Central Iowa Band Listings & More

Q&A With ROADSHOW'S BILL KING :

Bill King what are you up to these days?


We got a lot of good gigs coming up: We are calling it the South Side Slide... Playing Bourbon Street , and Vivones , and Friday nights at Toad Holler have been really good ! Good Crowds... We also have gig at Orlando's coming up.

Easist way to keep updated is to check this site !
Didn't see you out in awhile. Was writing and recording taking preference over performing ?

We went into a studio at this guys house and did three or four tracks, we weren't really happy with it, and wanted to re-record parts of it and then it sort of lost steam. We where all really focused on it and then Dave's son came back from Egypt ( where he was in the service ) and he was really excited to see him ..it sort of took a back seat .. Which is cool ... Dave was really glad that he was back...now we doing more live shows again with spring and summer here.

You have played in a lot of Central Iowa's favorite bands, Can you name them all ?

Yeah... let me see …Joe Mama's Blues Band, Voyageur, Intruder, Medallion, The Cruise Band, and Idle Wild, (some of them guys went to on to Full Throttle... guess that makes sense.), Solo act, gigs with several people: George Citvatat & Scott Catcher, then of course Roadshow.


 

Name three musicians that have had a big influence on you ?

Paul McCartney, Jack Bruce (for Bass Player), and Jim Morrison from writing and performance

A few years back you started doing lead vocals a lot more how did this change your perspective on performing live? Did it?

What happen is I quite smoking and it gave me a lot more vocal power then I had ever had .. and we needed a vocalist. My mom is a vocal instructor so I knew some of the exercises and I just sort of threw myself into it. To try and take it a little more serious. Plus the quitting smoking, I really realized how much singing is really about breathing, knowing how to pass air over your vocal chords.

There are a lot of people who don't have a great range, but know how to sing ...
Plus you can't sing a song if you don't know the words……your not just …..you know …what are they saying ? …What really are they saying?

Back when we where young you had try to figure it out. You had to listen to a song over and over, to figure out the lyrics… when you really know the words because its easy to get the words/lyrics either published online or from Guitar magazines it makes the vocalist job a lot easier.
Name your all time favorite gig ,so far, and why ?

My all- time favorite gig - Idle Wild opening for Blue Oyster Cult at The Runway.
I got to meet the band and hang out with them. They where, for my age group, like Metallica is today.
They had so many songs. They had hits… but they also had underground hits popular with their fans, and they had a great following. Two guitars, and keyboards, drums, bass, sometimes three guitars. They were awesome. They where really cool to us.

They ( The Runway ) where using a bunch of our equipment and a house system, we had a spotlight set up. It was our spotlight. They were just hanging in their dressing room being kewl . Mikey Everett (our sound man at the time) wanted to get an album signed. So Mike went to get an Album autographed and told them he was with the warm up act .


The manger, who was standing at the dressing room door was like "no .. no .. not right now, maybe later ....after the show .. "

Buck Dharma saw us and said to the manager, "aaaa ahhh let um in." And we all filed in, I felt like I was walking on the moon because they where so awesome.

Eric Bloom. Alan Lanier and Buck Dharma sitting there..it was weird ..but it was great. We where shooting the shit and their manger said.. "Hope you guys don't think your not using that spotlight..."
Kelly looked at him and said:
"Like hell that's OUR spotlight!"
After flipping them some shit they respected us ... we got along great. We worked up the crowd for them, really got things going and it was a great night.

I have had many really good gigs: Opening for Pat Travers , or meeting Gary Ritchrath from REO Speedwagon -two others that come to mind.

What has been the worst gig ?
One gig that sucked was when I was in Idle Wild, we had Atomic Opera open up for us..that was a mistake .... Atomic Opera had Jim Root (Slipknot/Stone Sour), Scott Andreas, Danny Spain (Down the Sun), Doran Lindset and Mike Curry. They where a really good band with a really good following. Its very tough to follow an act when their crowd is the majority of the people who show up.

