When your name is synonymous with the band and you’re the guy responsible, it must be a fine line between trying to oversee everything and still make it a democratic process. How do you navigate that?

It can be hard in a group setting like this. It’s very important in any group situation to have delegated roles for each individual. This group was kind of grandfathered in. When I was 14 or 15, I used local musicians who were like 30 years old because I wanted to work with musicians who really wanted to work and make the money. That’s how they supported their families. And that’s how much I wanted to work as well. When I started travelling, I had to find people who were willing to leave the pack. Now it’s very much a band. I never wanted to have my name on it, but I became the guitar player and songwriter and singer. We don’t want it to come across as “Marcus King and his band.” That’s a constant struggle to make that clear, but moving forward, I plan to make the next band record much more collaborative. We plan to be in the studio early next year.

At 14 and 15, it’s a very young age to be leading a band. You’re still very young. So is it ever intimidating for you to be playing with these seasoned musicians. Do you ever feel like you’re sharing something they already know?

I always feel gifted to be around like-minded people, and there was always this feeling that we all want to make music and we want to get paid what we deserve to get paid. And so here I was making executive decisions at the age of 13 and 14. I had older musicians working with me, but I was the one that had to get the check at the end of the night. It all stemmed from my father’s advice to be the guy that runs it. My dad had a couple of record deals and he instilled in me the fact that a leader has to be a good leader. He also taught me to be a good man, and so I tried to be the best man I could be. I figured that if there is going to be a leader, it’s going to be me, and I’ll do a good job. So I took on that job. We had club owners who wanted to stiff us on the pay, and try to take advantage of the fact I was so young. So I said, “Screw that, if you’re going to stiff us on our pay, we’ll just take your PA.” (laughs) A lot of club owners didn’t take kindly to that.

You weren’t even old enough to sit at the bar…

Right. I had to deal with a lot of that. My drummer at the time was my chaperone. But I never had problems with the band. It was always club owners who tried to take advantage of the situation. There are always bad people in this world, but it makes the good people shine much brighter.

You had some great mentors early on. So between your dad and people like Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks, you must have gotten some good advice. What was the most profound piece of advice that you got early on?

I can go back to what my dad said about encapsulating what you do. It’s not just about yourself. It’s about the band. This group is very much a democratic unit. He always bestowed upon me the idea not to think of the band as replaceable, because that’s no way to have a healthy environment to work in. I’m very blessed to have these wiser elders of mine to kind of lead me along the way along the right path. When you’re a kid, you should take any advice you can take, even though  sometimes it doesn’t bite you in the ass until years later. You think about the things that were said  when you were younger, and then years later, you think, wow, they were right. Warren and Derek really took us under their wing. When they speak, they tell stories about their own past experiences, and if you listen closely enough, the advice shines through their words.

That’s the advantage of first-hand experience. Then you had Warren and Dave Cobb producing your records. That must have been an invaluable experience as well.

Absolutely. Dave and I, and obviously Warren and I, had this mutual respect for one another, and that’s a big factor when you’re doing a record because you’re relinquishing creative authority. You’re putting somebody else at the helm of what may or may not go on that tape. It’s really a fragile thing, and I’m very blessed to work with producers that I’ve respected immensely. In fact, there were certain instances on the last album that became a matter of give and take. There was one song on the album, “Goodbye Carolina,” that was a very melancholy song, and Dave wanted to add an upbeat element to it, which to me didn’t really convey the essence of what I was writing about. I went home, listened to the mix, woke up in the morning and listened to it again on the way to the studio. When I got there, I told Dave I wanted to try something different. So I went out with an acoustic guitar and tracked it by myself and built it around that. I feel like the situation would have been a lot different if I stamped my feet and said I didn’t like his idea. It would have created a hostile environment. It’s a respect thing. I respected him enough to listen to his initial opinion and sleep on it.

That’s very diplomatic.  It’s probably very difficult to maintain that balance. It does take trust.

It’s a crazy thing. A producer working with an artist is one thing, but a producer coming in and working with a full band is like adding a new member to the group, one who lacks any road experience with us or has any previous knowledge of what we do. But you still have to humble yourself and allow for his constructive criticism. If you can’t handle that, then it’s going to make it really hard.

So when you get ready to record your next album, who do you go to? Is it going to be a choice of which of your previous producers you work with next or someone entirely new?

I know the producer I want to work with next, but I can’t say much about it. The next record is going to be a solo record. Direction-wise, I know where we want to go. We’re in the middle of trying to decide who will oversee that project.

When is that album scheduled to appear?

I’m hoping to have a single out from that project this summer. I’m very excited to share it with the world, but that’s all I can say.

At this point, how would define the Marcus King Band sound? You bring in so many diverse elements to it. Can you share an idea of where you would like to go from here.

I always refer to our music as American roots music. I feel like there’s always some pressure to define who you are, especially when people come up to you and ask, ‘What kind of music do you play?’ If you respond with some rambling answer like I often do — describing all the different kind of nuances that we do — it becomes better and much easier simply to say “American roots music,” because there’s a gospel influence, there are blues influences, there are lots of jazz influences, lots of rock influences — a real confluence of all these influences that we love, and so we’ll go off that. We also incorporate the sound of bands like Blood, Sweat and Tears, the Ides of March, Chicago… It’s a fun time for us because we’re still kind of learning. Some of my favorite bands never really knew how to categorize themselves. You have to create your own direction and just kind of go with it.

Of course, there’s a danger in trying to categorize a band’s sound. You don’t want to be pigeonholed or put into a specific niche. On the other hand, maybe it’s a good idea to set the record straight, or simply let the music speak for you.

I agree with you. It’s good if you can create the narrative before someone does it for you. I’m tempted to call us Americana, but then people might say, ‘They don’t sound like the Lumineers!’

Maybe soul music would be a better description of what we do.

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