SPEAKER_01: 0:45

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Backstage Past Radio. It's Randy Hulsey here. Today we've got a legend in the house. He is the powerhouse behind the iconic progressive metal band Kings X. For over 35 years, my guest has been a driving force in rock with his signature soulful voice, mind-bending bass lines, and deep spiritual lyrics. His influence stretches far beyond the band, and he's inspired musicians across multiple generations. You guys get ready because today we're deep diving into the mind of one of the most unique and respected figures in rock and roll. Stay tuned and we'll catch up with the one and only Doug Pennick of the band King's X when we return.

SPEAKER_00: 1:28

This is Backstage Fast Radio. Backstage Fast Radio, a podcast by an artist for the artist. Each week we take you behind the scenes of some of your favorite musicians and the music they created. From chart-hopping hits to underground gems, we explore the sounds that move us and the people who make it all happen. Remember to please subscribe, rate, and leave reviews on your favorite podcast platform. So whether you're a casual listener or a die hard music fan, tune in and discover the magic behind the melodies. Here is your host of Backstage Pass Radio, Randy Holsey.

SPEAKER_01: 2:08

Doug Pennick, welcome to the show, man. It's great to have you on. Good to be here. That's awesome, man. I'm also joined for the listeners out there, joined by uh Vern Vernard, who plays lead guitar with me in our duo here in the Houston area. So, Vern, thanks for jumping on. It's good to see you.

SPEAKER_03: 2:25

Yeah, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01: 2:27

Hey Vern.

SPEAKER_03: 2:28

Hey, Doug. I uh we can get the fanboy stuff out of the way real quickly. Because then I can be a professional. But I'm a gigantic fan since I was about 15. Um and uh I just really uh that's a formidable year, right?

SPEAKER_01: 2:50

For most musicians, like or for listeners of music when you're that that early teenage, you know, yeah, like you're latching on to certain stuff. And so you got a little King's X in you.

SPEAKER_03: 3:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:02

Yeah, we all do, man. Well, thanks for being here, Vern. It's good to see you. And uh so Doug, am I catching up with you? And are you out in the LA area right now? Is that I'm home right now in my in my man cave studio. Right on, right on. Well, you live, let's see, I'm I'm jogging my memory a little bit. Now you you lived in Houston for a while. How long were you here? And you know, when did you leave for California? Do I do I have my facts correct there about you?

SPEAKER_02: 3:33

Yeah, we moved, the band moved this spring uh to Houston in 1985. And about 15 years ago, 2010, it was that no, uh wait, what? I came out here uh a year and a half ago, so so I came here 2005 or something like that. I mixed up, but those are the numbers. Okay, all right. Well, where did you originally grow up? Where are you originally from? Oh, I grew up in Chicago area. Chicago, okay. A little a little country town outside Chicago called uh Braidwood, had a thousand people. Wow. Small town boy then, huh? Very small.

SPEAKER_01: 4:11

We had cornfields to play in. That's it. There's a lot of soy fields out there in northern Indiana, too. I uh fly into Chicago frequently and drive down to Indiana, and between the cornfields and the soy fields, there's a there's a lot of fields going on out there in the table, too.

SPEAKER_02: 4:29

Corn and toil.

SPEAKER_01: 4:32

Well, I won't I wanted to also give a shout out to my my old pal Little Billman for uh also helping us get connected. You know, uh Scott has been on my show a couple of times. And uh for the listeners out there, if you guys haven't had a chance to check out that interview, uh head out to backstagepassradio.com and uh check out both of my interviews with Little Billman. He's a great musician. And Doug, you know little Billman well, right? Yeah, he's uh he he he we uh we share the same house.

SPEAKER_02: 5:06

So you get to put him. In fact, he he he's he just came in and and I said, I got a podcast in four minutes, and I was rushing in here, and he said, I know that guy. He's a Brandon Blues fan. And we started talking. I had to close the door and keep going. That's right, that's right. But I'll tell him that you mentioned him. Damn.

SPEAKER_01: 5:24

I I actually text him. We had we exchanged a couple of text messages yesterday, so I told him that you were uh that you'd be on here and uh he said that. Yeah, right on. So I guess let's see, Vernon, like whenever you want to interject, jump right in. But uh you've been with King's X Doug since I guess that beginnings uh 80s, right? And you know, how have you seen the music industry, you know, I guess over the years, you you've seen it change in a lot of different ways.

SPEAKER_02: 5:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:55

What what stuck out to you over the years about what it was like back in the 80s versus how it is now?

SPEAKER_02: 6:02

You know, every 10 years it just regurgitates itself with another inbred addition to the point now where it's just it has no heart or soul. It's just a mongoloid monster spewing out all these different genes that it has. Is that a good way to look at it? Um, it's the evolution of music. And uh, I've watched it from 1950 on, uh and right when it was born. And so it's been what what I want to really say is being able to see the whole thing for 70 years, from being born till now to see what it's where it's come, what it's done, the the the the fall, the rise, the fall, the rise, you know, the all the different innovations. It's mind-boggling, and it's somebody needs to to make a movie about it. It would be a series, would last a month or you know, of all the influences and how we influenced each other, and everybody was copying each other, and everybody was uh feeding off each other, and everybody was out trying to do each other, and everybody was trying to sound like each other. It was just it was just there was no rules. And um, you know, a true artist, there still is no rules. Um, but then then we have entertainment which came along and and we had to separate it just like church and state, you know. Of course, you gotta separate them. Well, correct.

SPEAKER_01: 7:36

Yeah, go ahead and finish your thought. No, no, no, finish your thought.

SPEAKER_02: 7:39

No, I I could ramble all day long.

SPEAKER_01: 7:40

What were you gonna say? I well, I was gonna say that I had a a a good friend of mine who's who's become a good friend over the years. I had Tony Carey on my show, and Tony played keyboards with Rainbow for a number of years, and I asked Tony this question about, you know, because he's a he's a longtime rock and roll guy too. Like how is the how has the industry changed? And he said, Man, you know, we used to sell millions of records back in the day, and that's how we made our money. And he said, now we're just uh we're fucking t-shirt salesmen, right? We're selling merch for a living, is what we're doing. So that's how Tony has kind of seen the industry change. Like it's it's really about touring and and getting out in front of the the fans and the merch sells, and it's like the music because everything is streamed now. It's just a different way that we intake music now versus.

SPEAKER_02: 8:31

I look at it too, I look at it two different ways. As a profession, it's devastating. But as a historian, we had the gold rush and everybody went to California and then everybody got their gold and everybody was stuck. Yeah. Um, this is just the way life is. I I'm, you know, it used to really bother me. Remember when we got drum machines, all of a sudden drummers didn't have a job. Uh, you know, I mean, just uh I mean, look at all the 24-track studios that don't work anymore because of digits. So, so innovation just changes everything, and we have to keep going with it, and we lose our jobs, and we have to find another way to make a living. And that that it just seems the way that is the way society is made up right now.

SPEAKER_04: 9:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 9:16

Um, uh, and it it's it's just a part of of uh what consumption. And we've turned it into that. And I always say this, and maybe it's cold, but us musicians are just the bakers, the bankers, the candlestick makers in the neighborhood who so happen to pick up an instrument and play around the house. And on Sunday afternoons, we all take our picnic baskets down to the town square and we get to play music and the kids dance and we go home. That's who we are. Of course. Um, someone has told us that we're more special than that, that we should go out and play, and for fans to come and adore us, and we're gonna make all this money and people are gonna like us. That's bullshit. It's complete bullshit. That's that's just nothing but I need your attention, I need your validation, I don't know who I am. And you know, when you when you got that going on, no wonder the music doesn't uh become stay real. It becomes, what can I do to make you like me? And and we go through that. I go through that. We all go through that because we're humans. We want to be like, we don't want people to hate what we do, but we're delusional because very few people are gonna like what we do. Very few. Out of the billions of people in the world, a million records is nothing. Yep. Literally nothing. And somebody, oh, we sold a million records. I'm going so.

SPEAKER_01: 10:42

It's literally it's literally a glory hound mentality, right?

SPEAKER_02: 10:47

I mean, it really it really has become that. And the sadness about it is a lot of but you know, it hasn't, it's just become more intense. Because I mean, remember back in the 70s, if you were 25 years old and you didn't have a record deal, you didn't, you weren't gonna make it. And people gave up. I mean, literally, friends of mine just gave up, got married, had kids by the time they're 25, because oh, they didn't get a record deal. And that doesn't make any sense either, you know. And what happened is what I did was I went out and played. And I played and played and played. I didn't ask questions, I didn't make any demands, I didn't do anything but play. You like me or you don't. And I was just blind and kept doing it. And luckily, not luckily, with persistence, you end up getting people to follow you that that like what you do and get the essence of what you do, which is what we want. We just want a gang that we can hang out with and preach to.

SPEAKER_01: 11:41

Of course. I I totally get that. Well, you know, how did music find you as as a young kid? Where when did music slipstream into your existence? Did you come from a musical family? Did you I'll tell you two things.