They didn't play that often around here, they did all original heavey metal material ...after they where done they're fans (the majority of the crowd) literally booed us off the stage at Celebrations. We got along fine with the band.. but it was not one of my favorite nights.

Then another would be when one night Kelly got arrested at the bar : his probation was in the crowd.

Then we played one time the had 18' of snow between set up and tear down and a corwd of like 2 people on New Years day.
" Who booked this gig?" ..
We where all hung over from playing the New Years the night before ..and everybody else was at home watching football recovering form New Years Eve

Favorite Bass & Why?
It's a Fender American Deluxe Jazz Bass (see picture above)
It has active electronics & still has that feel of a Jazz bass. Basically all the bells and whistles, noiseless pickups ect ect. Very high quality insturment with custom white pearl pick-guard which makes it unique and one of a kind.

  Favorite Rig ?
One I have now it's an Impulse. With 2 x 10 and one 15 in the cab ..
Aren't their other musicians in your family too?
My brother is really good keyboard player. He has been playing since 2nd grade has played on movie soundtracks , he is in a band in Atlanta Georgia They do big shows ... he does more of a Steely Dan - Pink Floyd type thing ..Grooves out , its very good .. That's about it, other then my mom and son. ...watch out for him ..
 


Any advice to young musicians starting to play the Central Iowa area?
Hmmm…. Ahhhha…. Hmmm…. Get out! (Laughs) Before you stick to the flypaper we call Des Moines.

Best thing about playing in Central Iowa ?
Being close to home. It is where the family is. It is nice to have successful business and be able to play . Des Moines has been very good to me. Good people here. I have made some good lifelong friends.

Worst thing ?. Hmmm. I would say that one of the worst things is that if you want to play / gig a lot you find yourself playing cover tunes . What are some of the clubs that you enjoy or enjoyed playing most? We have fun wherever we play. We turn it into a party !

What the hell happen to the bus ?

What happen to the bus … go it fixed up. It was like a family camper for a couple years . We had a lot of fun with that bus. I had a tough time getting insurance. My insurance guy laughed in my face when I asked about it ... As I got more responsible, I got afraid to drive it, it was pretty big piece of metal. My brother stayed in it for awhile. I finally just sold it to this who wanted to live in it behind his sister house .I think I sold it for like 500 bucks.

Didn't you use to work with BMI ?

The called us loggers, we would log music at different places ..Restaurants, Nightclubs or any place that played music. If they had more then two speakers , first we had to find if they where licensed ... at times I would play there and check the jukebox if it was tagged with a sticker on inside of the glass with the year.

They had to have it legally. If not I logged the jukebox and get paid for logging it. That's because then people use to own there own jukeboxes. There was a little conflict of interest because the bar had to pay, but you wanted them to have live music too. They (BMI) don't do that like that any more. I quite doing it .. Because they became stricter and it took to much time, wasn't as lucrative and the travel wasn't worth it ... it was ok when I was on the road more.

 


What you going to do to celebrate 4th of July ?
Dunno. We are playing the Clive Festival in June. The 4th of July can be lousy to play , it really depends. People don't spend a lot of time in the bars if it is nice out they are out camping…have other plans ..going to parties .. we usually have a party to go too.. we might do one .. play that is.

Any band you would like to see live ?
Beatles .. (laughs) .. Doors .. of the ones I have never seen .. Led Zeppelin ... all of them have people dead in them now .. I have seen a lot of good concerts - Rush .. Probably the best at the Tucson Community Center .. it was Awesome .. I think it Hemispheres Tour .. like 1981 or maybe 82.

What new artist do you think is noteworthy ?
The Outkast ( just kidding...) .. I Dunno …..Stained ..Creed . Three Doors Down .. not really into the new real hard .. I like Puddle of Mudd .. .also the older guys but also .. AudioSlave ... Perffect Circle ...
I have actually heard a lot of the new music.. I listen to real good feel good station at work , because its the politically correct thing to do ... scary to find yourself singing Ode to Billy Joe .. Even if you have seen the movie, it leaves you with a few unanswered questions ...

THANK YOU Bill King ! We will Be sure and Check out the Roadshow Gigs this summer !