King King announce new album and re-scheduled tour dates

CD, VINYL & DIGITAL DOWNLOAD
RELEASED ON FRIDAY 6TH OCTOBER 2017
AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER FROM www.kingking.co.uk

RESCHEDULED JANUARY 2018 UK TOUR DATESPLUS SPECIAL GUESTS

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King King are pleased to announce the release of their fourth studio album “Exile & Grace” released by Manhaton Records on Friday 6th October 2017. The album features the band’s current single (She Don’t) Gimme No Lovin’ which is currently a big hit on Planet Rock radio in the UK.
The album coincides with King King’s biggest UK tour to date. Due to a throat condition with lead singer and guitarist Alan Nimmo, the band’s October 2017 UK tour dates have been re-scheduled to January 2018.  All October 2017 tickets are valid for the rescheduled shows.

The rescheduled dates include London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire (Wednesday 17 January), Birmingham Town Hall (Thursday 18 January), Bath Forum (Saturday 20 January), Edinburgh Queen’s Hall (Friday 26 January), and Sheffield Leadmill(Saturday 27th January). Tickets are available via the 24 Hour Box Office: 0844 478 0898 and can be ordered from www.thegigcartel.com.

  

Photo Credit: © Rob Blackham.

“Exile & Grace” is King King’s first album of new material since 2015’s multi-award winning “Reaching For The Light.”  The new album follows King King’s across-the-board win of five awards at 2016’s British Blues Awards including Best Male Vocal (Alan Nimmo), Best Bass Player (Lindsay Coulson), Best Song (Rush Hour), Best Album(Reaching for the Light) and Best Songwriter. 

Photo Credit: © Laurence Harvey

October 2016 saw the release of King King’s first live album “King King - Live” which shot to the No.1 spot in Amazon’s Best Sellers Blues Chart, backed by a string of sold out concerts.

The new album “Exile & Grace” promises to deliver a bigger punch, with killer songs performed with true passion by a fist tight line-up. The album was recorded at Superfly Studios and mixed by Chris Sheldon (Foo Fighters, Feeder and Therapy?).

Photo Credits: © Laurence Harvey

Says King King’s frontman and guitarist, Alan Nimmo, “Exile & Grace” definitely has a rockier feel and sound to it. We are following our influences from the Classic Rock genre, Bad Company, Whitesnake and Thunder. We set out to challenge ourselves with this album. We’ve stepped up the quality of song writing and pushed ourselves physically in both performance and delivery!”

Photo Credit: © Laurence Harvey

If this is your first time discovering King King, you’re in for a treat. They are simply the living, breathing, here and now of classic rock music.

ALBUM TRACK LISTING

(She Don’t) Gimme No Lovin (3.55)
Heed The Warning (4.13)
Broken (4.42)
Find Your Way Home (4.28)
Tear It All Up (4.09)
Betrayed Me (4.58)
Long Time Running (4.48)
Nobody Knows Your Name (3.49)
I Don’t Wanna Lie (4.13)

*Give Me All Your Love (3.43) (Whitesnake)

* BONUS TRACK ON VINYL EDITION

ALAN NIMMO’S TRACK BY TRACK

King King’s lead singer and guitarist, Alan Nimmo, gives an in-depth track by track behind the writing process of the songs on “Exile & Grace”

(She Don’t) Gimme No Lovin’

A lot of the songs that get written for our albums tend to materialise through a fair bit of noodling around whilst sitting in a room chatting or even discussing different matters. It's not always about purposely getting into a studio and dedicating time to writing and creating! “(She Don’t) Gimme No Lovin’” came about when we recorded the "Reaching for the Light" album. There was a little chord sequence I used just before the start of the first verse of our song "Crazy." It was one of those times after that when there are various things going on at the mixing desk and you find yourself with a few minutes to spare and naturally if there's a guitar in hand you'll start to mess around. So I played around with the similar idea that I used on "Crazy" and changed the timing and just got the foot tapping, and the riff was born!

Heed The Warning

Inspiration can come from anywhere. One of the best things about musicians and being a musician is that for the most part, we're kind of like-minded, and when a band is jamming you can't help but want to join in. When we were on tour with John Mayall we would often have time at soundcheck for a little bit of messing around and some of the time John himself would wander on to the stage and sit down at Bob's Hammond and we would jam out some blues. It was amazing to do that with the blues godfather himself! However, it wasn't just John who used to hang out and watch us. Greg Rzab (John's bass player) would sometimes join in, too.  One day I wanted to jam out a little riff I was playing around with so I got started and we were getting a feel for it when Gregg said "hey man, can I join in?" He knew the answer was yes. We started jamming out this riff and that eventually became "Heed the Warning”.

Broken

"Broken" was one of those tunes that evolved from a bunch of basic chords I used to run around on my acoustic guitar at home.  It was fairly simple but I knew there was something in it if I could just find the right formula and direction. We were on tour somewhere in Europe - Germany or Poland... I can't quite remember, but we had a couple of days off and decided to find a rehearsal room and do a bit of jamming to see if any ideas came flowing! So we were running around these chords I had been using for this idea and during a break for a nice cup of tea (the truth, by the way, about the tea) I started playing another little riff type thing and then it was clear that the two pieces could be used together! I think we managed to basically put the whole song together that night after that.
This song expresses a feeling of uneasiness about the state of the world. It's in no way a political song. I wanted to express my feelings about the conflicts and devastation of war from a human point of view. We live on such a beautiful planet and we are so lucky to have such freedom of will yet all some people seem to do is show their greed, and capacity for destruction. It's a genuine concern for not only our future but our children and generations to come. Maybe John Lennon had a point when he said, "all you need is love." 

Find Your Way Home

Some songs don't take much thought or process. Sometimes they just come naturally. Maybe it's just because it's about what you want to say that makes some songs easier that way. I was playing a simple little chord structure one day In the studio and we started jamming it out and the counter melody from the keyboards was working a treat so we started paying attention to this and filtered out a lot of the notes and stuff to make it simple and spacious so that one instrument answered the other. Once we had that sitting nicely we needed a big anthemic chorus which came so naturally that other than working on the stuff that makes it tight we put the whole thing together really quickly. After that, it was easy to sing words to. It’s easy to express an honest story and take the listener on a journey! This was "Find Your Way Home"- one of my favourites on the album!

Tear It All Up

I suppose you could say that when it comes to writing lyrics, I'm quite simplistic. I don't try to be too clever or challenge the listener’s intellect. I just write what comes from the heart and sometimes it's about sad times. Sometimes it's about happy times. Sometimes it's about a moment.  When we got to go on tour with one of my all-time favourite bands "Thunder" it was a dream come true for me! If that wasn't enough, they gave us an opportunity of a lifetime to perform at Wembley Arena - another career box ticked. I'd been messing with this little rock riff for a while and was wondering what to write lyrically for this one and was getting a little bit stuck coming up with a theme, so as I've done several times in the past, I turned to my big brother for some help! He came up with the idea of writing about the night we played at Wembley and the feeling we all had as we waited backstage for the lights to go down and be announced. So together we came up with the lyrics for "Tear It All Up" it was one of those songs that I struggled to write anything for until the right theme came along and then it became difficult to stop writing. There are about another 3 verses that didn't get used.

Betrayed Me

Occasionally I try to teach myself to play the slide but when I realise that I'm not instantly great at it I get annoyed and I give up for another six months! (I can see my mother and brother both rolling their eyes right now saying, "Typical Alan!”). Anyway this was what I was doing one day when I came up with the riff for the song "Betrayed Me". I would tune the bottom string down to D and just mess around playing some good old blues and I ended with this little pattern that would become the verse sequence... but we needed a big chorus. The chorus you hear on the album was not the original. The one we had was okay, but you know, when there's something niggling at you about a song and part of you wants to ignore it but the other part says, "No, let's address this".  So I decided to scrap the idea and came up with a couple more. This was the one we picked. Hope it was the right choice!

Long Time Running

Another one of those so-called "slide learning" days albeit a failure in that sense gave me a silver lining... a riff I was messing with on slide that just sounded terrible was about to be forgotten when I put the slide down and started playing it normally and eventually saw some potential in it. So I persevered with it and put some other chords in and tried to come up with a pattern for it. We on tour in Denmark, and we managed to get the use of one of the venues the day before or the day after - not sure which one and we got to work on this idea. By the end of that little session we had "Long Time Running". It's one of those drum beats that cries out for old "cow bell" but we resisted thankfully, but, until it had its title it was affectionately known as "Stonsey"

Nobody Knows Your Name


The beauty of music is that there are no rules about how you write and an idea can come from anywhere. I'm a huge fan of the band "Cry Of Love" and we happened to be chatting about them and their first album "Brother" talking about the awesome guitar riffs and vocals on there that have inspired me for years. The first time I saw them was in Glasgow in 1993, and I have been listening to their music ever since. To this day I can’t work out what Audley Freed is doing on that guitar. It's genius! So I wanted to write a similar style tune that was a bit spacious and groovy - kinda like Free's "The Stealer" or "Hand Me Down" or "Cry of Love," so I came up with the riff for "Nobody Knows Your Name”. We put it together in a rehearsal room in Lincoln. I didn't really want to put in a typical middle 8 on this one so we needed a subtle change somewhere that still worked with the chorus melody. Luckily enough, I'm surrounded by great musicians, Bob was playing around with a chord sequence as you do when the kettle is on between songs. What he played just seemed to fit so that just sealed it!

I Don’t Wanna Lie

Sometimes we would have discussions about different types of songs to write - things like feel, pattern, tempo or style, just to make sure there is always enough variety in what we do. As a guitarist, I will definitely write a certain way and come at it from a certain angle so it's good to have another instrumentalist in the group who isn't a guitarist. It makes for a great partnership when ideas come from a place that I wouldn't naturally come from. We'd been discussing the idea of doing a song that had almost a shuffle type groove but more of a funk percussive feel to it and we were jamming out a beat when Bob started playing an idea he had... it was very Stevie Wonder right away so we got to work on that one. We didn't want to take it too far out of the rock side of things as the verses were very spacious and groovy and the vocal was the same. We needed a harder big rock chorus so that's what we came up with and it worked out just cool! "I Don't Wanna Lie" was born.

