SEPTEMBER 2005 - The only constant in life is change. There's not many bands with more of an understanding of this law of nature than KINGS X. Throughout their impressive career of stunning records, label changes, and emotional ups and downs, the band has always retained their family-like rapport and their uncanny shared vision to keep taking their music to the outside at every turn. The latest album, "Ogre Tones" is a remarkably addictive set of tunes that harken back to the fan-favorite Atlantic era of the band. Guitarist Ty Tabor was glad to talk at length with us about the direction, history, and remarkable motivation that has driven the musical force called KINGS X to the middle of it's third decade with no signs of slowing.

Marchman: Nice to speak with you again, Ty. I was thinking this morning a little about the history of the band in preparation for the interview. You guys have been together since the golden age of metal, haven't you?

TT: We started out in 1980. In November it’ll be our 25th birthday.

Marchman: That's what I thought. All the way back to the year of the first Castle Donnington, "Heaven and Hell", the return of SLADE...

TT: Absolutely. Plus, VAN HALEN and some big heavy hitters were happening around then, I think. Yeah, I remember that. I love SLADE. We were excited when they had a video! They were a rockin’ band, I loved ‘em. By the way, the name Peacedogman reminded me of something, just real quick I wanted to tell you. When THE CULT came out with the “Love” album. We were doing that same kind of music live, and we said, “Man, somebody beat us to the punch and put out our music!” We were just devastated. Like “She Sells Sanctuary” could have been one of our songs!

Marchman: That's cool. Too many people are figuring out that CULT reference on me, though. I'll have to look some of my original ideas for the site name like "Phantomlordofthethighs.com" or some of the others and reconsider them.

TT: Yeah, It was exactly what we were doing and we had never really heard anybody else doing that kind of stuff. That album came out, and we looked at each other and said, “Somebody got there first!”

Marchman: Let's talk about the live album a bit. I was beginning to think we'd never get a formal KINGS X live album with the Megaforce stuff on it until last year it finally happened.

TT: Well, unless you’re in the middle of or doing this for a living, I think people assume that bands can put out any of their material live any time they want, but it’s not that simple. If you have changed record labels for one thing, you can’t simply re-record songs that you recorded for that label. It’s against contract rules which are standard in all cases. There’s a waiting period of up to ten years before you can re-record something for anybody else, and live stuff is re-recording. So we were restricted in a lot of ways from moving to several different labels, not to mention all of the copyright problems and people that were involved earlier in our careers that no longer are, things like that. There’s just a whole load of technical issues that no one would understand unless they were right in the middle of it. It’s very difficult to put a live album out unless you’ve stayed on the same label the whole time.

Marchman: Michael Wagener pulled some amazing sounds out of the band for this record. Any apprehensions about working with a big-name producer again? Some of it reminds me of your Brendan O'Brien stuff from days of yore.

TT: I think the truth in our case is that if we would have happened to have $150,000 - 200,000 extra dollars each album to hire a producer, we would have done it every time. But, those types of budgets ended in the early 1990s and nobody gets them anymore unless you sell millions and millions of records. So the option to work with people like Brendan was no longer available to us. It was never what we wanted to do to take all the work on ourselves. It’s just a matter of the industry changing and those kinds of big budgets being a thing of the past. I don’t think people realize that just for a big producer to walk into the studio can cost $150K, plus 20K for their engineer, plus all the royalties. It is a huge expense and not just a matter of wanting to work with somebody.

Marchman : "Black Like Sunday" seemed to have a little more bounce than some of the other records you released during the Metal Blade years. Was that the case, and is this album a continuation of that spirit?

TT: I don’t think we felt that way about “Black Like Sunday”. That album was more like an experimental thing that we decided to do because we had been pressured to do it for many years by lots of fans. We had so many old songs for the first eight years of the band that never made it onto an album, that were fans favorite songs, so ever since then we ran into people that would say, “When are you gonna put so-and-so on an album?” We just finally decided as a project to get it over with and put the best or the choice ones that people seem to like the most from before we had a record deal [onto an album]. It was just more of a thing like that, do it all at once and get it over with and be done with it. It obviously wasn’t the same way we go into albums because we weren’t writing new stuff. We were just trying to represent the stuff the way it was written originally. So the stuff was all sitting there ready to go, and it was just a one-time thing for the older fans that had been begging for it for years. Most of the songs came from 1980-83 which were the beginning of the band. We were just kids, really.

Marchman: With all of the side projects you are involved in , you must not subscribe to that classic VAN HALEN or METALLICA mentality of "only washing dishes for your main band". Did you ever feel that way in the early days?

