“There’s a saying in the Midwest, ‘if that guy is a good pool player, than I am the King of France‘,” explains drummer Michael Azerrad about his band’s off-kilter name. “It’s just a standard thing to say that, as if something is totally honky-tonk. ‘Like wow, I think we are really good and we’re going to convince these people that we are.’ You have to do that every time you get on stage, you have to psyche yourself up somehow and the King of France just seems to fit that idea that there is that kind of imposter thing going on.”
Although The King of France may consider themselves imposters, their music is nothing short of hard to label. They are not just indescribeable; they are polar opposites of themselves. Comparisons run all the way from The Cure and Ben Folds Five to the Talking Heads, Beatles, They Might Be Giants…even Violent Femmes, Bob Dylan and The Velvet Underground are all thrown around. “I wish I could give you a list of the bands we’ve been compared to, it’s just a crazy mish-mash, like nobody can really agree what we sound like and that is the complement I love the most” says Azerrad.
Formed in early 2002, The King of France came to power when singer-songwriter Steve Salad, who had previously fronted Minneapolis underground rock heroes Deformo, moved to New York City, and began playing solo acoustic shows at the Sidewalk club in the East Village. Azerrad, one of rock’s most respected journalists who wrote Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana and Our Band Could Be Your Life, an 80’s indie rock history, approached Salad about becoming his drummer, although he was previously only skilled at the sousaphone.
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“I just liked the songs – and his band Deformo, and the new songs that he was doing were better than Deformo songs so I just felt I had to get involved,” he explains about Salad’s highly melodic pop yearnings.
A year later, former Deformo sideman Tom Siler joined the band on keyboards, and following a slew of shows playing their catchy rock songs all over New York City, they picked up momentum culminating with two songs on two different soundtracks, The Baxter and Winter Passing. Siler has since left the band to pursue a degree, however recently The Real World Austin featured seven 30-second promotional spots featuring Salad performing King of France tunes.
The creative center of the band is Salad and Azerrad, both equally strong-willed and whose creative tension is essential to their making Pop Music 101. Their literary and musical strengths when blended together is AM Gold on steroids. With a crisp fusion of pop hooks and stiff aggression, Salad’s unconventional voice is pure indie, fragile and a syllable away from cracking. Newfound drummer Azerrad isn’t going to win any technical awards, but his pounding sparks as a second voice, giving the band’s short songs a delicious sense of urgency. On their self-titled release The King of France prove you can make twelve hummable tunes without a bass player. How did these two thirty-somethings know that their brand of quirky pop would be so well received?
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“I knew it. It’s like I knew it. Those songs are so good and Steven and I had this really good chemistry, personally and musically,” proudly proclaims Azerrad. “And again, I’ve been writing about music long enough to know when something has that chemistry and I just thought that this has to be really good.”
Apparently he was right, as that honesty is resonating with larger audiences, with a core group of people showing up to repeated New York gigs. Even their peers are enamored. The duo recently went out on tour this past fall with Robbers On High Street, who often cover the King of France’s “Watch out for the Man” in concert.
As for two thirty-somethings kicking their band into high gear, it goes to show that age isn’t an issue. “There is some crazy idea in the music business that you can’t make music after like age 24,” says Azerrad. ” When you are a musician – there is that joke… ‘what do you call a retired musician? The answer is dead.’ That is something you are to the core, it doesn’t stop at a certain age. You are a musician and that’s what you do.” With talk of a King of France variety show on the horizon and much more music on the way, it’s safe to call this duo king for a day.
