Pulling together the biblical sound and isolation of the bygone days of revelation with an atmosphere filled with hope and salvation, King Dude has woven his own unique brand of purely American music. He brandishes many varied influences in his songwriting... Everything from British Folk, Americana, Country and Blues can be heard in his songs. Even Heavy Metal tends to slither it's way into the King Dude canon. The resulting songs are much more of a modern day hymn then your average pop song.
Reverent as it is prophetic and stark, King Dude has previously shared his spiritual visions with releases on Dais, Avant!, Bathetic, Clan Destine, and Ván records. Now he has started his own record label called Not Just Religious Music to spread not only his own gospel, but those of his fellow musicians around the world.
King Dude's latest album, entitled Fear, was produced by the legendary Bill Rieflin (Ministry, Swans, Pigface, etc). Below are some of TJ's thoughts on Fear and what it really means to terrify people through song.
When I set out to write the follow up record to my last record Burning Daylight I hadn't quite realized what I was going to do for it's themes and overall concept. Although I had one crystal clear intention - To make the most horrifying music I could. So with that in mind I began to write what would later become Fear.
Now writing a record that is horrifying to me is one thing, writing a record that is horrifying to everyone in the whole world is some other thing altogether. So I really had to begin to think about what inner fear every single person possibly could have. Of course the most common fear everyone on Earth shares would be the fear of dying. But that seemed too obvious to write a record called "Fear" and have it be about the fear of death. There are already way too many songs written about being afraid to die (or not afraid to die for that matter) in fact I have written a few of them myself.
So I chose the next most obvious fear I felt everyone shared. And that is the fear felt during early adolescence. As we move away from our childhood towards our adulthood we (in a sense) watch helplessly from the confides of our own slowly deforming, prepubescent bodies as the "child-mind" is ripped away only (or buried deeply into our subconscious) only to be replaced by the cruel, maniacal, sex crazed "adult-mind" also known as the ultimate product of a civilized adult world reality.
The two other themes that I chose for this record are static in nature, or how shall I say, more tangible. And those two themes are "mirrors" and "telephones". Mirror reflections are often associated in the subconscious with our relationship to our physical bodies but they serve another hidden terrifying purpose which is to remind us that we are in fact separated from the reality conjured in our minds. Another sort of reflection we cast of ourselves is that one of which we cast upon those around us and at times very far away from us through communication. Advanced communication came about recently with the advent of the telephone and the concept of "separation of the mind and body" reveals itself to our subconscious every time we "reach out and touch someone" The mirrored image plays an integral role in the concept of Fear, a concept that will be revealed to the listener when the record is finally in their hands.
The music of King Dude begs the soul to lift itself up from the darkness of ignorance, towards the ever shining glorious Light that exists outside of all of us yet that which we are eternally connected to and at once connects everyone on Earth. You can stream a brand new music video for the title track "Fear" below, and see King Dude's upcoming tour dates with Ghost as well.
