King's X: The mainstream rock band who fuse metal attack with celtic-tinged U2-isms

Sunday 1st July 1990

Their albums 'Out Of The Silent Planet' and 'Gretchen Goes To Nebraska' have met with huge critical acclaim stateside for KING'S X. Dave Caughey caught up with the band.



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"When all is said and done, it's completely a collaboration. Doug and Ty mainly would come with a song and then we'd just tear it apart, or we'd leave it the same way. But we just make it a King's X tune, and we all contribute to it."

Despite endless critical acclaim, the band are still starved of commercial success, does this ever worry them?

"I'm not worried about it. Like I said before, this is just who we are. All of us have been doing this for as long as we can literally remember. Everything that has happened to us just seems to be a natural progression. If it gets big, that's fine, that's not out of the scope. And if it doesn't get big, that's not out of the scope either. We're just doing what we're doing."

Jerry Gaskill strikes me as a rather unique individual, therefore his answer to the question of who in the world he would like to base his life upon is no real surprise.

"Oh no, I just want to be myself. I'd say that C.S. Lewis is a big influence on my life. I can add to my life through his writing, but I wouldn't want to be him. Because each one of us are unique; we're fearfully and wonderfully made, infinitely individual. We can learn from everybody; C.S. Lewis, George McDonald, I learn from you just from meeting you. We can just gather what we can from each other, but to want to be like someone else, in a sense takes away everything that they have to offer."

The title of the LP 'Out Of The Silent Planet' betrays the band's C.S. Lewis influences, as does the fantasy tale writ-ten by Jerry Gaskill on the sleeve of the 'Gretchen Goes To Nebraska' album. Does Jerry have aspirations to write a novel?

"Oh yeah, I've got loads of things at home which I would love to have out to the public. It doesn't feel like it's time yet. I can't just devote all my time to that at this point. It's just another way of me expressing myself Just like the music, and it's very important to me."

On a lighter note to end the interview, I asked Jerry for the true story of the origin of the LP title, 'Gretchen Goes To Nebraska', as so many versions seem to be floating around.

"It actually started as a joke. Six or seven years ago we were unloading the truck, and we were throwing out these silly album titles and one of our roadies just came out with that off the top of his head. So we jest said 'Yeah, someday we're going to call an album that'. We just saw him on our last tour, and we told him, 'we named the album because you said that'; he didn't even remember it." CR

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.
About Dave Caughey
Dave Caughey is a British-based enthusiast of hard music and rock.


 
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