Early life John S. Hall was born in
Brooklyn, New York and grew up in
Manhattan's
West Village. He recalls being "very quiet and shy" as a child In 1978 he
graduated from
Stuyvesant High School.
Participation in poetry scene In the early 1980s, Hall began participating in the
Lower East Side poetry scene. He read his poems at such venues as Speakeasy According to
performance poet Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, Hall "became an easily recognizable figure in the scene: pale, bald, dressed mostly in black and white, with wire-rimmed glasses and a
porkpie hat." and what he considers its lack of stylistic diversity. In a 2005 interview, he recalled seeing his first slam, at the
Nuyorican Poets Café: Despite his reservations about slam poetry, Hall has performed alongside slam poets on such television programs as
PBS's
The United States of Poetry,
Early bands Hall performed in at least two musical groups before co-founding King Missile. One was Purple Sunshine, a "
hippie band" Hall started because he "was really into hippies and
LSD, and
tuning in and dropping out, and all that stuff." The single was not a commercial success, and the band broke up shortly after its release. In 1986, feeling that "20 minutes of me reading poetry would be totally boring", King Missile recorded three albums for Atlantic: 1991's
The Way to Salvation, 1992's
Happy Hour, and 1994's
King Missile. Happy Hour spawned a modest hit in "
Detachable Penis," which reached No. 25 on the
Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. Nonetheless, after the commercial failure of
King Missile, the band was dropped from Atlantic, and they broke up shortly thereafter because, according to Hall, "there was no reason to stay together." In 2019, King Missile IV changed their name to You, Me and This Fuckin’ Guy and recorded its debut LP,
Garden Variety Fuckers, released by Dromedary Records on April 17, 2020. In 2023, King Missile (Dog Fly Religion) began performing again. A new album,
Quest For Fire, is forthcoming. The band is Hall, Dogbowl, Korbet (playing bass instead of drums), and percussionists Marlon Cherry and Susan Hwang.
Books Hall has released two books, both on
Soft Skull Press. The first, 1997's
Jesus Was Way Cool, is a collection of 40 poems recorded on King Missile and Hall solo albums, plus a never-recorded poem, "Hope." The second, 2007's
Daily Negations, is a dark-humored satire of
self-help books. In it, Hall presents a negative thought for each day of the year (including Leap Day). He posts daily readings of these thoughts on his Facebook and Instagram pages. Beginning in October of 2020, Hall has published at least one new poem a day on social media. Beginning in 2022, He has published monthly books of these poems, all of which are available on Amazon.
Dominant themes of work Asked in a 2003 interview to speak about the common themes of his work, Hall replied: Other recurring subjects of Hall's work include religion and spirituality (e.g., "The Fish That Played the Ponies", "Jesus Was Way Cool," "The God"), nihilism (e.g., "
No Point", "Ed," "Jim"), and masochism (e.g., "Pickaxe", "Take Me Home," "My Lover").
Writing and performance styles Hall's writing varies in format from straightforward narrative to abstract, disjointed
free verse. The writing frequently contains absurdist imagery (e.g., "A giant testicle rolled over a
Waffle House, killing several clowns") and/or
adynata (e.g., "P]igeons came along and ate his eyes, and seagulls ripped his stomach out, and pelicans ate his liver, and his spleen popped out all on its own and turned into a harmonica and played a pleasant little tune. Then out came his pancreas, which turned into the dog that bit him last week, and it bit him again and again and again many times").
Stage name In a 2003 missive to his
electronic mailing list, Hall explained how he chose his
stage name:
Legal career After the collapse of the second incarnation of King Missile, Hall attended law school. and after graduation co-founded Heraty Hall, a law firm specializing in
entertainment law.
Political and personal beliefs Hall used his vehement dislike of President
George W. Bush and his administration as subject matter for several King Missile III songs, including "The President", "Suggested Response to the Coming Crises", and "Another Political Poem". He campaigned for
Democratic nominee
John Kerry in the
2004 United States presidential election. Hall considers himself both
Buddhist and
agnostic.
References in popular culture American rapper
MC Lars acknowledges Hall in his song "My Rhymes Rhyme": "Shout-outs to
Wesley Willis,
Adam G. and John Hall / Word to
MC Paul Barman; hey, return my call!" Lars also praises King Missile in his song "The Dialogue": "
Nine Inch Nails,
Primus,
"Weird Al" and King Missile / Influenced me like a
postmodern epistle." ==Discography==