Thursday, June 19, 2014

Our Story

Hello, my name is Ben Valdez, guitarist and lead singer of All Is King. I started this band in early 2013 with my bassist, Lucas Blanchard. From the start I had a general idea of what I wanted as for song writing, since I already had a couple songs lined up ready to go. Lucas, being new to the whole "band" thing, wasn't quite sure if it was going to be as legit as I brought it out to be. So I told him, "look up your favorite bands, and study their bassists like crazy. Watch them play live, how they play live, what bands they listen to....". Once that mindset was in place, then we started writing. I taught him basic easy riffs to play along with me, and eventually he began teaching himself, it still amazes me how fast his skills have progressed in such a short time. From then to now we constantly watch live performances and interviews of the musicians we admire most, and trust me, it freaking helps.

After a few weeks we had about 4 simple acoustic style originals ready, since of course we didn't have a drummer at the time, we had to compromise. With that said I played my 12 string acoustic guitar, a kick drum, and sang, while Lucas complimented me with some sexy bass grooves. After a while it got kind of bland, and we got more interested in electric style instrumentation. So we got a drummer, Elliot Travis. This is when we really got excited. We jammed weekly and it was amazing, however with school, it was hard for Elliot to be there. So I had to make a choice, and even though Elliot is an amazing musician, I realized we needed someone else. Thats where the final member comes in.

Dylan Skaggs, drummer for All Is King, was introduced to that band late 2013. With a solid line up, and a serious practicing schedule, we were non-stop writing, practicing, and jamming almost every day. After realizing how fast we were progressing every week, we wrote an EP, which was recorded and produced by myself. (This EP is free to download on our soundcloud, here is the link...  

https://soundcloud.com/ben-valdez/sets/studio-b

Once we had solid recorded material to listen to, we realized we became fans of our own music, and still are. Having the mental power to listen to yourself without even thinking that its you, is an amazing accomplishment in my book.

Once that was done, we wrote an album! An entire 11 track album, which was recorded at Tempest Recording Studio in Tempe, Produced my Clark Rigsby. What an amazing opportunity this was. We spent a weekend recording all the tracks live, with vocals being done in post. It was one of the most amazing experiences we have ever had recording in a legitimate studio, especially with someone as amazing as Clark Rigsby, thank you sir. (http://tempestrecording.com/about/ ).

Now, since I am moving closer and closer to present time, we are awaiting our biggest adventure yet. In late July, All Is King will be traveling to Cheng Du, China, to be performing in the International Youth Music Festival, where we will be staying there for 10 nights, performing for three of those nights, for nearly 6000-8000 people a night! Words really cant express the amount of excitement that we all have being given this opportunity. We sincerely want to thank Alex Sipes, ultimate badass extraordinaire, for giving us this chance to show our music to the world.

Stay tuned for further information regarding our journey, and always know that all is good, all is well, and All Is King!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment