Los Angeles – For some, a career in music is a chosen path that takes years of training and dedication to achieve – others simply fall right into it. Both of those circumstances led to the formation of KING, a Los Angeles based group that blends soul, R&B and electronic music with impressive results. Anita Bias, Paris Strother and her twin sister Amber Strother came together from across the country to form the group – the Strother sisters are from Minneapolis and Bias is from Compton. While Anita and Paris met briefly while attending Boston’s famed Berkelee School of Music, Amber was well into a non-music career as a professional manicurist. Eventually serendipity took hold, with Paris and Anita meeting up once again at a jam session, began writing music, finally convincing Amber to join on. The band released a three-song EP in 2011 and is gearing up for the Feb. 5 release of their debut full-length album, We Are KING.
“I met Anita at Berkelee College of Music, during my senior year and her freshman year. I just met her briefly, maybe just a few minutes,” said Paris in a telephone interview with Best New Bands. “I heard her singing and I was completely blown away. So I graduated, moved to Los Angeles and several years later ran into her at a jam session and we just started hanging out from there. And then Amber came to visit Los Angeles for, I think, her 23rd birthday and the three of us together was just something really special…I kind of convinced her to join the lifestyle of a starving artist and hang out with us and make music. I always knew I wanted to do music, but I think this was an unexpected twist for her but she’s been having a blast with it so far.”
The music that these three ladies create has an effortless smoothness to it, blending all of their many influences into a melting pot of sound. Unlike many artists and performers in the R&B scene, the three members of KING handle all phases of the music-making process – Paris controls the production aspects while Anita and Amber provide the rich and varied vocal work. All three members of the band complement each other from a performing and songwriting standpoint.
“With this album [having control over the creative process] was of the utmost importance,” said Paris. “The story being, we released our first EP in 2011 and it was just us by ourselves, and it was important to see through to the full album using that same process. [Songwriting] takes on a few different forms. Sometimes it’ll be some chords, sometimes the rhythm, sometimes the melody, sometimes it’ll be like a lyrical theme. But the process is all of us sitting in the room putting our best ideas together. It’s cool because after all these years we’re all on the same wavelength of the stuff that we like and what we’re inspired by.”
Thematically, KING focuses much of their songwriting on the universally relatable topic of love. Instead of just focusing on romance, the songs on We Are KING reference the emotion across a wide spectrum.
“These songs, there’s the theme of love going throughout the album. Not just romantic love – it can be interpreted in many ways. Family love, I thought that was something very cool about when Anita wrote ‘Hey,’ she wasn’t thinking just about romantic love. It could be the love between a parent and a child, you know, any kind of configuration. The album also touches on themes of exploration, self-discovery, even travel. We wanted to explore some things that were appearing to us as we were creating the music.”
When asked about ideas for collaborations or future work, Paris offered up ambitious ideas for ways in which KING can take their excellent sound and bridge it with new and unexpected formats.
“Now that the album is done we are really wanting to explore all these different avenues, it’s actually something we’ve talked about together,” said Paris. “Explore different ways we can present the music: KING with orchestra, KING with big band, KING with just kind of unusual configurations and presentations of the music.”
Catch KING on tour in February as they work through their United States tour. Find dates and tickets at KING’s website!
Matt Matasci
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