TT: I can totally respect that [viewpoint] also. It’s just each person likes different things, each person likes different colors, has different political views, and has different beliefs. Some people would rather keep it like that, some people like playing with a lot of other people. During the time that we started doing side projects, it happened to be ok to do a lot of side projects because everybody was doing it, from PEARL JAM to whomever. The biggest bands in the world were doing it. It was just a different era in time. I think a lot of rules got changed during that time, because it used to be a thing where doing side projects was looked at as something that took away from your main band. However, during the 90s when all these biggest bands in the world were doing side projects with everybody and anybody, it changed that perception because they kept still turning out hit albums with their main band and it didn’t mean leaving their band. So, I think it was just a matter of the times. Because in the early days of KINGS X we didn’t do any side projects either. There was a time when it was taboo. But when it became more normal within the world for people to do it without it meaning the band was breaking out, and then we realized that we had a lot of time off from the band and that we could do something else with that time. I think it was more of that kind of a thing…it became ok within the industry to do it, so we just started doing it.

Marchman: Most of the tracks on "Ogre Tones" are under the four-minute mark. I suppose the next record will have side long epics like "Tales of Topographic Oceans" ?

Marchman: "If" may be the most infectious tune you guys have crafted since "Goldilox". Was that a Dug idea? Or was it something you came up with?

TT: Well, in the case of “If”, it was an older song of Doug’s that kind of went by the wayside that we dug back out. Basically what happens is Dug will turn in a zillion fragmented ideas that aren’t complete, and some of them are complete. He doesn’t overwork them because, first of all he is your consummate artist who can’t keep your attention on something long enough to finish it (laughs). So he will have a brilliant idea, put it down and leave it alone and leave it to us to do something with it. So what happens is we’ll dig through things and look for something that has a spark that we all really like and want to work on, and we take it from there. In the case of “If” or whatever, we’ll try to polish it into a song and complete it. Other times it will be a Jerry idea that’s a spark or one of mine. Or it’s complete songs that one of us will bring in. But even with complete songs we kind of rip ‘em apart and redo them and rewrite them. Like, there’s one song of Dug’s that was complete, but the chorus was just one drone note all the way through. And a good example of what will happen is that chorus is now a full chord progression instead of the drone note. The vocal part is exactly the same, but what it does against the moving chords changes the song completely. That’s the kind of things we do when a band gets ahold of it.

Marchman: After years of reading way too many interviews with you in Guitar Player, I was amazed the first time I met you awhile back that you weren't much of a gear-toting technical guy.

TT: I am definitely not a ‘gear guy’ and I never have been. The truth is I never do technical interviews unless forced to. My least favorite thing to talk about is gear. And any time I’m out on the road and someone has a gear question, even though I don’t blame them for it and certainly don’t mean to be rude to anyone, inside I just go, “Ugh…not another gear question!” But on the other hand, I know there are a lot of people interested in gear, and that’s ok. Every once in awhile I’ll do an interview that focuses on gear. I understand that there are some people interested in that, so I do it. But as far as my own personal self, I don’t get to music stores; I don’t read music magazines to keep up with the latest [equipment]. I am so anti-that kind of person. I’m as far on the other side of the spectrum as far as humanly possible. I’ve played guitars for years and somebody will ask me what kind of wood it is and I’ll say, “I have no idea! It just sounds good”. And the only thing that ever matters to me is if I like it and if it sounds good. I’ll sometimes learn enough technically about it to be able to answer a question intelligently, but it’s the last thing I care about. I work with music way more on an emotional level than on a thinking level. To me, the more you think, the more you stink!

Marchman: But obviously you have some frame of reference. You were a big fan of Brian May's style growing up. There must have been some degree of respect or admiration.

TT: There are lots of artists that I was hugely influenced by and very appreciative of what they’ve done. But it was always on the emotional level, on the emotional connection with how they played. Not necessarily even tone, although in the case of Brian May, he had one of the greatest tones ever, on top of his emotional expression. I always connected with things from the heart, not from the mind. It’s a different kind of appreciation. I’ve never really been a freak for any musician, as far as meeting somebody and being all flustered and excited. I’ve met just about everybody on earth that I’ve wanted to meet. I even hung out an afternoon with Ringo Starr one time. And the truth of the matter is it wasn’t until after I had left that I realized, “Man, I just hung out with Ringo!” But I’ve never freaked on musicians like that. It’s like admiring an artist. Now that doesn’t mean I don’t do that with other people. For instance whenever I meet any of the top Supercross stars or FMX stars in the motorcycle industry, I’m sure I’m exactly the way that fans are that I meet daily that are all excited and crying and all that stuff. I had friends with me that I took to a Supercross event in Houston one time, who, when they saw how I acted around the riders, they said, “Man, that’s how people act around you!” and I said, “Yeah, these are the only people I get excited about!” And it’s true. I don’t really freak about meeting anyone other than the greatest motorcycle riders because I used to race and I have an appreciation for what they do, and it is so many light years beyond anything I could have ever been on a bike. And unless you ride, you can’t appreciate what supreme superhuman athletes these guys are. They’re some of the greatest athletes to walk the earth, in my opinion. So I have such huge freaking respect for them.

