We're excited to be able to bring you the premiere of a brand new song from California-based rockers Kyng. You can stream the song "Trails In Veins" below.
"Trails In Veins" comes from Kyng's debut album, Trampled Sun, which is out on September 27. You can "like" the band on Facebook here, follow them on Twitter here, and be sure to also check out their official website.
As an added bonus, we've also got an interview Kyng guitarist/vocalist Eddie Veliz, which you can read below as your jamming to "Trails In veins." Enjoy!
GUITAR WORLD: On first listen, the influence of heavy '60s music is very apparent. Who are some of your main influences that might have gone into the sound of the record?
EDDIE VELIZ: Exactly that. One of my favorite bands when I was growing up was Cream. Loved Cream from the moment I heard them. I'm super huge into the '60s and '70s music. I'm a big fan of Peter Green -- that early Fleetwood Mac stuff. Of course Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.
No matter how new we get -- because we're also into Pantera and Opeth as well -- we always try to bring it back to that vintage homage to '60s and '70s greatness.
I've heard your sound referred to as "California heavy," How much has your home state influenced the sound of the band?
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It's kind of where we grew up, We're just a bunch of California dudes from the East Los Angeles part of town. You know, it's kind of dirty over here. It's not the California you would think; it's not the Hollywood, Beverly Hills coolness that everyone thinks it is. It's pretty gritty out here and [the album] kind of reflects that. Everyone thinks that California is beautiful, but we've seen a lot of the more ugly parts. We try to capture both.
So you guys have all worked in different bands together over the years before finally putting this project together. At what point did you guys finally decide to form Kyng?
It's funny, we each had our own projects. Tony [Castaneda, bass] and I worked together in a heavier band, and Pepe [Clarke, drums] and Tony were also in a band. We all had our other bands and Kyng was kind of a side project at first.
But we started writing and we realized our souls were in it, that we really loved all the music that was coming out. We wrote "Falling Down" as one of our first songs, and we were looking at all the music we were doing besides Kyng, and we were like, "You know what? Kyng is where we want to be." So we just kind of made sure the other bands fell apart.
[laughs] No sabotage I hope...
[laughs] It was total self-sabotage on all our parts just to make Kyng happen.
I remember the first show, just a trial show we had in Downey, Pepe was about to leave to go to Mexico to be with his family, and he wasn't too sure he was going to come back to LA. That first show we had really changed his mind. He was just blown away that he felt that way for a band. He said, "I'm gonna come back and we're going to do this one hundred percent." And that's when we drew the line and knew we were going to take this as far as we can.
From then on, it's just been non-stop.
One of the things I'm sure a lot of people find hard to believe when listening to the record is that it's only three guys. How did you go about getting your sound in the studio? Were there are lot of overdubs?
Not as many as you might think. It was just all about creating a wall of sound, so when there were overdubs it was more about not playing the exact same thing as the other guitar, but changing it up a little. When you use different chords and just change things slightly, when you listen to it back it sounds like a wall of guitars coming at you.
And what were your main guitars on the album?
My Guild S-100 -- I've had that guitar since I was like seventeen, so that's my baby. I've been playing that for years. I've got an EMG 81 on that bad boy, so I crank that one all the time. It's my live guitar too.
How about amps and effects?
I kind of pride the band as being "plug-and-play," you know? My head was a Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier. I think I played a Reinhardt somewhere in there too. It was just plug in, get a tone and just play it, man!
So not much on your pedalboard or is the pedalboard pretty non-existant?
Live I have a Line 6 Bogner Spider Valve, which is where all my effects come through. I run that and my Triple Rectifier at the same time, so one of 'ems got a little delay or a little reverb and the Mesa Boogie is just that dry Mesa sound. That's how I get the heavier sound coming out of one guitar.
Is there anything you have in your rig that you would consider a "secret weapon" of sorts?
I have the Morley A/B switch which is kind of a secret weapon. You're walking that fine line when you're a three piece, you have to make sure everything is clean and clear but heavy, and that pedal does nothing but switch between my two amps. That's kind of my secret weapon in a sense. My rig's very "mea and potatoes." Just a guitar and heads.
But I've been thinking about using a wah. I don't know... [laughs]
So getting down to some specific songs, what can you tell me about the title track off the album?
That's one of those songs were every riff is something that's sucked away from the '60s and '70s. For the main riff I was definitely thinking about Hendrix on "Manic Depression." Like, "Man, I really want to take this and make it a bigger, fatter riff. How would I be able to do that?"
And I just kind of started opening up the guitar and pulling it up to hit my notes, and it just gave it that swing, that Hendrix "Manic Depression" vibe. That's where that came from.
And then it comes into that little bridge section that's quite literally a lift off of everything that Eric Clapton did. Eric Clapton and the Beatles. I wanted to make sure to have that vintage vibe on "Trampled Sun."
What is about music from that period that allows it to maintain its relevancy today?
Honesty, man. There was just nothing more than music at the time. There weren't all these distractions from MTV and video games and the Internet and all that. All that crap is just jumbling up everybody's brain, I feel like. Back then there just wasn't a lot to do besides be good at what you were doing. It's just honest music.
And that's where we try to come from. We want to make sure that all our music coming from the heart and it's honest. And that's that.
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Josh Hart is a former web producer and staff writer for Guitar World and Guitar Aficionado magazines (2010–2012). He has since pursued writing fiction under various pseudonyms while exploring the technical underpinnings of journalism, now serving as a senior software engineer for The Seattle Times.