The laid-back drawl of Kyng guitarist/vocalist Eddie Veliz is total Southern California. One would mistake the gentleman for a surfer if not for promotional shots that spoke otherwise, so the utter casualness and “whatever dude” tone in which Veliz speaks is an excellent decoy for how good his band is. After all, we live in a land of constant self-promotion and pretension. Kyng (who are completed by bassist Tony Casteneda and drummer Pepe Clark) don’t need to do much huffing and puffing. They, like Joe Perry once said, let the music do the talking…
Burn the Serum (Razor & Tie) is the band’s sophomore album, an obvious sonic improvement over their 2011 Trampled Sun debut. Said debut certainly helped get the band’s foot in the door, as opening spots for Clutch, In Flames, and Megadeth were prime resume bulker-uppers, and the opportunity to show metal/rock crowds what the band does best, which obviously, is play live. Burn the Serum better captures the band’s live prowess, along the way rolling out some of the best pure heavy rock one will hear all year in the form of “Lost One,” “Sewn Shut,” and “Self-Medicated Man.”
Veliz was kind enough to phone DR from the Nashville stop of the band’s tour with Lacuna Coil, where discussion focused on touring, the new album, and, some “loose” women. Read on…
Dead Rhetoric: The touring cycle for Trampled Sun speaks to the fact you’re road dogs. But, you were on a small label and essentially an independent band. Proof that a hard-working group can have this kind of success without label backing?
Eddie Veliz: Shit, I guess. [laughs] I don’t know man, we’re just doing what we gotta do. We try to stay out of the whole label/industry garbage because that’s the shit…you just gotta jam and play your music and believe in your product. Hopefully things will fall into place.
Dead Rhetoric: You’re so easy-going. It’s nice to hear a band that goes with the flow.
Veliz: Yeah, that’s basically what we do. Take the punches and go with the flow and do what you love doing and at the end of the day, we’re just a rock band playing our music.
Dead Rhetoric: I like that you said you’re just a “rock” band.
Veliz: There’s a lot of confusion for some odd reason. All of these genres and sub-genres are polluting everyone’s brains. We’re just heavy rock. Technically, we’re not a metal band, nor are we a rock band. We’re just heavy. We just play rock ‘n’ roll. Hard rock ‘n’ roll. [laughs]
Dead Rhetoric: You did so many different tours, like opening for Megadeth or In Flames. It didn’t feel like you were a fish out of water, you know?
Veliz: That’s the beauty of Kyng. We’re able to fit into certain tours – we’re out with Lacuna Coil right now, for example. We’ve been out with everybody from Clutch to The Sword, to Seether, to Megadeth. We always come off well. There’s some tours we do that we have work a little harder with the crowd, but we usually get it out of them.
Dead Rhetoric: I think it’s because your music is so easy to digest. No-frills is sometimes a negative term, but it fits with you.
Veliz: I think there’s a moment in everyone’s musical career where they have to realize music is just guitars, drums, bass, and vocals. When you start adding tracks like samples, keyboards, and all that stuff, you lose what rock is. There’s times when we play certain festivals with certain bands and you can hear someone pushing the spacebar. You can hear the “click,” and you can see them all following along to the CD, basically. We’ve said to ourselves, “We’re a rock band, we’re not going to do any of that shit.” It’s unfair to the listener and the pay who pay X amount of dollars to see live music, when instead they’re seeing the performer play with a CD behind them.
Dead Rhetoric: “Spacebar metal.” I think you created a new subgenre, Eddie.
Veliz: “Spacebar metal.” [laughs]
Dead Rhetoric: Getting off the road and heading into the songwriting for Burn the Serum, was there an adjustment period?
Veliz: No, not really. We stopped the touring cycle for Trampled Sun, wrote the album, went into the studio, recorded Burn the Serum, and went right back out on the road.