Glaswegian blues-aces King King wiped the floor at the 2014 British Blues Awards - taking five gongs in all, including Band and Album of the Year.
King King are now on tour, in support of last year's acclaimed album release Standing in the Shadows.
The road-slog - with support from Laurence Jones - wraps up in their hometown in late March, but Milton Keynes can indulge sooner. King King play The Stables at Wavendon on February 28, spilling their enthusiastic, explosive deliveries before an intimate crowd.
Frontman Alan Nimmo was tasked with this week's On Track probing...
What was the song that first awakened your musical senses? When we were young (and bear in mind this was back in the good old days when you had a record player for the whole family) we would hear lots of music as my Mum was, and still is, the biggest music fan I know!
She would play Peter Green, Eric Clapton, The Small Faces, the list would go on and on…. but one song that really stuck out for me was Fire & Water by Free. The guitar sound, the groove and the vocals, wow! That was the one that really sparked my interest the most.
Physical or digital - how do you take your music?
I'm a dinosaur when it comes to anything techy. I like to have a physical product in my hand and I'm still a music fan like everyone else so I like reading sleeve notes and all that stuff. Of course I've bowed down to the MP3 way of life in a sense because the world will surely come to an end if we all lost our iPhone right??
When was the first time you thought 'Music - this is the job for me'? I was 13 years old and I had a band with some school friends. We used to rehearse at lunchtime in the music room. I would walk three miles to school with a boss MG10 amp, my Hondo Les Paul copy that I inherited from my brother, a bag of leads and pedals and my school bag. (it was so easy then). We were rehearsing for our big gig in the school assembly hall. so my first ever gig was in front of around 800 school kids and when we walked out on to the stage they went crazy for us… It was then that I thought… yeah I'll have a bit of this!
What is your best on stage memory?
Great on stage memories are tricky because they can be anything and it’s because of what they mean at the time. Yeah sure I've got fantastic memories of being on stage playing with John Mayall and Mickey Moody of Whitesnake, both of which were an amazing honour and something I will treasure and be proud of for the rest of my life but, the best memories for me I think are the ones when we've been having a great laugh, everyone is gelling really well, the crowd seem to understand everything you're doing and are able to join you on that particular journey.
Or it could be the night that I was rooted to the spot on stage and couldn't move because we'd been out and had a dodgy curry and if I moved then there was going to be an on stage incident and it was NOT going to be pretty!
I guess what I'm trying to say is that all my memories of the stage are great… i don't have a bad one! That’s not the way I choose to look at them!
And the worst gig you've ever done?
Haha…. My bro and I were doing a gig in a working men’s club many moons ago in the north west of England… you know… when you learned your trade by going out and gigging in every dive in the country.
Not like the new generation of Facebooker’s who promote themselves to stadium gigs without treading a wonky board at least once in their life!
Anyway, we were half way through our third or fourth song and this older gentleman came running in waving his arms and making gestures for us to stop immediately. We thought the building must be on fire so, against all the rules, we stopped mid song and the guy said (and do this in a northern accent) "Do ye mind stopping for Bingo?" WORST GIG EVER!
What made you take up the guitar?
Well, I refer back to your first question… there are two people that made me pick the guitar up. One was Paul Kossoff (Free) and the other more importantly was my brother. He stayed home at night as a teenager playing guitar instead of hanging around parks and street corners with all the degenerates, and when he wasn't playing guitar he was kicking a ball. So I decided that was what I was going to do too.
If it wasn't for him leading that kind of clean innocent life I would've become the worst tearaway in history! The sound of Kossoff's guitar was so amazing to me and I tried for years to get that same tone but it’s all in the fingers!
Which one song by another artist do you wish you had written?
There are so many great songs that I wish I'd written, but if I had to choose one, it’s got to be a song written by Keb Mo called "Victim of Comfort" It’s such a beautiful song and the lyrics always blow me away.
Which song of your own holds special significance?
A song I wrote 15 years ago called "You're The Reason" probably means the most to me for very personal reasons. Those who know me in my private life know what it's all about and that’s the way it's going to stay.
Although, every song I write has special meaning to me, all of my lyrics are written from my own experiences in life from tragedy to heartbreak, to love and to good times!
If you could step into the shoes of another musician, living or dead, who would it be and what would you do?
Easy! I'd be Stevie Ray Vaughn for a day, then I would've just taken the bus instead! R.I.P, you changed the world!
Are there any current musical influences that you might look to for inspiration?
I think that there's musical inspiration everywhere. I find myself listening to music that I wouldn't normally have on my radar, like pop bands and country music and anything in between.
There is always something to learn and gain from different styles of music, I don't think it makes sense to be closed off from different things. I think that the music that you listen to when you are young is the music that gets inside you forever and those influences really start to show when you begin to write music.
If I'm looking for lyrical inspiration I seem to turn to bands like Thunder, Jonny Lang and guys like Keb Mo and Amos Lee. But ultimately it’s the music I grew up with that inspires me like Free, Bad Company, early Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy, Peter Greene and Clapton.
Are there any genres of music that you simply can't stand?
Music in any form or style means something to someone, whether it’s the writer or the listener. That’s the power of music. Sure there is plenty of music that I don't particularly love but we all have our own tastes and that’s beauty of it all.
All I would say is that people who make music to simply make money probably won't last too long in the business because I think music is very personal to each individual and the ones that are able to share their music and have the audience feel the same emotions that they are going through will be the artists who will be remembered.
Visit www.stables.org to book - standing tickets only
King King release new album, Reaching For The Light on May 5.