SPEAKER_02: 11:56

Well, two things happen. My father, who I met when I was 14, who didn't I knew nothing about him or his family, are truly musicians. They all can play and sing, do whatever. They don't, there's not anybody that plays an instrument, they all can dance and sing, they can draw. And I have an aunt who is perfect pitched, and she's been playing piano since she was three. Now, I didn't know this because I grew up with my great-grandmother, and the that side of my family were very analytical. They played records, but nobody made music, nobody encouraged you to play anything. If I found a piano to get on, I was told to get off of it, you know, don't play that, Dougie, you're making noise. So, but my mom told me when I was, before I could talk, she said that when she would turn this record player off, I would start crying and start yelling, give me yay, give me yay. And she said she didn't know what I meant. But I think what I meant was must have been maybe a little Richard or somebody's going, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's all I knew. And she said that I knew every by the label of every 78 record what what it was and which one I wanted to listen to because I and I can tell by I remember the specialty label and the Apollo label. I mean, as a kid, the labels, the labels were just as important as what was coming out of this round thing with this thing sticking out of a uh uh an arm going across a record spinning real fast, and it was making a sound. And I would sit there and go, how does it do that? And I was just fascinated. How does it go into that needle and then come out of that? And I oh, that I would rack my brains out for days just sitting there staring at the record player whenever I got to find one, because my great-grandmother didn't have a record player. Um, and when my mom moved out, she took the record player with her when I was three. So in my grandma's house for the 14 years I lived with great-grandmothers, um, there was no record player. So I listened to records at my friends, relatives, anybody that had a record player or a radio, I was in front of it listening to music. Um and relatives and friends all just like let me do it. You know, I didn't pull I didn't play with everybody. I I'd go visit my relatives and I'd be in the living room sitting and listening.

SPEAKER_04: 14:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 14:16

Uh and been doing it ever since.

SPEAKER_01: 14:18

It it it's it is Vern, were you gonna were you gonna jump in there?

SPEAKER_03: 14:22

I was just gonna say I had read something uh in an in an interview, or it might have been the book, um, where you said that you actually pulled the bass sound out when you were a kid. I think you were listening to Frankie Lyman. And I found that to be incredibly unique because you know, people nobody does that. We all want to be the guitar player.

SPEAKER_02: 14:49

Um the the thing about black music is there was no guitars, there was no Jimi Hendrix, there was no, you know, no, there was none of that out front. Bass was the big thing. Bass drove everything big band music, soul music, Motown. Bass was, you know, you know a song by doom doom doom doom doom. That's tracks of my tears. And and then, you know, we knew, and so I was that was the thing for me, is I just like that big sound. It made me feel good. Um, and so I and then I finally got to learn how to play bass. But uh yeah, that's what attracted me to that. Uh there wasn't a good, if if I had seen Jimi Hendrix first, maybe who knows, I might have got a guitar, you know. But uh guitar just wasn't a big deal back then. Yeah. Even Chuck Berry, you know, uh in the black community, they didn't like him anyway because he sang songs to white kids about white stuff. Yeah. It was a sellout in the hood. He was, and they and they knew it. Right? Black folks didn't like him. He was he was country, he was country music with a black person. Like Charlie Pride, right? Yes, he was he was. He was the first Charlie Pride.

SPEAKER_01: 15:58

That's right. Oh my god. Well, yeah, you you spoke of him, Doug, like, but who would you cite? Like, if you could think of a couple of um artists from, you know, those formidable young boy age, that young boy age, like who would you cite as early influences for you? Who did you see that said, that's it, that that's what I want to do? Do you remember back?

SPEAKER_02: 16:25

Um there was never a time when I said, That's what I want to do, and I want to do what they're doing. Not once. What happened to me was I got so artistically obsessed with music and voices, particularly. I love the bass and I studied bass. I would walk around and make bass lines up in my head. I used to take a broom and play like I was playing bass as a child. I I was I was always a bass player in my mind. But vocally, I've been singing since before I could talk, my mother said. And singing is something that um it was just something that came natural, and I just did it all the time. And nobody told me to, or nobody told me not to. It was just, I was always singing. And and somehow they people were always making me sing for them. Uh at around three or four years old, I would be singing for people. And so I've just been singing my whole life. So it was just a part of living. Uh, and and I never thought I was any good, uh, never thought I was bad. I never thought of anything. I just tried to imitate everybody, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Mahalia Jackson, Mavis Staples, all those singers uh were just, they they gave me goosebumps. And I wanted to learn how to how to do that. And it didn't, I didn't think about getting up in front of anybody, literally. I just wanted to do it. And after a while, what happened was when I was around 18, a friend of mine said, Doug, I'm starting a rock band, you want to be the singer in it. And I'm going, I can't sing. I literally said I can't sing. He goes, Doug, what are you talking about? And I'm going, I'm not gonna be in a rock band. What are you talking about? It didn't even occur to me. And he says, No, come on down to rehearsal. I went down to rehearsal, he gave me a mic, and I never turned back. And and I remember around 23, I remember Aerosmith. I was really digging that band a lot. And I thought, wow, I'd like to be a rock star like Aerosmith and play for people. That's cool. And that's the day in my mind I decided I'm gonna do this. It was no epiphany or nothing. It was just like you just, you know, just walking up the stairs going, oh, I like that. Give me some of that. I'll take some of that. Of course. And then by the time we get to 75, I look back and go, oh wow, that was uh took a long time to make that cake.

SPEAKER_01: 18:57

Yeah, right on. Well, you mentioned in the past that you were drawn, you know, you of course were drawn to soul and R B B growing up, but how did that blend? How did that music blend with the harder rock side of things to shape King's X unique sound, right?

SPEAKER_02: 19:15

Well, see, see, rock music, rock music was always black music, Chuck Berry, it was always rock and roll. And as a kid growing up, just like in every generation, the next generation wants whatever it was that defined the generation before they want to do it harder, heavier, or more aggressive. So for me, is when I heard Led Zeppelin, it was like, oh, that soul music on 12, that's what I want. I'm 19 years old. I'm tired of the temptations in Aretha Franklin. I want something a little bit more than that, you know? And then all of a sudden there's Deep Purple and Hendricks and all this stuff, and I'm going, oh, this is the new soul music. And it still still was to me. Um, Cactus and Deep Purple. I mean, all the singers sang like they were in uh and it came from Motown, you know. Paul Rogers, everything we all wanted to be, we all wanted to be uh make soul music from our our generation, which was a little bit heavier than the previous. So, and then you know, then after that, 10 years later, we get Judas Free. So it's getting heavier. We got then 10 years later with Metallica, you know. So it just we just keep building upon every generation. So that's what it did for me. And I think Ty and Jerry says, Ty is 13 years younger than me, and Jerry's seven years younger than me, but Ty was listening to everything I was listening to when he was five and six, seven years old. And I was listening to the same music, and we we talk about the same era. It's really crazy, but our our time periods are so different. And uh, in fact, we were in the uh we were in uh uh van going to a gigger uh uh last week, and we pulled out Jojo Gunn and Fog Hat and Captain Beyond, and we were all just all three of us were laughing about that's what we grew up on, and all three of us are a different age. Yeah. You know, so and that's what that brings us together the way we play with each other, is we had that 70s mentality.

SPEAKER_01: 21:23

Well, that's the beauty of music. Like it's so there, there's so many different kinds of music. And me as a young kid growing up, I was I was drawn to that Motown sound as well. Like they say, down with the Motown sound, right? And it's I think it was that music. Maybe it was the beat or the rhythm or just the way it made you feel, but that's kind of where it all started out for me. And then I I became a rock pig, you know, like like you later on. Like I gravitated to rock music, and now I love country, I love Americana, and then you know, there's a splattering of rap in there. But I mean, it's all it's all a wonderful art, right? And it's interesting that you guys have kind of fused that together uh with so many different um, I guess, um influences. And I was curious if that was ever a challenge for the band, you know, fitting into the mainstream scene, right? Like you, you, you guys, I guess you could say you were rock, but you had so many other influences. Were there was there ever a challenge of fitting into the mainstream for you guys at all?

SPEAKER_02: 22:28

Well, it was always our dream to be like all those bands that did what they did, especially in the 90s. I mean, because all those bands were our friends and we knew them be when they were playing in the garage when their first records came out, and then we watched them, and they're all like, you know, they just sold so many records, it's staggering. And um, so for a while there was going, wow, you know, we kind of got left behind. And you don't know why until you dig deep into your life and into your soul and and realize that, you know, some things aren't meant to be, and why, you know, and and what's the outcome now? I I think that I'm glad that it didn't happen. I don't think I would be the person I am today. Um, there are there are things that I would have gone through that I don't think I was ready to do. And I think the the the um the universe spared me, you know. That's right.

SPEAKER_01: 23:23

Well, look at looking back, is there are there regrets of the path that you chose as your career? You know, you chose music as the career. Has has that you you've never wavered on that. You've never looked back and said, you know, I should have been a banker or a or a baker or whatever, right?