*Give Me All Your Love

The cover of Whitesnake's "Give Me All Your Love" is a song I really love. It's from Whitesnake’s huge "1987" album that basically launched David Coverdale into superstardom! I'm a huge fan of the early Whitesnake stuff but this was the comeback to end all comebacks! It's quite easy to see the difference between the older stuff and this album but now and again I could hear, in my opinion, a little bridge link between the two eras. Although they did re-record "Crying in the Rain" and put a new more metal style to it. I still love both versions. To me, "Give Me All Your Love" sounded like it could've been one of those tunes from the earlier days and I could hear Bernie and Mickey playing this tune so easily! So that's what we wanted to do with it. I wanted to record it and perform it in the way that the old Whitesnake would've played it. We gave it a slower tempo and approached it like a classic rock tune. It also meant that there was a little more space for the vocal to breathe, or more to the point - for me to breathe. Have you ever tried singing a Coverdale song?? Holy s**t! And at that time on that ‘87 album, there probably wasn't a better vocal on any rock album in the world. No one could try and compete with that so I certainly wasn't going to try! We just did what King King do and time will tell if people can understand it.

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London, Shepherd’s Bush Empire
Wednesday 17th January 2018
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Ticketmaster Box office: 0844 477 2000
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Shepherd's Bush Green, London, W12 8TTwww.academymusicgroup.com/o2shepherdsbushempire 

Birmingham, Town Hall
Thursday 18th January 2018
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Venue Box Office: 0121 780 4949
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Victoria Square, Birmingham, B3 3DQwww.thsh.co.uk 

Bath, Forum
Saturday 20th January 2018
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1a Forum Buildings, St James Parade, Bath, BA1 1UG
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Edinburgh, Queen’s Hall
Friday 26th January 2018
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85 - 89 Clerk Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9JGwww.thequeenshall.net

Sheffield, Leadmill
Saturday 27th January 2018
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6 Leadmill Rd, Sheffield S1 4SEhttp://leadmill.co.uk

KING KING - BIOGRAPHY

Right now, King King are a band breaking into a swagger. There’s no denying the momentum of the Glasgow rockers saluted as “the best blues-rock band in the world” (Blues Rock Review) – but for Alan Nimmo (vocals/guitar), Lindsay Coulson (bass), Wayne Proctor (drums) and Bob Fridzema (keys), it’s far from mission accomplished. “We’re not stopping to smell the roses,” says Alan. “We want to take this band as far as we can.”
In another year of quantum leaps, perhaps the main event in 2017 is Exile & Grace, released October 6th. “There’s an underlying theme on this fourth album,” explains Alan. “Some of the main songs are about the state of the world, y’know, this beautiful blue planet that’s turning into a battlefield. There’s an edgier, rockier feel this time around, but you’ve got the soulful ballads as well. It’s still King King. It’s just what we’re doing now.”
Exile & Grace is sure to give King King’s set lists a shot in the arm, as the band roll out on a white-knuckle live itinerary in 2017 that takes in summer festival and European dates, plus their biggest UK tour so far. “We decided to take that leap,” reflects Alan. “We just need to believe in that old adage from Wayne’s World – if you build it, they will come. I think we’ve got the ambition and the drive to make it work.”
Anyone who has caught King King live in recent times will vouch for their ability to conquer any venue. In 2016, the band’s schedule took them everywhere from Mumbai’s Mahindra Festival to five UK arena shows with hard-rock heroes, Thunder. “To walk onstage and say, ‘Hello Wembley!’” reflects Alan, “that was a dream come true.”
With the line-up drilled to near-telepathy, May 2016 was also the perfect juncture to deliver their long-awaited live album. “We’ve been asked for one so many times,” reflects Alan, “and with King King - Live, we managed to capture the vibe of that night. But I’ve got to admit, I was surprised by the reaction that album got. It went to #1 as soon as it came out… above The Rolling Stones! And it was like, ‘What just happened?’”
There’s been no shortage of pinch-yourself moments for King King, ever since the band’s touchdown at the 2010 Monaghan Blues Festival and the following year’s British Blues Award-winning debut, Take My Hand (declared “tremendous” by Maverick). In 2013, Standing In The Shadows underlined the collective’s sharpening song craft, while 2015’s Reaching For The Light infiltrated Classic Rock’s Best Album poll – and secured a nomination for ‘Best New Band’ at the magazine’s coveted Roll Of Honour. “With each album, each year and every time we write songs,” says Alan, “we’re always striving to get better.”
The creative bar might be set sky-high, but in 2017, Exile & Grace will raise it, consolidating King King’s status as studio alchemists and turning up the heat whenever they deploy these songs on the stage. “I really believe in this album,” says Alan. “I suppose we were reaching for the light on the last album, and now we’re trying to grab hold of it. This is the next chapter in King King’s journey – and we want to take this band as far as we can!”

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