Marchman: Do you get requests from fans to sing more on the KINGS X albums?

TT: Well, people tend to tell their favorite person in the band what they like, so you have to take it with a grain of salt. For every person that comes up to me and says, “You need to sing more”, there’s the same amount of people going up to Dug saying, “You should sing everything!” So you only hear from the people who like your particular style for the most part.

Marchman: Do you ever envision complete songs in your head without physically playing them on the guitar?

TT: Usually it’s a matter of hearing something that’s a spark of an idea, and then trying seeing a picture with it. And you do have to see that picture, and that’s the problem a lot of times. We’ll have tons of songs that are almost good, but nobody sees the complete picture on it, so we let it go. But it usually starts with some small idea that starts the ball rolling toward a finished idea that you start beginning to see in your head, and then it comes together. There have been songs that were written completely, like for instance the song “Lost in Germany”. That entire song, including all the vocal parts and everything, I wrote in a hotel room without a guitar. It was just in my head. And that’s one of the only ones that I ever wrote that way. And the only reason it was that way is because I couldn’t get to my guitars in the back of the truck easily. So, I just hummed it all night and the next morning I woke up singing it. Then when we got to the show, I learned how to play it and probably recorded a minute of it so I wouldn’t forget it later.

Marchman: Where are those proggy colonial-style capes you guys wore on the back of the "Gretchen..." album these days?

TT: I think we’ve still got most of that stuff sitting in closets somewhere! (laughs)

Marchman: I've read some interviews where you guys name the early records as your favorites. Then, I've read others where the early stuff is described as a horrifying experience because of the exacting, pain-in-the-ass production. What's the real scoop on those early records?

TT: For me, “Gretchen…” was both. It was the hardest work we’ve ever done recording a record, but it also was very enjoyable for me. Dug hated it. Dug is very much like a kid with ADD. If it takes too much work, it’s hard to love it, because he’s working by feeling. When you’ve hammered something into the ground 100,000 times, it’s hard to have fresh feelings on it. That’s just the way it is with real artists of any kind and he’s certainly a real artist. And I’m the same way, too. If we work on something too long, I get sick of it or lose perspective. But with the “Gretchen…” stuff, it was so creative, although it was hard work. That kept me interested because everything we were trying was something new to us that we had never tried before, whether we were miking a room and throwing a cymbal across the room just to get a certain sound. It was all creative. A lot of the sounds on the record were invented with stuff in the studio that was never even planned. So that type of work, as long as creativity is involved, I can hang in there with it. But it’s hard for Dug to get into anything that is so repetitive for so long.

Marchman: You're a big fan of RUSH. What was Alex Lifeson's finest moment, in your opinion?

TT: My favorite Lifeson stuff is just his rhythms. I’ve never cared too much for his leads, as much as I will get hate mail for being honest enough to say that. And yet, he’s one of my favorite guitarists ever for his creativity and rhythm parts. For me, the rhythm parts that reached true, true greatness were on the “Hemispheres” record. That’s where I love Alex. I just loved everything he did rhythm-wise, up through moving pictures.

Marchman: Do you ever find yourself feeling nervous that Dug is going lose control and begin lobbing guitars or drum heads at the bartenders during his "Grandma" rants in the middle of "Over My Head"?

TT: With Dug, if you’re worried about things like that, you’re gonna have a miserable life (laughs). Basically, Dug does what Dug does and that’s who he is. We love him, accept him and go with the flow. I mean, there have been times when we’ve gone backstage and said, “Y’know, maybe you shouldn’t have said so-and-so…” but usually anytime we say something like that, he already knows it. But the thing is, KINGS X is all about stepping out on the plank and taking the chance. That’s the whole live experience. We do things unplanned, we jam, and we try to go with the emotional flow. And that goes with Dug, when he’s going into a rant or something. We just go with the flow and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. But if you don’t take the chance, you never, ever get there. It’s just something we like to go for. Sometimes it fails, but most of the time it’s special to somebody.

KINGS X are Jerry Gaskill (d), Ty Tabor (g), and Dug Pinnick (b,v). Their official site is www.kingsxonline.com.

**The web version of this article can be found at www.peacedogman.com/ptikx**