Marcus King Interview
I was thrilled to be granted an interview with Marcus King, a legend in the making. We spoke on the phone about his music, which he called “Southern Soul, Rock n Roll, American Music” and the new album, “El Dorado” set to be released Jan 2020.
Please enjoy….. and Don’t miss Marcus King and Aaron Lee Tasjan this Sunday Nov 10 at the Pageant here in St. Louis.
CS: I started out by asking Marcus how he met his producer Dan Auerbach:
MK: So, the way it came about, I was in Phoenix Arizona playing a festival there and this was a couple years ago, getting ready to shut it down for a few days to go home and rest before we headed to Paris, for our European tour starting up. I was still living in South Carolina at the time, so I heard that he wanted to get together to write, I was such a big fan and said change my flights, I’m going to Nashville folks. I showed up and went straight to the studio and we wrote for a couple days and really just hit it off. That really blossomed into a beautiful friendship and later turned into a partnership on this record.
CS: We talked about the stellar work than Dan Auerbach is doing with Yola and Kendell Marvel and other artists as well:
MK: He’s (Dan) got a particular ear on him that is not discriminatory as far as style of music or vibe. He puts his essence on to whatever he’s working on.
CS: How in a world with all these different genres, would you describe yourself?
MK: Easy Eye (studio) has kind of become a home for those who are genre blending people who want to make a living. Yola, who people say is a soul singer, had her new album out and has a couple country songs on there. There’s a lot of genre blending going on at that studio and that’s what I think really drew me to it, subconsciously. Depending on the day, sometimes I feel like a rock n roller, sometimes like a soul singer, if my throat is hurting that day, it’s more jazz fusion with the guitar taking over, it’s really just an amalgamation of all these things that I love and that I grew up loving. I love country music, so I would call it southern, certainly southern, rock n roll, but it’s not southern rock, you know, it’s southern soul music, that’s the best way to describe it, really, it’s just American music man, it’s a blend of all these American art forms. I had to stop putting such a high price on being able to describe myself, like somebody asked me what I play at the airport, it could be country or rock n roll, whatever I feel like playing that day. I try to keep it one word, but it’s hard to compartmentalize someone’s musicality.
What’s funny is, I’ve never claimed to be a blues player, I’ve never said anything about blues, other than I grew up listening to real blues, I am not a blues player and it’s not something I will completely deny, and people call me that, but that isn’t something that I am, people say I’ve been a blues artist for the last 5 years and that is news to me.
CS: Let’s talk about your new album, El Dorado, looking at the list of players, it’s like you won the music lottery!
MK: I believe I did win the lottery! On drums, first and foremost talk about Gene “Bubba” Chrisman, and what an impact he’s had on me without me even knowing it for a long time, and same could be said for all the cats in that studio. They played on so many albums in such a heyday of music and just the combination of that and their stories and their overall genuine spirit and love of the craft. We’ve got Dave Roe on bass, he was with Jerry Reed and he’s Jerry Reed’s son in law too. We have Billy Samford on one of the guitars, he wrote the Pretty Woman guitar rif. He brought that guitar in, and this is the first time he has used that guitar in a session since Pretty Woman!
CS: I got goosebumps when he said this. I asked how this felt to him.
MK: It felt like Indiana Jones, like that belongs in a museum! Billy said to me, yes, you are probably right, it’s just been hanging out under my bed.
Bobby Woods, one of the original Memphis Boys, along with Bubba, who played with Bobby Womack and Elvis, which is nice.
CS: How does it feel for you to get to bring these living legends into the studio and show them off?
MK: It’s such an immense pleasure and honor for me to be able to showcase them in such a way and hopefully a respectful manor, because they are so good and passionate about what they do, and so humble about what they do. I was hanging with Bubba at a thing I was playing and someone walked up and I went to introduce them and the guy said to Bubba I know who you are, I’m a big fan and Bubba said, really? He was surprised, it’s indicative of all of them and how they are, living legends and people need to know it.
CS: Tell me how the story of how name of the album came to be.
MK: Just before I did the record I moved to Nashville and it seemed like the place I needed to go, someplace it was buzzing. The way I see Nashville is the city of opportunity and way I see it and hear it when I show up is like a fluorescent light bulb, like outside of a bar, that buzz, I can feel the buzz and the energy of the city. When I got to town, I had a Penske truck and on the back of it was a car I had just bought. I was living up in Pennsylvania and I got an incredible deal on it was in my price range, to give you a good idea, a 1980 El Dorado. That was after speaking with Dan outside his studio he had an old truck and a 90’s El Dorado, I said I’m thinking about buying an old truck and Dan said I keep that old truck there to so I can deter my friends from buying old trucks, because they break, like all the time, he said you need a Cadillac man, and I said cool. So, I found one and I went to move rather quickly, I moved to Nashville on a two day break on a winter tour last year, loaded up the Penske and the El Dorado and me & my girlfriend did like 20 hours of driving. It was a mess, but that’s the way I like to operate.
When my folks came to visit they brought me a guitar that I remembered from my childhood, it is my first cognitive memory as a human, and it’s an old Epiphone, and Hailey, my girlfriend pointed out to me it’s an Epiphone El Dorado, that’s what it says on the inside. So there’s the guitar and the Cadillac. El Dorado represents the City of Gold & prosperity and that’s what Nashville is to me, it’s really got little to do with my car.
CS: Let’s talk about this upcoming world tour, which seems like quite the tour.
MK: Starting this month in the US and then all over the world, Europe, Japan, Australia & New Zealand, it’s a new one for us. We’re hitting it heavy and we aren’t turning around I always refer to an Outcast lyric, “We’ve got no rearview mirrors on our rocket ship” we’re just on our rocket ship, we are just going forward.
CS: Once last thing, about Aaron Lee Tasjan opening this leg of the tour.
MK: Yes, Aaron Lee that’s an incredible band, how about that, he is insane!
Catch Marcus King on this upcoming tour in a city near you, he’s a must-see artist!
You can follow him on social media at
https://www.facebook.com/marcuskingband
https://www.instagram.com/marcuskingband/
https://twitter.com/Marcuskingband
https://open.spotify.com/artist/0tgaHqkU1p7QhBUIzKXVU9?si=u3OUR3kDRfKcNQsGwuYP1g