SPEAKER_02: 23:40

That has never ever, ever, ever in my life even come up. Okay. Literally, it's not even a thought in the back of my mind. And one thing that really helped seal that was I was about 16 years old, and I went to visit my cousin who played a lot of blues records, and he would, he played, he would play me all this stuff all the time, and I'd go down there and listen. And um one time I went down to hang out with him was a Sunday evening. I think I was about 16 or 17, and uh he got drunk. Now, in my family, if there were alcoholics, you didn't know it. We hit it, you know, people didn't really know so-and-so was drinking. But um, he got he got drunk, and I didn't realize he was drunk, but I kind of thought, hmm, kind of different. So I was going home to my mom's, and um, I walked up the stairs from the basement, and my cousin says, Dougie, you know, it's a terrible thing for a man to do the thing he doesn't want to do for the rest of his life. Just saying. Now, she was probably making apologies for my my cousin, her husband. Um, but what I saw was I will not go out and do anything other than what I want to do for the rest of my life because it is a terrible thing. Sure. When I heard terrible thing, it was like it became a phobia. It's like I've had three jobs, and all three of them were like traumatic because it was a terrible thing. It was already in my mind.

SPEAKER_01: 25:20

You you took what she told you and made it your own, is what you did.

SPEAKER_02: 25:26

Line and sinker, man.

SPEAKER_03: 25:28

Well, there's we there's a lot of us out there that thank God you did that. Because it's it's ironic for me to sit here and listen to this because uh the namesake in my band, the singer and the songwriter that I've been playing with for about 30 years, uh, he and I did the same thing. He's 13 years older than I am. And we did the same thing on the same kind of music that you were just talking about, except we also did that with King's X. Because, you know, he had things that he had listened to that I had never heard, and and you know, like you said, you share that. But we both were like, King's X? Okay, yes. You know, and when two musicians kind of click on that, you know that the band's gonna be cool because only cool people listen to King's X. It seems like it, right?

SPEAKER_01: 26:22

Well, it's amazing how ahead uh you know ahead of the curve you guys were, and you've maintained a a cult-like following over the years. What do you think it's been uh or or what do you think it is about King's X that keeps the fans loyal and connected to the band? Do you have thoughts around that?

SPEAKER_02: 26:46

I think it's kind of a love affair. The more you connect with someone, the more you love them. That a lot of things that the world might not deem as a good song, or they're old now, they can't do it like they used to. Um a true fan, a true person that's connected will watch what we do and they'll remember all of it. You know, it's like when I see Mavis Staples, she can barely hit a note, but that's my Mavis. And she moved me and I'll and I will listen to her, or or uh uh Ann Wilson, you know, from heart. I mean, she's in a wheelchair, and you can see her struggle sometimes. And I go, that's that's the greatest rock singer of the 80s ever. Yeah. I'm saying, you know, and if somebody says something bad about him, I just won't go, dude. Yeah, you know, did you do that? You gave up. So shut the fuck up. Right. You know, and and and I'm at that place too, you know, as I go, you know, how long you gonna do this before you go, okay, you know, it's not happening anymore. So, you know, we're all will deal with that. And uh, but it's but that's what I think it's like, because when I hear Paul Rogers, I haven't played that Paul Rogers song like five or six years, okay. I haven't heard his voice, and he's one of my favorite singers in the whole world. And when he sings, he makes me laugh because he just the way he puts things and how and I laugh because I stole so much from him. But um, he'll I I pulled up uh um uh Bad Company Live about 10 years ago, and I played it yesterday, and I just for the heck of it, I put it on while I was doing something. And and he was like, he we're the same age, and he was putting this stuff out, and you could hear him go places where he normally wouldn't go, and you could hear him hit notes that that had a different kind of rasp, and I'm going, yeah. And you know, I just enjoyed it, and I'm going, that's my guy. Yeah, and I I think that's what we do. That's what we do with the bands that we love. You know, that's our people, and uh, they can do no wrong in in many ways, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 28:58

Well, I was talking to uh, she's become a great friend of mine. We've played golf a couple of times, and you probably remember the name from 101 K L O L here in Houston. Dana's gill. That's right. I love her. And uh, you know, she is a really good friend with uh Paul Rogers, and I told her she she's done the podcast with me, and she also co-hosted my show with the Z the guys from Zebra, right? And uh, and I told her, I said, silver, blue, and gold, like to me, that's one of the the best bad company songs. Uh I just love that tune. Did you have a bad company song that you gravitated to with Paul Rogers?

SPEAKER_02: 29:39

Well, before Bad Company was free, so my cousin called me up one day and said, Doug, go get this record, this band called Free. And he says, This singer, man, he sounds blacker than anybody I've ever heard. And back in the day, you could always tell if a white guy was trying to sing soulful, there was this, there was a little teeny bit of inflection that just wasn't there, and we knew it. And Paul nailed it so well that I literally, my cousin called me and said, Go listen to this guy. And I put that first word, what it was the All Right Now album on, played it backwards and forwards and sang it note for note and learned every inflection like I did Stevie Wonder. And and then after that, uh, the next record I found because I didn't, you know, we didn't buy a lot of records back then. The record, there's little record stores in Joliet and Braidwood, and you couldn't find nothing, and we didn't have real radio that played a lot of stuff. So the next record I found by them was called Free at Last, which was their last record, I guess. And that became my favorite record of Free. And I won that record note for Note word for word, you know. And then I'm in in Florida, and the band breaks up, and I'm going, Oh no. And then all of a sudden I'm riding down the road and the radio comes on. This song called I Can't Get Enough of Your Love. And I went, that's him. And then at that point, I went and bought that record and learned everything he sang note for note. And uh from that point on, he's just been my guy. Wow. You know, him and Mark Farner was before that. Sure. Were you a before tried to be Mark Farner? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 31:23

Were you a fan of Steve Winwood at all?

SPEAKER_02: 31:26

You know, I think Steve Wynwood had an awesome voice, but he didn't, but but it was he didn't keep me there. It was probably just the music. Okay. The music was different than what I was looking for at the time, I think. And I put and I put traffic on now and and and even still go, dude, that guy had a really good voice. And he didn't, he sounded completely black. I mean, he passed the black test too. But uh, I just never paid a lot of attention to him. I think it was he didn't yell and scream like Aretha did and stuff. Paul could belt it out and and get that old gospel growl thing going. And uh Steve Winwood had this like smooth voice, like uh uh uh uh McDonald, uh, what's his face? Michael McDonald McDonald. McDonald, both of them. They sound just like black guys, but there's no power. It's just like they're they're the crooners. Yeah. Sit down and sing to the ladies, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 32:22

So you so you're saying, so you're saying that Wynwood and Rogers get a pass to the barbecue, right? That's what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02: 32:28

Yeah, they get a pass. They they do get a pass. Um everybody, everybody, right now, everybody gets a pass because I've been going back systematically listening to a lot of those singers I dismissed because I thought they sounded a little too white, or like uh, you know, I never really appreciated uh Greg Alman. I mean, my God, you know, that guy, it's like, come on, nobody ever said how fucking great he was as a singer. Jeez. Yeah, and he just never got much credit, you know, could maybe could sit and be on the piano, you know. But um, you know, just there's a lot of great people. Like my cousin used to, he used to always turn me on the white singers that sounded black, and his favorite singer was uh uh uh Humble Pie, what's his face? Steve Mary Hyder. And he would always go, well, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. And he just got so hard because he didn't, he didn't smooth it out. He went, it was like a piano.

SPEAKER_01: 33:25

Very staccato, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 33:26

Yeah, and I thought, man, that's a little too staccato. And he goes, No, that's great.

SPEAKER_01: 33:30

And we used to argue over inflections and voices and stuff. That's crazy. Well, I wanted to touch real quick on songwriting. Uh you are known as a powerful thought-provoking lyricist. How does Doug Penick approach songwriting? Are you a melody first guy? Are you a music first guy? Are you a lyric first guy? Talk to the listeners a little bit about your songwriting style.

