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Philosopher Kings Articles

Philosopher Kings Rule With Soulful Style
Story Posted March 03, 1998 at 17:20
By Andrew Flynn TORONTO (CP)
The Philosopher Kings seem to take it in stride when people automatically assume they're American. It's kind of amusing, says singer Gerald Eaton, but understandable considering the extremely talented young group plays what is essentially hard-core soul _ not a genre usually associated with this country.
``Soul is one of the quintessential American forms of pop music,'' says the Jamaican-born Eaton. ``But so is jazz and no one seems surprised that Oscar Peterson is a Canadian artist. I've had people come up to me in Toronto and say `Hey, what are you doing here?' all surprised. Well ... I live here.''
To characterize the Philosopher Kings as purely a soul band is also a bit misleading. The Toronto quintet plays a brand of funk and jazz-infused pop that owes much to the Motown sound without mimicking it. Famous Rich and Beautiful, the band's second album, is a collection of energetic, expertly executed mood pieces that layer virtuoso instrumentals over Eaton's smooth-as-silk vocals.
``Emotion is a huge element of what we do,'' says keyboard player Jon Levine. ``When we play live you'll see the difference between us and a `real' soul group. We like to let go and pound it out. Sure, I'll knock the piano over from time to time.''
Eaton, Levine and his brother bassist Jason Levine, guitarists Brian West and James McCollum began playing together in high school and developed their skills through formal music studies at university. Drawn to jazz and soul when other kids were starting garage rock bands, the group developed a musical vocabulary that required skills most rockers never need.
While soul will always stand as the group's musical backbone, it's not something they want to wear like a straitjacket when it comes time to sit down and write a new song, Levine says. ``This is just what comes out when we play _ and I'm sure it's influenced by our background in jazz,'' he says.
``Sure, we're playing soul, but we like to think it's not stereotypical; we're updating the genre as we go along.'' It may seem like an outdated genre to some, says Eaton, ``but it's something of a first love. It's something we started doing as kids and we had fun doing it.
``I think it's a function of what we were listening to _ Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye had much more impact as musicians on me than KISS ever did.'' The group barely had time to graduate and decide on a career path before being snapped up by a major record label. Respect for the group started to build almost immediately following the release of their self-titled debut in 1994. A Juno nomination for best new group followed in 1996.
``That's nice, but you get a little bit of a distorted view on how easy things are. Then you realize you still have to win fans over and that takes time.'' The key to that is not letting fast success blind you to the basics, Eaton says.
``We're not making music just for ourselves. As a songwriter you're always trying to balance making music you like with music you think other people are going to like. ``We're really just trying to find that line.''
``We got signed after our fifth show ever,'' says Eaton.

Toronto's premiere soul act, Philosopher Kings, was formed in the early 1990's as a backlash to the staid, sterile environment of the music schools they had been attending.
Doing the usual Queen Street grind in Toronto was short lived as the act was picked as one of the first new Canadian signings by the re-grouped Sony Music corporation. Their eponymous debut album hit the streets in late 1994 and spawned the hit "Charms" which went Top-10 on Canadian Hit Radio and was Top 40 on U.S. radio.
The band toured with '70's legends Kool And The Gang, a reconstituted Terence Trent D'Arby and soul rocker Ben Harper.
1997 saw the sophomore jinx deflated as the band broke the radio and chart barrier with the singles "Hurts To Love You" (the video was filmed at the Hugh Hefner mansion), a remake of Godley & Creme's "Cry" and the latest single, "You Don't Love Me".
While on tour, the band was threatened at knife-point by a female hitchhiker who was talked into abandoning her quest to hijack their tour bus and instead sold T-shirts for them during the remainder of the tour.

By Heather Bundy
The Philosopher Kings sure know how to throw a great party. Use a sound board too big to fit into the elevator, invite the "Best New Solo Artist" from the Juno Awards to open your concert and urge the audience to throw articles of clothing on stage and you've got a Philosopher Kings hit.
Melanie Doane, originally from Halifax, opened this concert at the Port Theatre on March 10, 1999. Her mix of pop rock and an east-coast sound make for a perfect style. Violins, mandolins and piano melodies flow through her music, which has been featured on "Party of Five" and has recently been submitted for use on the new soundtrack for "Dawson's Creek."
Needless to say, when the Philosopher Kings walked on stage, the audience (a fairly even mix of men and women, I think) started screaming. I had the fantastic luck of getting front row seats, 3 feet from the stage and 6 feet from the speaker, only a half-hour before the show started.
Gerald Eaton, James McCollum, Brian West, Jon Levine and Jay Levine seem like a very tight group. Eaton, the lead singer, did not appear in a dress, as he did in the recent video for "I Am The Man," but made a great impression nonetheless. By the second song, "You Don't Love Me (Like You Used To Do)," he was inviting the audience to "get comfortable" - they only wanted to be our friends. Soon, bras and other articles of clothing were landing on the stage. They ran through most of the songs on their current album, "Famous, Rich and Beautiful," as well as "Charms" from their debut album. For an encore, Eaton pulled a young girl, Rhonda, up on stage and sang to her.
This was the first concert in a cross Canada tour, so they were "trying out some pretty crazy stuff" to see how it would go over. The "stuff" included audience participation from singing along to "Cry" and jumping up and down for about twenty minutes. I'm sure their tour will be a great success.
The Philosopher Kings did a "meet and greet" in the lobby of the Port Theatre after the show, and I got their autographs on my ticket stub.
What a great ending to a fantastic show. I just hope I'm here the next time they come.

