Early years (1979–1987) The group traces its beginnings to 1979 in Springfield, Missouri, when bassist
Doug Pinnick and drummer
Jerry Gaskill were brought together to take part in a musical project coordinated by
Greg X. Volz of the
Christian rock band
Petra. Within a month of Pinnick's arrival from Illinois, the project folded and he and Gaskill were left without a band. They soon landed a job as rhythm section for guitarist
Phil Keaggy's live band. The two toured the country for several months in support of Keaggy's album ''
Ph'lip Side''. During the group's show in Springfield, Gaskill was approached by
Ty Tabor who was a member of the opening band that night. The drummer for Tabor's band had quit the night before the show and Tabor had volunteered to take over on drums for the gig. However, seeing as he had no drums, he was forced to ask Gaskill if he could borrow his kit for the show. Gaskill obliged and the show went on. When the tour ended, Pinnick and Gaskill returned to Springfield and set about looking for more work. Gaskill landed a job doing demo work for the Tracy Zinn Band, which happened to include Ty Tabor on guitar. The two became friends and were involved off and on together in different musical projects. In early 1980, Pinnick attended a music show at
Evangel College and watched a set by another of Tabor's bands. Pinnick was impressed with Tabor's skills and the two soon began collaborating musically. Eventually Gaskill, Pinnick, and Tabor decided to pool their talents into a single outlet. Calling themselves the Edge, they initially were a four-piece with the inclusion of Dan McCollam on rhythm guitar. McCollam quit after only a brief time and was replaced by Kirk Henderson, who was a friend of Tabor's from
Jackson,
Mississippi. The group performed extensively on the Springfield bar and club circuit specializing in
classic rock and Top 40 covers at the time. By 1983, Henderson had quit the band and Pinnick, Tabor, and Gaskill decided to continue on as a trio. They also decided to change the name of the band, and settled on calling themselves Sneak Preview. The group had been writing and recording many original songs up to this point. They chose ten of these songs to record for an independently released self-titled album in 1983. After the album's release, the band continued to tour and hone their songwriting skills. By 1985, the group had made connections at
Star Song Records based in
Houston, Texas and were encouraged to move the band there. The first order of business for the three was to become part of a touring band for CCM artist
Morgan Cryar. Tabor and Pinnick are also credited for co-writing several songs on Cryar's second album
Fuel on the Fire in 1986. Tabor also performed some guitar parts on the album and both he and Pinnick are credited with
background vocals. However, when it came to signing Sneak Preview to a
recording contract with Star Song, negotiations broke down and the deal came to a halt.
Megaforce era (1988–1991) The group released its debut album as King's X,
Out of the Silent Planet, in 1988. Despite being hailed by music critics, the album did not fare well commercially, peaking at No. 144 on the
Billboard album charts. The songs "King" and "Shot of Love" were released as singles, but failed to garner much attention. The album derives its name from the
C. S. Lewis novel
Out of the Silent Planet. This appears to be the band's first of multiple references to the British author. King's X promoted
Out of the Silent Planet with its first major tour, playing with the likes of
Cheap Trick,
Blue Öyster Cult,
Robert Plant, and
Hurricane, as well as Megaforce labelmates
Anthrax,
Testament,
M.O.D., and
Overkill. In 1989, the band released their second album
Gretchen Goes to Nebraska. Considered by many fans to be their landmark album and most creative period, the album fared only slightly better from a commercial standpoint than
Out of the Silent Planet. The band played with a wide variety of acts while touring in support of it, including Anthrax,
Suicidal Tendencies, M.O.D.,
Living Colour,
Billy Squier, and
Blue Murder. The album contains many fan favorites such as "Summerland", "Mission", and "The Burning Down". The song "The Difference (In the Garden of St. Anne's-on-the-Hill)" appears to be another C.S. Lewis reference, this time to a scene in the book
That Hideous Strength, third and final installment of the "science-fiction" trilogy begun by
Out of the Silent Planet. The song "Pleiades" is credited by Ty Tabor as being the genesis of the King's X sound when he presented the demo to the other band members a few years earlier. Significantly, the song "Over My Head" received moderate airplay on
MTV and radio. The increase in exposure would prove beneficial when the band released their third album,
Faith Hope Love, in late 1990. It was the group's first album to crack the U.S. Top 100, with the help of the successful single "
It's Love". Another track, the funk-rock "We Were Born to Be Loved", enjoyed a long life on
Late Show with David Letterman as a
commercial bumper instrumental favorite of
Paul Shaffer's
CBS Orchestra. King's X was featured in the February 1991 issue of
Rolling Stone (RS598). Still, with major mainstream success continuously eluding them, King's X began questioning Sam Taylor's management vision for the group. The band landed the opening slot for
Iron Maiden in Europe on their
No Prayer for the Dying tour in late 1990, and
AC/DC on their
Razors Edge tour in the U.S. and Europe for the first half of 1991. In the middle of that year, their song "Junior's Gone Wild" appeared on the soundtrack to the movie ''
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey''.