SPEAKER_02: 33:58

I do it the hardest way possible. And it's it just started out as convenience, but uh that's it. What happens is I think of a drumbeat and I pull up a drum beat, then I grab a guitar and just start playing around until I find something that I think has a groove and a beat. Then I put some a bass line on it, and then I'll make up another part, you know, and I'll just keep doing it until I get tired. But Magnum Over's was like eight parts. And and then I put them all together, and and back in the day, before I could cut and paste, I memorized them all. And I programmed the drum machine to do all the parts, and then I just play the song over and over again until I found a groove and made it all work. And would, you know, it takes me hours to stop and play the whole song again, play the guitar, and changed one part and stuff, but it was fun, it was like a video game. And then at that point, when the song is done, and it's like it all my all my songs before the vocals were always slammed. You know, I just thought, damn, this fucking slammed so hard. And then I go, no, I gotta find a melody to put on it and words. And I go, where am I gonna think? And and so I would ride around town for days playing like 10, 12, 13 songs with no lyrics until just things would just pop in as I would just be listening to it. And all of a sudden I'd hear something, and all of a sudden I'd catch something. I go, there it is, of course, got it. And I'd come home and put it down, and then I'd try to start working on lyrics, and it's like, what am I gonna say? I don't know. And so I go, how do you feel? This is how I feel. I go, well, just think about how you feel and whatever's going on, and so I just kind of do that, and um, I don't pay a lot of attention to it. Now I go back and read the lyrics and go, Jesus, Doug, you were crying out for help, you were depressed, you were lost, you were fucking sounding suicidal. What the hell was going on, dude? You were really in pain, right? You know, and I'm going, oh yeah, I was, wasn't I? You know, trying to, you know, going through religion, going through being gay, going through the band, not being like we wanted it getting over, you know, all the shame, the hatred, the the oh god, the praise of the worship, and the you know, and the whole opposite, you know, feeling like like one person thinks you're the greatest thing in the world, and the other person thinks you don't even matter. They don't even hate you. You don't even matter. You don't even accept the worst. Yeah, and that and then even in the record company, they said, you know, the worst thing in a band is when people are indifferent. They either love you or they hate you. Though you're you'll be successful, but if they're indifferent, it's a kiss of death, and that's what King's X is. When people come see us, they're on their feet. We blow everybody away. Every time we were opening bands, we would stomp and the people go nuts. Nobody go buy the records. Never. It's love was played on MTV between Madonna and Motley Crew every day at 2 o'clock. We sold no records. We played Woodstock at the perfect time when the sun went down. And uh MTV said we woke the crowd up. Howard Stern said we blew everybody away, and USA Today said we were on the top five bands. And the next month we sold about 250 records, and the record tanked, and Atlantic put us back in the studio to make your candy. And that's when we realized that we go, okay, we're we're looking at this wrong. We're going at this wrong. Um, this is not our destiny, so let's go back to ground zero and figure out why we're doing this.

SPEAKER_03: 37:52

Well, some people bought records because I bought them all.

SPEAKER_02: 37:55

Oh, yeah, I know, I know, I know you did.

SPEAKER_01: 37:59

Byrne said he bought all 250 of them, Doug. Thank you. Thank you. You're the one. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_03: 38:06

There was an interview that uh Brendan O'Brien did just recently.

SPEAKER_02: 38:10

I saw it.

SPEAKER_03: 38:11

Yeah, and it's there's eight minutes of it, which is great because he talks about when you all make dog man, it's my favorite. And uh, you know, he gets towards the end and and Beato asks him you know what he thought when it came out and and what the reception was. And he kind of looks at it and he goes, I was pissed. Literally, he said I was pissed because he knew how good that record was. You guys knew how and I saw that Woodstock performance, and you know I can't imagine being the guys that created it. And because I was just a fan going, What the fuck is wrong with you people? This is the best record out, you know. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 38:53

Well, you know, I I had uh Doug, I had Michael Sweet, the lead singer for Striper on my show, and we were talking about uh writing lyrics, and he was a he told me he's a structured writer. Like every day, let's just say 10 o'clock a.m. He goes and he sits down and he just it's it's time to write, right? And he just spills out on paper whatever in an hour or 30 minutes. I don't remember the exact uh amount of time, but it it you're not structured like that. You just let it hit you whenever it hits you. You don't have a defined time every day that you sit down and try to write songs, right?

SPEAKER_02: 39:31

There's no way I could ever do that. Okay, it's either it comes to me or it doesn't. Okay. If I if I sit down and try to work on something, I'll I'll just get frustrated and my brain will just stop because you know it has to all be natural for me. Everything, if if any anytime I calculate anything, I hate it.

SPEAKER_01: 39:49

Yeah, it makes sense.

SPEAKER_02: 39:51

It sounds fabricated, right? Yeah, and that's just me personally. It's not anybody else's thing, it's just the way I am.

SPEAKER_01: 39:58

Well, when you when you guys, Ty and Jerry, I'm speaking about, are in the studio. Do do all of you guys contribute to the music equally, or does one bring the main ideas and the band works together to build on those ideas? Talk about the creativity between the three of you guys when it comes to writing music, right?

SPEAKER_02: 40:20

Well, it's all three. I mean, we did three records where we just got together and wrote the record together. Um, and then all the records, all the rest of the records we brought songs in. And some of the songs might change, and most of them pretty much stayed the same. Um I think the magic with King's X is that it's about how we deliver the song after we write it. Because I remember our last record, uh, I remember I wrote um oh, I forgot the name of the song now. Um Swipe Out. And I wrote it with my, you know, superior drummer, and it was almost Sugar It Out, and it had all this stuff to it. And when the guys learned it, you know, Jerry turned it around and made a John Bonham playing with the cruel groove. And uh, I remember after we laid the first track down, I went into the studio to listen, and I went, yeah, that's King's X. There it is. Yep. You know, that that that kind of connected kind of thing that we put the way we played. And and I don't I've only beg I've only just begun to recognize it. Sure.

SPEAKER_01: 41:39

So I didn't I go ahead.

SPEAKER_03: 41:43

I know obviously King's X and then two of the side projects you did are KXM, which I absolutely love. And and the PDP, they're all trios. So I it looks like there's something in in in the three-piece that you're really, really comfortable with.

SPEAKER_02: 42:05

No, I just don't know any key, I don't know any keyboard players. It's just one more ego to add to the band, right? No, it's like I I I was every band I was in had a keyboard player until I got together and started King's X. Every band I was in before that, and started King's X in 1980, and I was 30. So all the bands I played in from the time I was 18 to 30 had a keyboard player and two guitar players. And uh, and most of most of them I sang in too. But uh, you know, for some reason, when I met Ty and Jerry, there was no keyboards around, and so we just we got another guitar player because it was kind of like that rock and roll thing anyway. We had two guitar players, and so uh Dan McCullough, his name, McCullough was his name, and um he lived with me, and me and him and Jerry started jamming, and then Ty came in and we were a four-piece band, and Dan left a month after we became a band, and uh Ty brought in his friend Kurt from Mississippi and stayed with us for a couple years, and then Kurt left, and and then we says, Well, we got to get somebody else in the band, and then we said, Let's just do it three-piece, and we did. And that's how I mean it literally it was just one thing after there was no real thought behind it.

SPEAKER_01: 43:24

It just dawned on me just a second ago. We you know, we were talking about uh Ty and Jerry, and I have a a buddy here in Houston who I I play golf with from time to time, but he played drums on several of Ty's projects. Do you know Randy St. Randy St. John? Yeah, I know Randy, been known him since before the record. Yeah, yeah, you probably knew him. If you were here in the 80s, you knew of Sweet Savage back in the Oh yeah, they used to go down to Houston and me and Ty go see him play. Yeah, of course. Well, you guys have, you know, speaking of you know, playing the venues and stuff, you guys have played some pretty incredible places. Are there any favorite, is there a favorite tour story that that sticks out, you know, and all the places that you've played all over the place? Is there one story of the road that sticks out in your mind? I'm sure you have stories for days, but I didn't know.

SPEAKER_02: 44:21

I'm trying to think of one I haven't told before. Um there's so many of them though. Uh I think one of the funniest things, this is a funny thing, with with we were on tour with ACDC, and uh the band took us out to dinner one night, and we were in a town that was about 50 miles away at a hotel, and they were at another place, and they got a car to come get us, and we drove 100 miles an hour all the way there on the autobound Jerry and Kai was scared to death, and that was great. I had a great time. I thought it was badass because the roads are so smooth. But but when we got to the restaurant, Brian talks a lot, but you don't know what he's saying. He has a really strong Welch or whatever his accent. I never can understand that. All I know is the lodge.

SPEAKER_01: 45:21

Is it is it kind of like James Brown?

SPEAKER_02: 45:24

No, it's it's it's it's it's like going to Scotland and going, What did you say? I mean, literally, you couldn't tell you don't know what he's saying. Of course. And and and we're we're getting our food, and Angus was sitting next to me. Now, brand had been going on and on the whole time we're talking, and everybody's just laughing. Everybody's and I'm going, what are you saying? And so, and so I so I looked over at Angus and I said, Angus, what do you say? He said, just laugh. That's what we do. That's funny. That's a great story. Oh my God. They never had nothing, never serious anything to say. They everything they said was real witty and funny. Wow. Just hilarious.

SPEAKER_01: 46:03

Just play along, right? Just play along and play. What's it like being on stage for you these days? And how do you still stay connected with the audience night after night or show after show after all these years of playing, Doug?