To Be Or Not To Be; ... A Jazz Band. That Is The Question For Smart, Sexy Philosopher Kings
Mark Lepage, Southam News
July 9, 1995
Smart. Sophisticated. Omnivorous. Powerful. Sexy.
Canadian?
Torontonian?
Like cliches, labels are handy because they work, and dangerous because they breed laziness.
Still, these are fast-paced, quick-cut times, and if you feel as if you are living in a video or a Guess? jeans ad, you are right. The clock is ticking and we need to define our fragmentary experience and chop it into surgical bytes.
In defiance of that, the musician's habit is to confound the labelers, to smear himself with enough camo and bear grease to keep the hunter's arrow from sticking.
So it was that one of the best concert experiences at this jazz festival was delivered by a group whose jazz chops disguise its pop identity and aspirations.
Toronto's Philosopher Kings played the Spectrum, scene of so many sandal conventions over the last 10 nights, overrun Friday night by young women in the Barbie backpacks of the AlterNation and young men dressed for a Weezer concert and not for a course in jazz semiotics. This was not a jazz audience or was it?
Was this a jazz band? In the bravura opening number, Turn My Head Around, the Philosopher Kings sounded like they were beating up on a jazz band, crashing through the musical china shop with bullish guitars.
For the ensuing 75 minutes the band shape-shifted through a set whose groovy poise and confident appeal were backed by undeniable instrumental puissance. Think Joe Jackson with way better chops, which is saying more than it seems.
"I'm amazed at how open-minded the jazz audience is to a pop band," singer Gerald Eaton said after the set.
Not a jazz band?
"Pop," he affirmed. "I'll tell you why. I think that we're really interested in doing something contemporary. We like to groove, but there is another element, a lyrical element, to what we do. Really, we're an alternative band. Maybe there is no name for what we do."
Or maybe there are a half-dozen, none of which adequately convey OK, they're a groove band with chops and tunes, but the Philosopher Kings do not fit what we have come to identify as a Toronto band.
Furthermore, "by no means have we ever thought of ourselves as Canadian," Eaton says.
Labels matter, and in a Ralph Lauren world, nobody wants to be caught wearing Tuffskins; refer to the handy Canadian pop label- printer with the three options - Rush, Lightfoot and Murray - and you understand why Eaton isn't wrapping himself in the Maple Leaf.
"And we don't sound like the Barenaked Ladies," for which we thank them. No, really. Thank you very much.
Canadian they are, nonetheless. Keyboardist John Levine studied jazz in McGill, two other members studied it in U of T. "There is a bubblegum connotation to `pop.' Our roots are in jazz."
It shows in the playing, which is better than it should be from a band together only two years. "That's where the jazz ideology comes in. You never stop practicing."
Still, "It's not about showing off our chops."
Sometimes they can't help but show them off in the best possible way. Late in the set, Eaton soared in an amazing ballad called No Woman Around that some will be tempted to look for on an Elvis Costello album, even if the chording was too inventive for Elvoid.
Levine writes most of the lyrics, and according to Eaton, his influences are Costello, Springsteen and Waits. Not many bands with this kind of virtuosity would mention Bruce, but not many bands this talented come off as this unpretentious.
Talent breeds it, wisdom and basic decency breed it out. The Philosopher Kings will not need to broadcast their ability or their promise anywhere but on the stage and the dance floor.
The Philosopher Kings came to a jazz festival whose theme, as Eaton saw it, was "Where jazz is going." The Philosopher Kings are eventually going to the U.S. for showcase dates in September, but first to Cafe Campus this coming Thursday for another date with a market that is falling hard for the Toronto group with the all- universe appeal.
What we've learned is that the Philosopher Kings are not Canadian, not Toronto, not jazz and not pop, but do fit one label.
"Sure thing.''
Montreal Gazette

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