Atlantic era (1992–1997) The band was moved up to Megaforce's parent label
Atlantic Records for the release of their fourth album, ''
King's X, in early 1992. However, rising tensions with Taylor led the band to eschew the upbeat approach of previous albums and turn out a darker, more introspective effort. Unfortunately, despite critical praise, their new style did not translate well among the record-buying public, thus garnering fewer sales than Faith, Hope, Love''. "
Black Flag", the album's lone single, received only moderate airplay on
MTV and radio. Not long after the release of ''King's X'', the band parted ways with Taylor. The details of the split were not made public, but it was believed to be rather bitter. Taylor would admit in 1996 that his company Wilde Silas MusicWorks was growing and, as a result, he was no longer giving King's X, whom he considered "the top dogs", the attention they deserved. In the aftermath, King's X took over a year off to consider their collective future together. The band members followed other, non-musical pursuits; most notably, guitarist Ty Tabor took up semi-professional motocross motorcycle racing. With
grunge at the peak of its popularity, and
Pearl Jam's bassist
Jeff Ament declaring that "King's X invented grunge" (despite the group's trademark sound being very different from that of the commercially successful grunge acts), the band went looking for a new sound upon their return. They enlisted veteran producer
Brendan O'Brien, who had recently produced albums for
Stone Temple Pilots and
Pearl Jam. The resulting album, 1994's
Dogman, showcased a much more muscular and heavy sound from the group, with Pinnick now handling all lead vocals and the lyrics becoming less abstract and spiritual. The record received a heavier promotional push from Atlantic including a compilation promotional CD entitled:
Building Blox, as King's X enjoyed a successful tour, capped by an appearance at the
Woodstock '94 festival in August. They also toured with bands such as the
Scorpions,
Pearl Jam,
Mötley Crüe and
Type O Negative, but despite a return to the Top 100 for King's X, the album failed to sell as well as Atlantic had hoped, and the label's support for the group quickly faded. The band's third release under Atlantic, 1996's
Ear Candy, would also be their last for the label (not including the subsequent ''
Best of King's X'' compilation album). Although it sold to the band's sizeable core following, it lacked the relative mainstream success of previous efforts. The record was soon out of print, and it seemed that the group's chance for commercial success had come and gone.
Metal Blade era (1998–2004) The group moved to
Metal Blade Records in 1998. Their first album under the label,
Tape Head, signaled a new era for the band. They modified their creative methods by writing and recording the album together in the studio, rather than coming together to record songs that the individual members had written separately. They also elected not to hire an outside producer and recorded the album at Pinnick's Hound Pound and Tabor's Alien Beans Studios, thus cutting production costs. Their next two albums,
Please Come Home... Mr. Bulbous (2000) and
Manic Moonlight (2001), were more or less created in the same way.
Manic Moonlight featured the band experimenting with electronic drum loops and other sounds for the first time on a record. The new direction, along with the relatively short length of the album, was generally not well received by longtime fans, but did get some positive critical reviews. For their next album, 2003's
Black Like Sunday, the group arranged and recorded an album of original songs that the band had regularly performed during
The Edge and
Sneak Preview days of the early 1980s. The cover art for this album was selected from artwork submitted by fans in an online contest. The double-disc set
Live All Over the Place (2004) was the band's final album for Metal Blade Records, and their first official live release.
Inside Out era (2005–present) In 2005, King's X signed to
InsideOut Music, the label that had previously released some of Tabor's side projects. The album
Ogre Tones was released in September 2005 and was described by many as a return to a more "classic" King's X sound. It was produced by famed rock producer
Michael Wagener (
Dokken,
Extreme,
Stryper,
White Lion,
Skid Row) and recorded at Wageners
WireWorld Studio in
Nashville, Tennessee. The tour for
Ogre Tones featured the band playing every song from the album during shows. King's X again worked with Michael Wagener on its second album for InsideOut Music titled
XV, released in May 2008. They spent mid-2008 touring with the band
Extreme as part of a travelling version of the
Rock 'n Roll Fantasy Camp. Live dates in the U.S. in December 2008 were followed by the band's first European tour in several years in early 2009. Molken Music, an independent label started by Wally Farkas (ex-
Galactic Cowboys) in 2005, has released several titles by King's X and its members.
Live & Live Some More, a live concert recorded during the
Dogman tour, is available there as well as demo compilations, rehearsal tapes, and other items. The label released the band's first live DVD,
Gretchen Goes to London in November 2008. It was a live concert filmed in London in 1990. On January 22, 2009, their concert at the
Electric Ballroom in Camden, London, was filmed and released as a live DVD and CD entitled
Live Love in London. On February 26, 2012, the 55-year-old Jerry Gaskill suffered a major heart attack, temporarily stopping the band's touring schedule. He was on a ventilator for several days while also suffering from pneumonia. In response, King's X compiled an exclusive live release from their archives entitled
Burning Down Boston: Live at The Channel 6.12.91. The proceeds from the release went directly to Gaskill to help him offset his medical expenses. Gaskill posted a video message on Facebook on April 4, 2012, thanking everyone who had supported him during his illness. The band went back to touring until Gaskill suffered another heart attack while recovering from a "scheduled minor procedure" on September 12, 2014, requiring him to undergo double-bypass surgery. King's X subsequently canceled all scheduled concerts, and announced an indefinite hiatus. In mid-2015, the band was back on tour, playing numerous dates on the east coast. They also played shows for July in Texas. In June 2015, Doug Pinnick announced that King's X were committed to begin work on a new studio album, their first since 2008's
XV. The band signed a world-wide record deal on October 8, 2018, with Australian independent record label, Golden Robot Records, who had planned to release their new album in the U.S, Australia and Europe sometime in 2019; however, the project's release had faced myriad delays within the next few years, due to
COVID-related manufacturing issues as well as the slow progress of the band working on the album, which had been mastered by April 2022. A month later, it was announced that King's X had signed again to
Inside Out/
Sony Music and their new album would be released on September 2, 2022. The band revealed
Three Sides of One as the album's title on June 24, 2022; released on September 2 of that year, three singles were released to support
Three Sides of One: "Let It Rain", "Give It Up", and "All God's Children". Although Pinnick had initially stated that
Three Side of One could be King's X's final studio album, he mentioned in an August 2022 interview that there were numerous songs that did not make the cut and could be used for the band's next album: "Ty came in with four, Jerry came in with three, and I came in with 27." He added, "We would play one of mine, one of Ty's, and one of Jerry's, then do another round. Ty wanted to keep going until they ran out. We needed more songs, so we played more of mine. We recorded ten of my songs, and only some of them got on the record. We knew some of those weren't quite ready, and we had enough songs. Maybe we'll put them on the next record. I still have about 30 songs. I know Ty and Jerry both have some more songs to use on the next record." In an October 2024 interview with
Bravewords.com, Pinnick said that he has "submitted a handful of new songs" and "Ty and Jerry have both said they have a bunch of tunes" for the next King's X album, adding, "So, the next thing is to finally figure out when we want to get together and the whole thing you have to go through to make a record – because we live in three different parts of the country. So, sooner or later we'll get serious. We haven't yet really, but we talk about it – so that's a good thing." An authorized biography by Greg Prato, ''King's X: The Oral History'', via Jawbone Press was released in February 2019. In addition to extensive interviews with all three band members, the book included interviews with such rock musicians as
Jeff Ament,
Andy Summers,
Mick Mars,
Billy Corgan, and
Eddie Trunk among others, and featured a foreword by
Scott Ian. ==Legacy==