SPEAKER_02: 46:19

I just look out at the crowd and go, you motherfuckers have been following us for 10, 20, 30 years. And you have sat in your bedroom crying, listening to King's X. King's X, you got married to King's X, your kids are named after King's X, you love King's X. And I go, You're my family, and it's like, here, here, look, I'm gonna give you some more. This is what you want. Let's do this, let's just have a good time. I see you, you see me. Let's have a good time. And that's all that goes through my mind. And the other thing is, you know, not being able to to maybe be as spry as I used to be 20 years ago. It's it kind of um it concerns me sometimes because I don't want to let people down. But you know, but you know, I just want to do my best and I just want everybody to know that I am trying. But uh, yeah, so and you know, I look out at the cloud and go, geez, we've been doing this forever. And I go, wow. Well, I guess we'll just keep doing it. Sure. I mean, literally, we just and all three of us just look at each other and go, you know, why are we still doing this? And we just got, I guess, because we can. Yeah. I mean, we literally have this kind of like dumbfoundedness in us because we don't understand why we ain't giving this up. We still don't know why. I mean, because the odds were against us from day one. And I remember the first time we broke up, we were in a Hobbes, New Mexico, and we got fired from this cover shop cover thing because the the club owner said we played too loud, and the only things were on was the monitors. And he, I guess it was and he fired us, and two days in, and we started on a Monday, and he fired us, and so we were going to go home. And he says, if you stay, we'll pay for your hotel rooms and play a party that he was having that Saturday night, which was weird. So we stayed and played the party, and and during that time we were sitting in a hotel for three days going, why are we doing this? And we officially said, let's break up, let's just get on with our life. And as soon as we said, is this official? And we all went, maybe not. And and we had no reason to say why, but we just didn't want to break up. And now I tell people the only reason King's X hasn't broke up is because none of us want to take credit for it. It's like your parents with the kids, you know, no, we're not gonna get a divorce, we're gonna die together, bitch. We're not gonna break up.

SPEAKER_01: 48:53

You don't you you don't you don't want to be the shit bag in the band that announces that?

SPEAKER_02: 48:59

Because that's when all the that's when all the shit flies. All the hate that, all the hate that everybody held inside. 100%. Yeah, well, Doug sang all the songs because Ty wouldn't let him.

SPEAKER_01: 49:11

You know, I can't I can hear those stories. Well, you of course are the bass guitarist in the band. How how did you get started on the the bass? But is it just because of kind of the Motown thing, or was it because it was the only instrument around? Talk to the listeners a little. Why not piano, right? Like, why the bass guitar for you, Doug?

SPEAKER_02: 49:35

Um, a piano was an obsession too, but I was just never around one. Whenever I got to a piano, I got on it, and I tried to play and make chords up to this point. I can play chords, but there was never a piano around. Um and if there was one around the relatives, I was always told not to play because I was punking. So they didn't understand. So my point is I just made music up in my head. I played the drums, I played the guitar, I played everything. And I and I visualized a whole song, a whole band, a whole everything that went on. But the bass was the thing that when I listened to music, it was the thing that I just, gosh, it gave me goosebumps. Oh, yeah. It really, really did. And the first time, dude, I was, I don't know how old I was when I first saw a bass, because I lived in Braidwood at the time, and then I moved to Joe Ed, and there was no music stores around, they even had bass, and there was no bands playing, you know, local bands in the area. So there was like, I very seldom saw an instrument to pick up to play until I was about 18. That's when I started playing in rock bands where people have guitars, and I'd pick the guitar up and turn it upside down and grab the guy's slide and learn how to play Dwayne Allman and then give them his guitar back. Right. And I'd take it, take a guitar home, or or I'd go to rehearsals and get on the keyboards and write songs and play chords and make up songs. And then when the keyboard player comes, I go, I wrote this song, it goes like this. I couldn't play it well, but I go, it goes like this. Can you play it faster? And he goes, Oh, yeah, I go, that's what I want. Now the bass goes bong, gong, gong. And then I grabbed my bass and play it, but I always had these things going on in my head. Um, but the bass itself was a complete obsession to the point where, like I said, I walked around the house playing bass with a broom. Um and the thing, and and piano, what I loved about piano was the grand piano had these bass lines. And I'll go to when you play like American bands saying, go do, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom. The bass notes, it was so clean and clear. And it was a bass, bass notes. And so for me, I think it was just that texture is what I was attracted to. Because I love because I love tubers. I heard this jazz uh uh Cajun band play with a tuba through uh SVT, and it was like the most humongous sound. It was like that thing. And the other thing is uh I played baritone saxophone when I was 12. And the thing was as big as I was, I could barely march with it. You know, I almost drug the ground, but it went and we're I was you know playing that big band comedy music. And so that whole I put all those things together and it made this bass in my head and this sound that I heard, and I incorporated all those things into my fingers when I got a bass when I was 23. And that's what I've been trying to do ever since.

SPEAKER_01: 52:49

Is it is it safe to say, like, would would you consider yourself a multi-instrumentalist though, or do you just consider yourself a bass player?

SPEAKER_02: 53:00

I consider myself just a bass player, but it's bullshit. It's just that I like playing bass and I feel like I'm a good bass player. Okay. Everything else I can do, but I don't think I mastered it. So, like when I put solo records out, I play all the guitars, but I always have somebody come and do a lead because if I had a guitar and practice like all guitar players did, I'd be a lead player. I could I'd be able to smoke if I because I can do it, but I didn't practice. So I don't feel like I can match up to the quality of of the standard that's in my head. But at the same time, yeah, I could be in a band, I can play guitar. You know, uh I ain't no Eric Clapton, but I can I can hold my own. Uh and um in drumming, I would be a horrible drummer. It's just the timing is something that I never honed into because it wasn't wasn't something that was important in my musical upbringing, which I wish it was. Timing wasn't, I speed up and slow down, I play behind the beat, all that kind of stuff. So, and I have a drum set and I've got on it and played with it, and I thought, oh man, you pretty badass. And one time I recorded myself and I said, oh my God, Doug. I mean, I'm thinking you are way worried. You're not. I mean, uh-uh. And it was it was like watching somebody doesn't know how to play drums. Right. And I thought, whoa, but I can, but I can I can beat a fierce superior drummer programmer, you know, because I know what I want to hear in my head on drums, but I just my hands ain't going. I again, it's it everything takes time to practice, and I didn't take time except for bass. I sat and played bass for hours and hours and hours and hours, and I sang for hours and hours and hours and hours until people tell me to shut up.

SPEAKER_01: 54:56

I feel your pain because when I play with with uh Vern, he's like, speed it up, slow it down, tune the guitar. Hey, come on, man.

SPEAKER_02: 55:08

Oh God, I put so many records out when the guitars are out of tune.

SPEAKER_01: 55:12

Uh just a little bit more reverb, a little bit more uh see there, Vern, when I'm out of tune, I'll just say from now on, well, well, Doug's out of tune. It's cool, man.

SPEAKER_02: 55:24

I'm notorious for I'm notorious for covering things up instead of going back and fix it. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01: 55:32

You know, I just remember, Doug, that I I think it was 1992. I met you. I was working part-time at Sound Warehouse on Westheimer and Derry Ashford. I lived in that place. And and you came in, and I remember pulling a Gretchen Goes to Nebraska uh CD off the shelf, and I had you sign it. I still have that in my studio uh to this day. But do you remember the do you remember the store? I guess you know.

SPEAKER_02: 56:03

I remember that store I went through every week to buy new records. Obsessed. God, that's I had I had over 4,000 CDs. I don't know how many albums I had. That's all I did was buy music and listen to it. I mean, it was, I mean, I didn't have a life. I still don't, but uh I still do music, but I don't listen to as much music as I used to, but uh, I mean, I'd go to bed listening to music, wake up, and it was all day, all day, all night.

SPEAKER_01: 56:30

You know what's funny? You know what's funny is when I was working there, I was a I was a young married guy, had just gotten married, and my wife, Terry, and I wanted to buy our first house. So I was working at Chevron at the time, uh, doing IT work. And I said, Well, I'm gonna go out and get a second job. You know, I want to get the down payment for our first house. And I, that's where I went to Sound Warehouse. And I I would come home week after week, and she's like, Well, when do you when do you get paid? And I said, Well, I've I've been paid several times. And she's like, But there's no more money in the bank account. And I said, Well, I I keep buying all the records in the store with the money. It's like the money wasn't ever getting home into the the account. So I had to I had to quit that gig because you know you were you were spending spending up all the money I was making on records, man. You know? She called you out. Well, back to the guitar, real quick. Uh, do you have a bass guitar that you consider your working guitar? And if you do, talk about that guitar and why that's the one that is the stage guitar.

