Interview: It’s A King Thing

I was turned on to It’s A King Thing after they were mentioned along with The Color Wheels over at Sound As Language. We’ve since done a couple of shows with those guys and kept in touch. I’ve really enjoyed their full-length album Proper Nouns, which you can download for free. Below is an interview with front-dude Brian Meitz:

Most of your lyrics seem very personal. You even make references to people by name. A few of the songs are addressed to people (usually, girls) almost as letters. Are you making up stories or are these based on real experiences?

All of the songs are based on an experience. Mostly about friends, girls I’ve hooked up with or girls I want to hook up with. I’m not deep enough or poetic enough to write about anything serious either and if I tried I wouldn’t be able to pull it off without sounding like a dummy. So I stick to what I know. Hanging out and being a total pussy.

How do the other members contribute to the songs?

Everyone came up with parts for the new album. Johnny came up with some neat guitar stuff. Mike came up with neat bass stuff on songs where I probably would’ve just played the root note. Jay wrote some really neat keyboard parts and Steve helped arrange a few of the songs. If someone came up with an idea, we tried it out and would decide whether it was right for the song or not.

You were featured on NPR recently, How did that come about?

I did the RPM Challenge which is a project to write and record an album in a month. It takes place every Febryuary. Once it’s done you mail a copy to their office and they put it online and have listening parties in different cities. I wrote “Proper Nouns” for 2008 challenge and NPR was doing a feature on bands who recorded for the project. I guess they liked ours enough to include it in the feature.

Tell me more about the new album. Where was it recorded?

Our drummer Steve and our friend Dave own a studio called The Gradwell House. We did everything there, minus a couple parts that Dave recorded in his attic. It’s 12 songs long. Our friend Brooke sings backup on a couple of the songs. We recorded the album song by song rather than doing a bunch of drum tracks and a bunch of overdubs.

You are giving away Proper Nouns as a download, and only charging $2 for your self-titled full-length album. What are your plans for the new album? 10 years from now, will people be paying for music at all?

We’d love it if someone heard the album, liked it a bunch and got behind it. I’m not sure what sense it makes to spend money on pressing it ourselves when you can put it out online for nothing. Being stuck with boxes of CDs sucks. And 9 times out of 10, I wouldn’t spend $10 on a CD. I wouldn’t expect someone to spend $10 for one of ours either. $2 seemed fair. I think from here on out, there will always be a way to get music for free and people will be OK sacrificing the physical package for free MP3s.

What do you think is more important, playing shows or online social networking?

It depends on your goals. If you’re trying to make it big and be on the Warped Tour or something, then they’re both important I think. Writing good songs is most important I think.

How involved is IAKT with the Philly music scene?

Not at all really.

What do you do for a day job?

I’m a graphic designer at a company that has nothing to do with graphic design. I spend most of my day reading about murders and missing people. Not sure why.

What kind of music were you into as a kid?

I spent most of my childhood eating and watching WWF. Around 8th grade I got a guitar and started playing along to Nirvana and Weezer CDs. For the last 10 or 15 years I’ve probably listened to both of those bands, The Lemonheads, Weston, The Figgs, The Beatles and Tom Petty the most.

Any plans for new releases, tours, etc?

The album is done and about to be mastered. The plan now is to give it to some people and see if anyone wants to do something with it. Steve texted me last week and said he wants to call it “St. Angry”. So if we do that, the next step would to hire a band therapist. We’re also doing videos for all of the songs. Touring is probably not going to happen unless our therapist thinks it’s a good idea.

Listen to “Making Slime” from Proper Nouns: