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Sweet Tea
Released: July 26, 2005 |
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King Elementary
As clichéd as it may seem, King Elementary’s Morgan Jones swears the name of his band came to him in a dream. “I was chasing this Hannibal Lector-type guy who was killing people and eating their faces –like a hilariously bad horror movie,” Jones recounts. Cornering the creep in a sewer, Jones assured the cannibal that his face-eating days were over. “I would’ve continued,” he said, “but I was stopped by four men, and their names were King Elementary!”
“I have no idea what that means,” the songwriter, guitarist and vocalist admits, “but it sounded like a good name for our band. I wish it had just been [the name of] my grammar school so I wouldn’t have to tell that story all the time…”
Kudzu, the new album by King Elementary, is a monster of a decidedly different sort. Delirious in the squall that can be generated by the simple interface of two guitars, bass and drums, the album broadsides you with a bracing passion and defiance. Combining elements of neo grunge with classic angst rock, emo, butt-shakin’ maximum R&B and a ‘60s sense of pop melody, the songs lie crouching and then pounce, drunk with swaggering, snarly youth. Yet, on first pass, they sound like a band with more years and miles behind them than their ages would suggest.
The four gifted lads comprising this Jackson, Mississippi combo – Jones, Will Randolph (bass, vocals), Jeremy Upton (lead guitar) and Andrew Fox (drums) -- are fresh out of high school, but have been playing together since they were 14 and 15 years old. Initially, their tentative musical repertoire consisted entirely of cover songs – mostly material by At The Drive-In and The Strokes. By the summer of ’02, however, they had about a dozen original compositions written. Then called The Symptoms, they were favorites at their school, playing dances and other events, but when they tried to get gigs at the local clubs, they were turned down due to preconceptions about their young ages. “That whole summer we couldn’t get a show at all, and we were pissed about it,” remembers Jones. “But it was actually good, because we just practiced every day. We didn’t have anything else to do, so we just played for three months, every day, playing these songs until they were just ingrained in our brains.”
Once they did crack the Mississippi club circuit, however, the momentum began. They recorded an independently released debut disc, Ready to Burn, which made it into the hands of various major label A&R reps. The result was a well-received showcase at The Viper Room in August ’03. “We had played maybe 20 shows or something at that point. So it was weird,” admits Jones, “but also great and unbelievable…”
Changing their name to King Elementary, they earned another fan in noted producer Dennis Herring (Modest Mouse, Elvis Costello, Camper Van Beethoven), who approached the young band to record with him and release their first album as King Elementary on his independent Sweet Tea label. The result is Kudzu, recorded in Oxford, MS over nights and weekends the following year.
While a few cuts on Kudzu, such as guitarist Upton’s personal favorite -- the prowling, powerful “Hit the Mirror” – are recent conceptions, “most of [the songs] are from when we were The Symptoms,” Jones emphasizes, including the opening track, “For the Birds,” whose careening, garagey rhythms dive headlong into a groovy chorus. “That was like the third song we wrote or something,” reveals Jones, who celebrated his 18th birthday in April. “This album is our adolescence -- that’s what it represents.”
As for all the major label interest, return trips to Los Angeles and New York for more showcases and meetings have paid off. They ultimately signed with Capitol Records in the fall of ’04. But before they even begin work on their debut for the label, they plan to tour for the majority of this summer and fall, supporting Sweet Tea’s release of Kudzu (in conjunction with Terminus Records) and giving America their first taste of King Elementary.
“Playing that first Viper Room show was such a valuable experience to me, because it was the ultimate confirmation and realization of what I want to do,” confesses Jones. “We’ve been handed the opportunity to do it, and we’re really fortunate. We know that. And we work our asses off, [but] I’m still convinced it’s not happening. I mean, shit, I’m sitting here in Jackson, Mississippi with two eight-page papers to write for tomorrow!”
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