SPEAKER_02: 57:33

I don't. Um I've I've had endorsements since we got a record deal. So I've had Dean, Schechter, I have Schechter now. I had Yamaha, left Yamaha, went to Dean, then went back to Schechter and Hamer. And um they all made me great basses, and I played them. Um I'm not a gearhead. I'm not the kind of guy that picks up a guitar and says action's too high or too low. I kind of just I I get my tone. Yeah. As long as I got my tone, I kind of I just beat that guitar down in the in the in the and I beat them bad. You know, it's like I play them hard, they're they're I don't keep them up. Uh, and they're just I call them my babies, and they fall over and I'm broken necks, and um that's why I'm with my guitarist. I'm not I'm not nice to them and I'm not mean to them. They're just they serve a purpose, right? They make me work. That's what I like about them. They make me work when I play I I have this one bass, or two of them actually, that were given to me from this uh company in France. I forgot the name of them, but uh they gave them to us in France when we played over there a decade ago or more. And these basses are the best basses I've ever played. They feel perfect, they play perfect, they sound perfect. And when I try to play it outside of maybe tracking with it, I stop playing because I don't feel like I'm playing anything. It's like it's so easy that I forget I'm playing it. And I I even I even just kind of stop playing. I'm going, oh, wait a minute, because it's not yanking and not bending the strings, and you know what I'm saying, or or I'm a little out of tune, I gotta pull it back, you know. All that stuff is a part of the emotion. It I let me say it this way: great basses I can't be emotional with. I can't play emotional. They've gotta be like rough, flawed guitars that I have to struggle to get get me out of. And and that's what makes me uh the way I play bass. Um, you know, a couple people have helped me understand that when, you know, when I'm playing with somebody and they'll say, Doug, here's the way the part goes, and I'll play the part that they want me to play. And then and then um they'll say, Dude, just play what you'll play. And all of a sudden I'll play the same thing, but the way I would play it, and then and they'd stop and go, now that's what we're looking for. And I realize it's the way I slide into things, the way I hit the notes. It's a little, it's a to me, bass is like any other instrument. It has to have a voice. Every guitar you hear, you know who that guitar player is. They got the the way they shake that string, you go, oh, that's Jimmy Page, oh, that's Clapton. You know, but bass players, you really can't tell too much. Well, unless you're John Entwistle, Bat Radical, or uh Chris Squire, which are two of my favorite bass players ever. But but and and like Jamie Jameson was like that. They played with in intention and and added to the the voice of the the construction of the band, which is very, very important. And a lot of bass players just play along, they play the note perfectly, they hit it perfectly, and that's great, but that's not what I create. Sure. It has to have that loose thing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:24

Well, Vern, does this does Doug's answer there? I know this probably is that what you expected to hear? Because Vern is a kind of uh the techie uh gearhead guitarist, right? And I know he knows an awful lot about that stuff, but did you expect Doug not to be the techie guy, right? What did you expect?

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:44

Well, I was gonna ask him if that's why he went to 12 strings because four strings was too easy. No, he likes the struggle.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:52

No, no, it bought the 12, the 12 string is a fucking struggle, man. But uh um, and the 12 string is a whole different animal. The 12 strings are built really well, the strings are really low. It's real easy to play because there's so many strings. I have to, it keeps my attention. So the 12, the 12, if you played my 12 string, you'd feel the difference immediately in the way the strings are set up. But the reason I play 12 string is because I'm a cheap trick fan. Cheap trick came from Chicago. I'm 20, I'm 26 years old, and I put this record on called, you know, this bass comes on, goes, I'd love if you want it. And I'm going, what is this bass? And go see Cheap Trick and this Tom Peterson with the 12 strings. I'm going, what the fuck is that? And he says, Oh, we make them, you know, with a hamer. And he let me play his one time. He just handed it to me and said, try it. And he put it on me left-handed upside down, and I just kind of plunked on it. And I'm going, whoa. And he said, get a hold of Hamer and get some. And I did. And that was the day, you know, and the thing about me being known for playing the 12 is because I think on almost all the videos, maybe two that weren't, but all the videos that we have done, I was playing the 12 string in them. And I remember even when Sam was with us when we do a video, I'd go, Sam, I didn't play a 12 string on this song. He goes, played the 12 string. And I think it was a visual thing. And so at this, at this point, a lot of people think I originated it and they think I play it on all the records. And I've well, I played 12 string on maybe one song on the last seven records. Uh Faith Oak Love, I played it almost, I mean, like 80% of that record. And uh Gretchen, I didn't use a 12-strong on Gretchen, I only had it uh eight-string. And uh I only used it on Out of Sign of the Planet, and Dogman I only used a 12-string on one song. Uh and well, I think I used a 12-string on the fourth album, like half of that record to Big Picture and Lost in Germany and stuff. Yeah, I was really into that 12 with those two records, but after that I kind of lost interest. Sure.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:12

So it was a little surprising um to answer Randy's question. Only because your tone and here I am gonna geek out on gear. Your tone, you were one of the first people that I was aware of that did the signal splitting. And because I could never figure it out, right? So if you listen to Doug's tone, it's it's clean and it's dirty. And it's like it's got clarity and and a chime, and it's all fucked up all at the same time. Yeah like perfectly, and it's like, how the hell is this happening? You can't he's not doubling it because you you can hear that when somebody goes in and doubles it. Like there's two tones making one tone, and and so and I I can't remember who told me uh about when you split the signal and then you treat one differently than the the other. Um so there's a little bit of tech going on.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:24

I I I am a tone, I'm a tone fanatic. Yeah, you give you give me a uh uh I mean that's my problem is is is I know every frequency and what where they go. I sit down, I mean I in my car I had a 12-band EQ, and by the time the record was over, I finally EQ'd it the way I wanted to hear it. And it got to the point where after a few years, I pulled it out and just ran it flat and said, stop. You can't enjoy the music because you're too busy getting rid of the kick drum that you hate or the snare that was bugging you, or the high end in the vocal. You know, go people don't listen to music this way, Doug. Stop. And uh so so I had to cut back on that. But but yeah, tone, I'm a geek on tone. I mean, I've played every amp that you can think of to get that crystally, chimey tone. And the thing is, I've never been able to get it since I got those trainers. When I got the trainer bass amp, it there was no low end in it at all, but the high end had this crystally chimey, just it was beautiful. And then I saw, and I used to play with that amp with no bottom end, basically, with a folded 18 cabinet. So it was a little bit of low-end coming out. But I went and saw yes in like 73 or 74, I think it was 75, but no, it was 76. And he had um an amp, uh a Marshall cabinet in the head, and acoustic cabinet in a base head. And I went, so that's how he does it. So I went and got the trainer, and then I got a bass amp, and I sat them next to each other and turned them on, and there it was. I didn't even really do anything. And it was like, okay, I got my grit and I got my clean. And through the years, I've perfected it to the point where I got a pedal, and and I know every frequency that's needed. That if you listen to that pedal, the pedal, if you plug it in, if you notice you don't have to hardly do any tweaking, but the bass is everywhere, but it doesn't cut anybody out. And that that's the thing about the pedal is I have EQ'd for the last 20 years, maybe, I've learned to EQ all the things out of my bass that drowns out anything that's coming from the guitar, keyboards, or vocals. So my EQ, it's a secret, but if you saw my EQ, it would freak you out. And I remember when we were making my pedal, and I didn't show him that. I was trying to get it all of it out of just what they had, and we weren't getting my sound, and he says, Doug, he says, You gotta show me this. He said, Here, he threw up a 32-band EQ and said, Give me your EQ. And I went, and I hit the note, and there it was, and he goes, So that's how you do it. And so they incorporated it into pretty much all the all the pedals now. And uh it's a part of uh it's a part of my uh reward, I guess. You know, yeah. But uh so so you know, it's like I'm a gearhead, I'm a gear freak, but I guess everything in my life is uh it's selective. Some things I could care less about, and then the thing that you didn't think I would even care about, I'm so into that it drives me crazy and keeps me up all night. That's why it takes me so long to mix a solo record, is because it's all about frequencies. Yeah. My ears are different every day, or I'll get in my car and go up in the mountains, and all of a sudden I hear high-end different. And I run home and try to take it out of my voice, and all of a sudden I get home and go, why does it sound muddy? And go, stop the madness, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:18

Well, you gave me hope because you said that you actually did manage to stop that. So I'm hoping in 20 years I won't do that anymore because I do the scene.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:27

Yeah. Here's what I do, here's what I do now is I just put everything up flat and listen to it and go, This is how people listen to music, and this is how they hear it. And and and I go through different bands even, and some bands are heavier, have a more of a dogman power, some are real thin, some are overcompressed, some are so scratchy, I go, how could they even put this out? You know, and I sit there and go, you know, nobody really gives a fuck about how it sounds anymore. And nobody's really listening to songs, music on anything that's state of the art that tells them that it even sounds good.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:07

It's all coming out of a fucking iPhone speaker these days, right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:11

Right. And so you have to just stop and go, man, I mean, why am I doing this? It's because I like to do it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:16

Well, you'll make your you'll make yourself crazy. And I was gonna say, of a hundred people that intake music, you you are one in a hundred that would drive yourself crazy like that. The other 99 do just what you said. They don't, they, I mean, they don't even hear the parts, they don't hear the story in the song, they just hear sound, right? And it's it's really that is the extent of how people listen to music. I mean, Vern, look at the places that that we play, and I and I we we could joke around and say, well, we suck, nobody listens to us, but that's not true, right? But people are so absorbed with technology, their cell phone, or in their own worlds of conversation, they're they don't they don't listen to live music like that anymore. It's just a bizarre thing, right? Yeah, but I do. And well, yeah, but yeah, I'm talking about the you're the one in the 100 thing, right? You know, Doug's the one in the 100, and I'm the one in the 100. We all three do, because we're musicians like that. But if you're not a musician, you're not listening for those intricacies that us guys are.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:26

But there's there's something to that, you know, because the uh three sides, when that came out, I of course it was a big deal to me. And I got it, and I sat down and I turned the phone off, and you know, I did what I don't do uh very often anymore, which is I sat down and listened to the whole thing. And I did that with another record, and I won't name the band, but they used to have sonically incredible records. And this was a brand new record they put out, and it sounded not good to me. So when I put on modern, right? Yeah, and they say, you know, it was recut in Nashville, and I'm like, this should sound better. They put on three sides, and you know, uh is it Flood is the first song, I think. And you know, that I was like, yes, yes, because it sounds good, and that's such a big deal, you know, when you're a fan of a band that uh so you know I'm not ready to not EQ the shit out of stuff yet.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:41

We did we did that record as analog as we could. Everything there was nothing that was digital except for Pro Tools on that record.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:50

And you can hear it. I mean, it just sounds huge.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:53

Doug, what are you working on right now, either with Kings X or outside projects that you would like to share with the listeners of Backstage Pass Radio that you can share with us?

