A one-year-old’s birthday party gave birth to rock’s latest “supergroup” collaboration.
Doug “dUg” Pinnick of King’s X and Lynch Mob’s George Lynch, formerly of Dokken, were guests at the bash last year for Korn drummer Ray Luzier’s son. “It was a good time to bond and hang-out,” recalls Pinnick, who had recently moved to Los Angeles. Luzier showed them the studio he had built at the house and said, “Let’s make a record,” according to Pinnick. In shorter order, KXM was working on the self-titled debut that comes out March 11.
“This record was done pretty quick,” Pinnick says of the 13-track set, which includes a radio edit of the single “Rescue Me” as a bonus. “Ray was on tour a lot and George and I both were doing our own thing, too, but when we had a few days off we’d get together in the studio and start working on music. We did basic tracks in the studio together and then finished in our own studios. It was so easy and fun — and quick.”
Watch the premiere of “Rescue Me” here:
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Songwriting, Pinnick says, was done by committee, though he ultimately wrote the lyrics and vocal melodies.
“Somebody would start something, and we’d all fall in,” he recalls. “We’d start creating things around each other, and when we’d get a groove going we’d stop and go, ‘That’s cool. Let’s make that the verse’ and then start up again. The law in the band was no one tells anybody what to do. Basically, everybody was free to create whatever they felt like within the frame of the other two people. We were all surprised with what we each came up with to complement what each other were doing. It got to the point where we didn’t want anybody to bring a song in or try to do something that was already established. We wanted to create everything from scratch.”
But there were a few anxious moments while making “KXM,” which was produced by Chris Collier (Lynch Mob, Lita Ford, Tommy Bolin). “Rescue Me” was, in fact, one of the last two songs written and recorded for the album, under a certain degree of duress.
“George calls me up and says, ‘Dude, we need two more songs! We got a record deal. They want to put a record out. We need two more songs, and we’ve only got two days to get in the studio. Can we do this?!’ ” Pinnick recalls with a laugh. “So we all got together and go in the studio and we came up with two songs in the two days we were there. It was so quick and so spontaneous, and when I got home to work on the lyrics they came so fast it made my head spin. At first I panicked, like, ‘Oh no! I’m not good with pressure!’ But it worked out. I look back at it and it’s a labor of love. Birth pangs were happening.”
Pinnick says he, Lynch and Luzier view KXM — K for Korn, X for King’s X, M for Lynch Mob — as a going concern and the trio is “already talking about going back and writing more songs. We realize we’ve got something we really like, and we’re having fun with it. It’s sort of like having a mistress.” The group hopes to tour, too, though their other bands’ schedules make finding the time a challenge.
King’s X has been doing some live shows and has “been having a good time,” Pinnick adds. But there are no plans yet for a follow-up to 2008’s “XV.” “We haven’t talked about making a new record yet, but we will,” Pinnick says. “I think that’s going to be coming soon. We’re basically booking more shows and going out and playing. It’s been good.”