Throughout the music industry King King is a name synonymous with, not only great music and outstanding musicianship, but with, and perhaps even more importantly, having a damn good time every time. Back in Newcastle for a good time and in preparation for a new album, Damian Robinson caught up with frontman Alan Nimmo to find out more about why music still matters.
Hi Alan, Covid got in the way a bit for the promotion of your last album Maverick. Is this a Maverick tour or touring new music?
Yeah, good question, a bit like a lot of bands, Covid got in the way of us properly touring an album that was released around that time. Originally we’d planned for this tour to be focused on a new album, but there’s been some illness last year, and I was out for almost a month over Christmas, so the album’s not quite finished at the minute. You could think of this tour as being us playing our hits, with some of Maverick and some new songs thrown in.
Excellent, so there’ll be new music at the shows?
Yes, for sure. We should have a new single out just before the tour, called Cried out for love, and there’s a new album, called Light up the sky, which will follow shortly. Although we’re really excited by the new music, we won’t play more than 2 or 3 new songs on tour- people often need time to hear the songs on record first.
And your brother Stevie is on the record and the tour?
Yeah Stevie plays second guitar and vocals and will be on the tour, along with some of the new members who have been with us for a short while.
Is there anything special about the North East that gets you going when you play live?
We can’t wait to play live, it really is the place we enjoy the most. Newcastle in particular is like a home from home. We’ve been playing in different forms since the 90s, originally on the blues circuit at venues like the Blaydon blues club. The North East is such a great place to play and it’s similar to Glasgow in the sense that people seem to really enjoy live music and musicians who give their all when they play. The North East has always treated us like family and we’ve never forgotten how good it has been to us. Of all of the tour, the North East is always one of the top shows we look forward to.
King King play The Boiler Shop on 5th March. Watch out for the new single ‘Cried out for love’ and new album ‘Light up the sky’