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:07

Um uh you mean just information or music?

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:11

Uh music, uh any anything, production, anything that you have going on musically, right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:17

Oh well, I mean, what I'm doing is I'm finishing up my solo record, uh, the mixes. Um, it's kind of I'm just in the tweak loop. Uh and um really sorry. Um, yeah, I'm in the tweak loop, which I'm just going back and driving myself crazy. Uh, but it's almost finished uh in that case, and I'm gonna send it to the master guy. Um and I'm just gonna keep on writing some tunes. Um I'm working on a cooking show, actually. Um uh one of my roommates uh has a degree in in uh film, and we're getting together with a couple people, and I'm gonna do a series of cooking things because I love to cook a rock and roll cooking show. Because I I I cook a lot at the house. I got this big kitchen where I got everything you want. It's like I love to cook. And um, so I'm gonna do that, and um and um just you know get out there on social media. I wanna, you know, uh endorsers give me so much stuff, and I'm one of those musicians that I don't say nothing about it. I'm too busy doing what I do. I'm a musician, I don't go out selling myself, I don't even think about it. But I just want to do a project where I I do a few things and post them with my endorsers' names to let everybody know that this is what I'm using to thank them. Yeah, you know, and just to to be thankful because I've been become very thankful lately as to all the stuff that I've gotten through the years for free from so many, you know, of these companies and stuff because they love what I do. Sure. Sure.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:00

Any anything by way of shows or tours that uh you would want to speak of?

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:09

No, because by the time you move do this, I mean we're playing in Florida, some Florida shows. I won't even know the dates, but within about two weeks. Okay. But I don't know when you're gonna post this, so who knows? Yeah. It's just, yeah, we're just out doing what we do. We're thinking about doing a new record, King's X's. And um, you know, no news on that, but I got a whole bunch of songs, and Ty's got a bunch of tunes, and Jerry does too. So we're gonna get back in there and and do do something else and uh keep on doing what we do.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:38

Yeah, that's what you gotta do. That's all you can do. Uh yeah. Let's wrap up with a uh I have a a few quick fire questions that I thought would be fun for the listeners out there and and for the fans of King's X. So you can answer these um with a simple one-answer, uh, one-word answer, or you can elaborate however Doug Pennick would like to do it. I'll do my best at not elaborating. There you go. Uh favorite album of all times, not King's X related. Wow. Favorite album of all. I didn't say the questions would be easy. I just said they were quick fire crossers.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:20

I I like hard questions. I like hard questions. Line of Family Stone's greatest hits.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:26

Interesting. Vern, do you have one? Um put you on the spot too.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:32

My favorite record of all time? Today? I have it's rumors.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:39

Okay, would you? That's a good record. Ain't no wrong with that one. And then if I if I flip that question around and said favorite King's X record and why, now I know that's kind of like you know, having kids and calling, you know, several of your babies ugly. But but do you have one that that just resonates with you more than the others?

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:11

I think that emotionally and where I was at mentally and what was going on in our career in our life. Your candy, no, not your candy, but uh tape head is my favorite. There's just something about something about that record that I listen to it when I if I do play it, and I don't find anything wrong with it because there was nobody tapping me on my shoulders telling me we gotta sell records. We didn't have we had just signed with Metal Blade Records, and they didn't care, they just wanted us to make music, and I didn't have uh there was no pressure making that record, yeah, none whatsoever, and it was just wonderful.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:54

Wow. What about you, Vern? Did you have a favorite Kings X record?

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:59

Uh Dog Man.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:01

Oh, of course, well, of course, because of where I was, you know, yeah. Um I was the guitar tech for Bo Didley's guitar player at the time um in New York, and he got an advanced copy. Um and we were in his car and he put it on. And I was let's see, that came out in 1994. So yeah, I was um 20. Oh, I'm like I fucked you up. Well, so I literally sat there and my jaw was open when I heard that come out. And real quick, and Randy knows this because I told it on a different podcast, but I used to take records from my stepmother because she had a great record collection. Uh permanently borrowed them. So I was thinking on on the way to come do this, you know, about King's X memories, and and it occurred to me, and this is true, it occurred to me that my son and his friends lifted my dogman CD. It disappeared. And I was mad for like three seconds, and then I thought, yeah. Because they're paying attention. All right.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:27

That makes me smile. That's cool. That's a cool story. I do, I do, I do remember making that record, and we would come home from the studio, and I had a ghetto blaster, and we would record the mix that day, you know, even before vocals or anything, just the band tracks. And me and Jerry would sit in the hot the house that we were rented and play just the band tracks. And we would sit there and go, This is the heaviest shit I ever heard. And and we just sit there and go, I cannot wait till people hear this. I mean, we were just like, What? I mean, I remember I remember human behavior with no vocals. It was like brutal. And it was like we were just so happy. We couldn't wait for this record to come out. And uh, but so that would that that was, I mean, that's one of the my fun times of making a record. It was it was very uh rewarding. Uh, because before the four years, the four records before that, you go into the studio and remember back in the studio, they taped everything was on tape and everything was flat, and they EQ'd and mixed everything after everything was recorded perfectly. And so you never know what the mix is gonna sound like, and it always came out sounding like these shitty 80 mixes, like docking and stuff. And and and you never you couldn't go back and fix anything. And and when Brendan, we went in the studio with Brendan, he was completely not like that. He was the new guy that came to town and said, We're done with that. He said, I'm and he says, What do you guys want me to do? And I said, make us sound like we do live. That's what we want. And he says, I can do that. He looked at us like, I can do that. That's easy. And and we went in there and slammed that stuff, dude. Even in the studio, we were everybody was bugged. Brendan, Nick DeDia, the engineer, we were all like going, dang. Wow. We were it was a good, good time making a record.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:24

Were you the first guys to go down to B that you know of?

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:27

Um first time I yeah. And I mean, I there might I'm sure there's always been the Melbourne's and other people have done something like that, but we we've always made a bold thing with a bar tunings. So yeah, I think uh the dogman thing, what happened in Dogman is I tuned my guitar, my top two strings down two steps, and it went down to C. And then we got into the studio, um, but the the top four strings were the same. And we got in the studio and I said, Ty, let's just take everything a half step lower. So that's why it's hard to play along with that record, because it's a half step out, you know, the whole guitars were, but we just wanted to be as heavy as we could, you know, and because that's what we heard in our heads, you know, and we just couldn't get it on on tape. That's interesting. But that's what we sounded like live, and we just hated it because everybody else could do that and we didn't.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:30

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:31

You know, we listened to Allison Change's Sound Guard records and you know, Stone Temple Pilots and all that stuff, and this stuff. Uh and I'm going, you know what is this? You know, and I'm going, let's go back to this. Who's this guy? Yeah, you know, yeah. We and I remember first hearing Rage Against the Machine. I'm going, my jaw was in the ground. It wasn't what they were doing, it was like how heavy it was. Because it was just to me, it was this fat King's X-rays. Like everybody, Black Sabbath, we were all just trying to be be that big hat, heavy, that heavy fat thing. Yeah, you know, so but it was it was all about what Brendan was bringing to the table. That's cool.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:11

Best concert you've ever been to, Doug.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:14

The best. Ooh. Give me a second with that one. The best.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:20

Vern, can you think of one for you while while Doug's thinking on pondering on that one?

