King Solomon, is not another band, with absolutely no members whatsoever from RoadkillSoda, Damage Case, or Crossbone. With a live performance that includes their heavy yet infectious grooves and stream of consciousness approach to improv jams, King Solomon is the fresh new good-looking face from the local music scene. Their debut record was released in 2019, and their second album is already in the making, waiting to see the light and delight psychedelic, jam lovers. We talked about this and many others with Dragoş Coman in an outspoken interview.
CVLT: Greetings! The last time we spoke, you were also prepping for a concert. In the meantime, you have released an album, and working on a second one. How has King Solomon evolved? Have you kept the same line or other influences have appeared?
Hello and thank you for welcoming us again amidst your interviews. Well actually the only work that’s left to be done regarding our second album which is going to be called “Heights”, is figuring out how we are going to release it. We’re very happy about what we’ve done with this one, feeling that although we’ve kept our homemade “King Solomon sauce”. This one is much more mature, and because of the nature of how we recorded it, at a cabin somewhere up in some hills, just the 3 of us, the music became evermore personal, and that it reflects our friendship and bond.
Does the conception come first or do the songs evolve naturally – do you have a clear idea of what it will be before you start to make it?
Actually we kind of wing it. Usually, we come to the studio with some ideas, and then jam our asses off, trying to do as much as we can with as little as possible.
When listeners make their way through your songs, what do you want to feel?
Well, that’s in a way one of the ideas of instrumental music. There is no preacher influencing the music. And we do not intent on bashing on vocals in any way (laugh). But all of us wanted to play in an instrumental band, one of the reasons being in a way that you feel whatever the music tells you. You’re the one to write your own emotional story.
In how much, do you feel, are creative decisions shaped by cultural differences – and in how much, vice versa, is the perception of sound influenced by cultural differences?
It’s actually cool. We feel that our cultural differences play to our strength. Everybody brings a little different spice to the mix. Yes, sometimes we have to talk about it so that we actually understand what we’re trying to bring to the table.
Music has known a solid change once with the evolution and development of technology. How do you see this change given the fact that where technology appears, the emotion may lose its course?
It’s funny because I was having a talk with a friend about when will A.I. truly take over music. And even though I personally think technology will be able to outperform humans at some point, at least from writing, producing, and recording point of view, technology will never be able to reproduce (only enhance) the emotion between musicians playing live, and that is automatically transmitted to the audience. We don’t really know, this is why we are King Solomon. If we knew, we would have probably been called Nostradamus.
If you could have any artist join King Solomon, who would it be and why?
Sorry, there are no vacant posts currently available.
Has the income issue become too important for artists nowadays? Do the label records by any means influence or change the rock/metal scene?
For sure it’s a very sensitive subject. But think about it, in a way, before, in the old days, some small percentage of artists hit it big, because there was a shorter supply of artists. And some never made it, because it wasn’t as easy to get things like gear, recording sessions, rehearsal spaces, gigs, and whatnot. Nowadays it’s easier and cheaper than ever to make music, but there is a greater number of artists that are successful through different media and opportunities, and it’s much harder to cut through the crowd. So every generation has its own hardships to overcome. Labels adapt, because there is high volume, and they can set the rules of the game, so musicians adapt and so does the whole of the industry.
Wasn’t the music more authentic when money hasn’t become an issue?
Money has always been an issue. But never THE issue.
In a world increasingly affected by selfishness and indifference, is there any passion left in art?
Again, you’ve hit a very interesting spot from our point of view. We’ve formed the band when all of us were facing a point where we were feeling disappointment in people because of selfishness and or indifference, especially in the music scene and the music part of our lives. So in a way without trying to sound too cheesy, we’ve mended ourselves by putting energy into this project, and in our relationships revolving it. So we’ve put a lot of passion into what we did so far. And if we did it, it would be kind of egocentristical to think that a lot of other people don’t act the same way.
I want to ask you about the bands that have been continuous influences for you, but also about new bands and new records that you think are exciting in the underground scene. What do you look at and say “that’s the future of this scene”?
I think it would be safe to say that a lot of our influences as a band are pretty obvious: Led Zeppelin, Jimmi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Earthless, All Them Witches, Kyuss, QTSA, Uncle Acid, and the Deadbeats, Red Fang, ah and many many more.
New stuff is literally pouring every day, so it’s kind of hard keeping up with what’s hot and new if you don’t do it full time. But we would love to give a shoutout to Church of Cthulhu. They’re a hardworking band, and sounded amazing live! Doomsville all the way. Also, I’ve heard Granophyre play some songs live, and gotta say they have a pretty awesome sound. Desert as fuck.
What other creative outputs do you guys engage in that we may not suspect?
We’ll I guess all of our activities and jobs revolve more or less around creativity because it’s rather a way of life. It applies more to Malin, who is a graphic artist, you should check his stuff out.
When you perform live, how do you want your audience to feel as they leave the show?
We would love for the audience to feel what we feel because we try to send what we feel to them. But when they leave, we want them to feel a bittersweet hunger for more…
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Nicolae Baldovin
