’t got rich, we haven’t bought any condos. We don’t have wives who need Botox injections. No one’s paid on their mortgage, none of that stuff. Therefore, we can still make good records. We don’t have weddings to pay for.’
Rustbelt Nu Metal is part of a trilogy of albums the bands are dropping that are recorded in the old school DIY way. Basic gear, a bunch of mates, no overdubs and brutally live, capturing not only the bands energy but anarchy that can spark fireworks. No wonder people consider their shows dangerous.
‘I liked it a little bit more. It was more than old school actually. When Rage was making their records, they were a lot smarter than us. They would use isolation cabs, isolation booths. Zack would overdub some stuff, put the drums in another room, things like that. We’re so stupid. We put everything in the same room with 50 people and had the drums all on the vocals, had the guitar sounding like shit, no overdubbing, no metronome, no programming, no computer, no nothing. I don’t want to say to a fault old school, but you had a good flashback and nostalgia about what it was like back then, making records, and it was good. I like it more than staring at someone trying to hit a take on repeat and overthinking and dialling in and then having the producer quantize clean up, snap stuff to the grid, stuff like that. I think it’s better. For the first time, at least since we’ve been a band, fifty people got to watch us make three records in a year. So that probably means something to some one.’
In the days of digitized studio time, multi layered sounds and mistakes wiped out from existence, the vibrancy of these records makes them sound fresh and exciting. The ease of recording surely something that Gunn would consider moving forward again?
‘Yeah, I would like to now, I hate to sound like a drug addict, but now that we did it three times in a year, I can’t imagine trying to go a year without doing one because, I guess the issue would be writing multiple albums a year, which that’s not really that big of a deal. It was good. I don’t want to say fun, but something smart about a creative process and all that stuff. Just insert whatever you would think about that because I can’t really think of what it might’ve been. But yeah, I would like to do more of it when I listen back to it, it doesn’t sound better than our other records, it’s just what it is. I didn’t think about the older school stuff, stuff like the Mayhem and the black metal stuff where there was one mic in the room, we had more than one mic. When you listen to it, you can tell either we suck, or it was live because it’s pretty messy or not perfect.’
A live album that is actually live. Warts and all. We’ve all heard the rumors of live albums being overdubbed in the studio etc., not these guys.
‘I hate to burst everyone’s bubble, but even bands don’t even play live anymore. You have drummers who literally have their kick drum on a track. This is just a pantomime role playing world, which is pretty gross. Especially because, I mean, it’s one thing if you’re on Saturday Night Live getting caught lip syncing to pop music, but when you’re talking about doing it for the love of the metal and you’re wearing a Slayer shirt and getting up on stage and lip syncing, then go home, dude!’
That takes me back to watching a very famous deathcore band once who had three guitar sounds on stage yet only one guitarist performing.
‘Yeah, that’s kind of part of the statement of doing the live records is that you can see them and be like, oh, that’s what it is. We do have a bunch of extra soundtrack elements, atmosphere and stuff like that, and we do play live, don’t get me wrong. I like that stuff, whether it’s synths or noises or just whatever’s on these records, there isn’t anything. I just prefer a balance because I like industrial music, I like electronic music, stuff like that. So, we don’t mind putting that stuff in there. I don’t feel like it’s as big a deal if you have some strange noise that’s not even an instrument playing behind some cinematic theatrical song, but when you’re up there and your instrument’s off and your just karaoke, it’s kind of everyone can do what they want. I would just wonder, I’d have a lot of questions for myself if that’s what I were doing.’
The legend of the band live goes back since their inception. How much is true, rumour, incited or somewhere in between has long been debated. Might as well ask the guy who has been at every show what happens.
‘We as a band haven’t calmed down at all, but it’s more on the crowd if that’s up to them, just because I don’t seek to control any of those people. They can just do whatever they want. As far as I’m concerned, that’s up to the Australian people. I’m not one of those people, I don’t say a word to anyone while we play, so I’m definitely not going to get on the mic and start telling people for insurance purposes that they have to calm down. I’ll repeat, I have no wife, no mortgage, no Botox to buy. So, I don’t care if the show gets shut down as far as that type of stuff. If people want to hurt each other, maybe that’s on them.’
The Australian shows The Gloom In The Corner in March, promises to be something else. Also promising for fans is the third part of the ‘Rustbelt’ trilogy, on its ways to your ears shortly.
‘We’ve got two songs out from it right now. The whole record is acoustic unplugged type of thing. So just to switch it up in the trilogy, give a different look so they’re not all the similar feeling. We try to make each record unique. So, people might have a reference or a favourite of, or even if this time this one might be preferred. Then as time goes by, they might pick up one of the other ones and say, oh, I like this one better now.’
For Australian fans of King 810, 2026 is shaping up to be a huge year, now it’s up to you to bring combustible chaos to the band shows.
Interview By Iain McCallum
Catch King 810 on tour with The Gloom In The Corner and Dregg on the following dates, tickets from Destroy All Lines…