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:26

As a production, it was the wall. Yeah. The the new newer wall in 2010.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:35

I think seeing you two doing the Joshua reunion, the replay tour. I saw it in at the Rose Bowl, 60,000 people, and I was so far away that they were that, I mean, they were like, but the the screen, the video, the light thing was like watching a big screen TV in my living room. It was that re ridiculous. And that's one of my favorite records by them. So it kind of brought me to tears, a lot of us to tears, actually. And then I remember they then, oh, before they came on, they played Black Hole Sun because Chris had just killed himself. And the whole 60,000 people sang it. And it was like, it was amazing. Yeah, that's that's I've been to a lot though. My first concert, I was 12, I saw Ray Giles. That was a good one.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:39

Wow. I saw the Bee Gees in 78 in Dallas, which was a pretty cool show for me. But you know, I rem I think the most memorable one for me was um the Texas jam at the Astrodome in in Houston. And I remember it was uh I remember Gary Moore coming out and playing. He opened, uh Brian Adams came out, you know, they were trying to trying to get the crowd pumped up. And there was 80,000 people in the dome, right? And people were like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then 38 Special came out, and people were like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Ozzie Osborne came out and blew the fucking roof off the Houston Astrodome, and then the headliner was Rush. So it was it was what a what an eclectic group of people. And but man, I tell you what, that that was one to remember uh being around the high school and high school at the time for me. That was a that was a great show for sure. Wow. Top three bass players of all time. Go ahead. You had a you had a thought there, Doug. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:44

I was just gonna say that this wasn't the greatest concert I ever saw, but I saw Black Sabbath on the Masters Reality Tour in a little theater, which was like a movie theater. It had, you know, I mean, they closed the curtains so you didn't watch the movie. It had seats in it. Yeah, I mean, it was it was 72, I think it was. And uh I sat in the last row in the back and it was like half full in Chicago. And I I do remember that it was just like it was something about it. All I remember was this big humongous sound that I didn't know what where it was coming from. It was just this big sound. It was great.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:27

Anyway, this was not this this wasn't even one of my quickfire questions, but we've thrown around dates a lot. Was there was there a year for you guys, for you Doug and you, Vern, that stuck out in your mind as kind of the quintessential year of music for you as a either a player or just a an intaker of music? And I'll and I'll start that off by saying 1978 was the year for me that music just punched me right in the in the gut, right? And that's where my love really took off for music. And I didn't know if if you guys had a a kind of that year stuck in your head that was your year for music, right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:27:14

I would, I would every decade had a year for me. Yeah, um, the biggest one, because I was in my 20s, I think. That's the time when I was out there trying to make music. Uh the 70s was was that was the years, the early 70s. Like from Led Zeppelin, a whole lot of love, like what was what, 1970 that came out, and then Deep Purple and and all that kind of stuff. When I got to the Sex Pistols, I was kind of done. By the time I got to Led Zeppelin in Through the Outdoor, I was looking for something new. But but in that little period of time, there was Cactus and Cap and Beyond and Deep Purple and all these bands, and they all sounded the same now. I think about that. And then, you know, 10 years later, all of a sudden, glam rock comes out, and there's all these glam bands or hair metal, and I hated every one of them. And I and there was, and I was like, what can I find? All of a sudden, I'd turn on these alternative bands from England, this goth bands like the cult and and uh uh uh The Cure and Susie the Banshees and The Mission and so all these English bands were coming over with this the records were jangly guitars, but when you saw them live, they were full-on rock bands. And when I when I'd watched the cult, it's like, dude, this is as heavy as it can get. This guitar player has just got this chime going. And uh, and all those bands did the cure as heavy as they could be sometimes. And I'm thinking, this is what I want to do. So that's kind of a lot of that music is what I put into King's X in the early days was 80s uh English rock music and U2 and the police and things like that. I was into that kind of stuff. That was a turning point for me. U2, U2 was a big deal for me. But then after that, it was had you know, it was a grunge and we just all went to war. Everybody went to war. Who's gonna who's gonna write the riff with the baddest riff? The winner filter. Yeah. When when Filter did, hey man, nice shout, I went, okay, I'm done. Yeah. No more, no more drop detuned riff. There's there is dude, literally, I haven't written a drop detune type song like that since. Because it's like, where do you go from? You know, it's like you hit every note.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:45

Yeah, yeah. Wow. If you could collaborate with any artist, still alive, passed on, who who do you think you'd pick?

SPEAKER_02: 1:29:57

Nobody. Nobody? Nah, I've written so many songs with so many people, it's frustrating. Okay. It's it's you gotta you gotta figure out who they are, you gotta figure their heartbeat. You know, some people don't, you know, some people have nothing to give. Some people are dominant, some people, you know, born in chain. It's like a marriage. It's like, are we gonna work this or not? And I just don't feel like doing it anymore because I I'm too sensitive about things, you know, and it's like I'll come up with a riff. And it's like in PGP, for instance. You know, we'd write songs, and I wrote a couple songs on guitar, and I played the guitar part and I loved it. And and and um and uh Eric picked up the guitar and just played it his way, and and it wasn't, it didn't have the magic to me, but it we put it on the record because it had the magic to them, and people. Loved it. But that's the kind of thing I'm going, I'm, I'm, I don't want to give up my shit no more. It's either, it's either I do it myself or nobody gets it. And I'll and and I'll work with somebody else and let them do what they do. So it's like if if I go, this is the baseline, come up with something. That's what that's what Swai used to do. He says, okay, what y'all got? And somebody goes, I could just baseline, so somebody come up with something. And somebody goes, all of a sudden they start grooving and they find things. Now that is so much fun, and that to me is original, but you gotta have the right people that can do that. Because I know people, I've been with people to do that, and all of a sudden there's one or two people that just ain't got nothing. Well, I'm not feeling that. I can't come up with nothing. And it's like you're not feeling, it's just a fucking note. Yeah. You know, you can come up with anything and make it work. I mean and it and that that's just insecure people who are afraid that you're not gonna like. And then if you you're around those people, you don't want to play with them because insecure musicians are the worst. You know, they they second guess everything, they you know, they're just yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:52

I I like your answer. It wasn't what I was expecting, but I I I love your resolve. I I like that you stand on that, you stand firmly on what you said. And I think that that that that has, you know, that's respectful and honorable too. That you know, you like what you do, you like your vibe, you like what you bring to the music. And I don't I don't need to collaborate with anybody, right? I do what I do, and and there's that's a that's as good an answer as as any of them for sure, right? Thanks. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:32:21

I got I do have to say though that I've collaborated with many, many, many, many people through the decades. And that's another thing, too. It's like through it all, I go, you know, that was a great era. I had a good time, but this is this is the new me. I'm just gonna do this myself and see what I can come up with.

SPEAKER_01: 1:32:37

Well, you gotta be happy. Like we're not getting younger. You know, there's no rewind, there's no rewind button on life. You can't go back and rewind. So you gotta just, you gotta be happy and do what pleases you at the end of the day. Uh, are you an early bird or a night owl?

SPEAKER_02: 1:32:52

I'm an early bird. I wake up around 5:30 and I'm in bed by 10.30. Uh after the pandemic, that's that it it started during the pandemic. Um, I've always been a day person, but um after living in Texas for 40 years and then moving out here, the time difference, I could stay up till midnight or three o'clock and you know, get up at eight, and I was fine. You know what I mean? I'd go out and have a good time, but during the pandemic, all of a sudden my clock just kind of went and now it's like 5:30 and I'm up. Yeah, and it's like you ain't going back to sleep, and I'm up work, I work out and do my stuff. And I love it in the morning because you know, the whole world is sleeping. Yes. And I and I can feel that. You just feel this calmness in the air outside around you, everything.

unknown: 1:33:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:40

I'm with you there. I'm an early bird too. I I think Vern, you you you're you're a fairly early bird, right?

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:46

Uh I mean, I go to bed at like when Doug's getting up.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:54

Wow. Okay. Maybe I'll do it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:56

No, not anymore. Uh not anymore, but I'm not I I I get up, but I'm not happy.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:03

Yeah. It takes you a couple of years.

SPEAKER_03: 1:34:06

It takes me a couple of hours before I yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:09

Wow. Doug, any any advice that you can give to aspiring musicians or maybe even uh a youngster or even an old person that's wanting to learn guitar uh and and bring that love of a musical instrument into their life. Any anything that you would share with with somebody? You're never too old to learn.

SPEAKER_02: 1:34:36

And all rules are made to be broken in music.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:42

That's great advice, and you you heard it first right here. Listen, Doug, it's it's this has been fun, man. And I and I think Byrne would probably echo that that sentiment, but it's been an absolute honor to have you here with us, and thank you so much for being gracious with your time. Um before we sign off, where can the listeners of Backstage Pass Radio find you and the boys and your solo stuff and all the things you on social media?

SPEAKER_02: 1:35:11

Um, I have a site called dugnation.net, D-U-G-N-A-T-I-O-N.net. And if you want to know anything about me, you can find stuff there. And then there's all kinds of links from there all over the place to YouTube videos and side projects. And then there's uh Kingsexrocks.com. I haven't been to that in years, but I think that's our that's our that's our site. And and and if you just want to look up, just look up KingsX, you'll find more than more stuff than you want. Okay. And look up and look up Doug Pinnick, and you'll see every good and bad moment that I've ever had.

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:51

Right on. Well, I wish you and and of course the boys continued success and good health. And thanks again, Vern, for for joining uh in today. And Doug, thank you for being here. And you guys make sure to follow Doug and the band on all of their social media platforms as well as at KingsX Rocks. That's K-I-N-G-S-X uh R O C K S dot com. And you guys make sure to uh like, share, and subscribe to the podcast on Facebook at Backstage Pass Radio Podcast, on Instagram at Backstage Pass Radio, and on the website at BackstagePassradio.com. And remember to take care of yourselves and each other, and we'll see you right back here on the next episode of Backstage Pass Radio.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:39

Thank you for tuning into this episode of Backstage Pass Radio. Backstage Pass Radio. We hope you enjoyed this episode and gained some new insights into the world of music. Backstage Pass Radio is heard in over 80 countries, and the streams continue to grow each week. If you loved what you heard, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and leave reviews on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback means the world to us and helps us bring you even more amazing content. So join us next time for another deep dive into the stories and sounds that shape our musical landscape. Until then, keep listening, keep exploring, and keep the passion of music alive.