Long live the kings...

Hey guys... So it's been all change since the last blog! Speed Kings now has an all-new line-up and we've been hidden away in the rehearsal room getting ready for our debut gig at Camden Underworld with Th' Legendary Shack Shakers on April 23rd. Tickets are still available from us at the Speed Kings Webstore so get them while they're hot and save yourself the booking fees etc!

That 1%

Hi guys... It's been a while since our last blog post but I've been meaning to write this for a while. We like to keep you guys updated on what we're doing and our plans for the near future but one of the reasons I've started this blog is to give you an honest feel of what life as a band is really like 99% of the time, so here we go...

We've been busy gigging and writing as per our usual hectic schedule and it's not often you get a chance to just chill out and reflect on what's going on. Since our last blog post we've been going out to small bars trying out new material for the upcoming album. Little club / pub gigs always go either one of two ways, either it's packed, sweaty and loud with a great atmosphere or you don't quite get enough people there, the sound is sketchy and it just doesn't quite feel right. Most of the time during shows like these the crowd doesn't feel it. To them it's a cool show. It's just the band themselves who are picking the night apart and they're the ones who really notice those things.

On the road again...

Hey out there speed freaks... It's been a fun couple of weeks for us. The Peacocks are back in the UK again so it means that we're back out on the road supporting them on their shows. This tour, unfortunately, we were only booked on a couple of shows due to double-bookings and other assorted booking / promoting mishaps but the two we were on were the two saturday night shows so that suited us just fine.

We've been working hard to get the new tunes ready for the road lately and I think it really showed in our performances over the last couple of weeks. We slipped a couple of new ones into the set over these last few shows and they've been going down like a house on fire.
Last saturday night (27th Aug) we made our way down to Cambridge for the Last Gang In Town night to play as main support for The Peacocks. We always have a blast playing for Laura and Alec. We supported Coffin Nails there in february and the after-party still has a few people in either rehab or physiotherapy. My trusty, rusty old Mondeo was loaded up to the roof with gear but we had a pretty good run down there and met the lads from Voodoo Ghost Town after unloading. We went through the usual rigmarole of setting up the merch, seeing where they hide the booze and finding a decent place to draw some graffiti just before The Peacocks arrived.

Welcome to Speed Kings HQ

Hi guys... So we've had a pretty busy week. We've been organising a bunch of new gigs which we're really excited about including a bunch of shows with Swiss punkabilly godfathers 'The Peacocks'. It's always an awesome party when those guys come over to the UK and we're thrilled to be supporting them again this year.

On top of getting these new gigs set up we've also moved into our new residential rehearsal room at Dub Rek. We're really psyched up about this as we've been on the waiting list for a good six months and have managed to bag what we think is the best room in the place. Now we can really kick the writing / rehearsal for the new album into high gear.

Meow Club madness...

Hi everyone... Well, this week turned out to be more eventful than we'd planned. Our mates in Graveyard Johnnys unfortunately had to pull out of the Meow Club show in Newcastle and we were asked to step up to the plate at the last minute. We've always had a great time up there so we were more than happy to answer the call and head on up to put on a show for them.

The day went with a bit of a rough start unfortunately... The van hire guys had double booked us and we spent a good chunk of the day sitting by the phone in a room full of gear waiting for a call to tell us if they'd been able to sort us out with a van or if we'd be having to strap the double bass (and possibly Greg) to the roof of my car.

Getting back to business

Hi everybody. It's been all systems go at Speed Kings HQ today... We're finally getting down to the business of rehearsing and demoing the new tunes.

We headed down to Dub Rek studios in Derby (Tony and Greg arriving a little late and £60 worse off due to an over-zealous tit of a copper on the A52) and proceeded to lug the drum kit, guitar amp, bass, guitar and bags of cables and mics up the masses of steps and into the bigger rehearsal room at the back of the studio. For the first twenty minutes it felt a bit like kids on Christmas day... Tony had his newly purchased Tama Hyperdrive kit and I had just fitted my Marshall 4x12 cab with four Eminence "Cannabis Rex" speakers on friday night. Both sounded huge and are probably the reason that my ears are still ringing like crazy as I write this.

"That difficult second album"

Hey guys and girls... It's been a couple of months without a blog now so I figured I'd fill you all in on what we've been up to at Speed Kings HQ.

Following our last run of gigs after coming back from Russia we decided to take a few months off to work on songs for the new album and recharge our batteries a bit. We felt we needed to take a break from playing so constantly to really concentrate on making the new album as awesome as we can.

We're aiming to make the new album a real, stripped-down, kick-ass rock 'n' roll record. The new stuff is still sounding very much like our signature mix of rockabilly, country, punk and speedrock with some really catchy riffs and lots of venom in the lyrics. I've been locked away most nights and weekends for the last few weeks coming up with some tunes that are going to be great both live and on the disc. We've also just picked up a whole load of microphones and a digital multi-track recorder (God bless Thomann.de) ready to start demoing tracks in the rehearsal room in preparation for recording in a few months time.