Meet The Dark City Kings: a group of musicians who create an indie-folk meets garage-punk type sound. The intellectuality of art-pop becomes married to the down-to-earth violins and echoes of whiskey-laden daydreams…In the band’s new album, Love in Punk, the balladry of violin sounds intertwines with distorted guitar, ethereal vocals, and even Southwestern-feeling rhythmic outbursts.

Track 1: “Anxiety #7” begins with an assured strumming… Then enter an unsettled 16th note muted riff. Next, a longing cello sweeps across the soundscape. The opening track asks the questions: If it (anxiety) didn’t make me- sweat, fret, and tremble- what would that reality be like? The song is somewhere between a mantra, and a collection of what-ifs.

Love Is Punk is one part pop, one part messy garage rock, one part feisty, and a whole lot of deep thought. Track 2 “Trouble”, on the other hand, has a Green-day American-Idiot-type like rowdiness to it and a satisfyingly rich layered vocal part…. Song 3 “True Believer” feels more Celtic in nature with its jolly hand claps and carefree sing-song delivery. A bit Flogging Molly, Irish-punk.

The album frequently has this harkening back to old-style poetic lyrics. From “I saw you dance last night, the rhythm shook me like a fever” to “As we went walking under stars and stole among the heather”.

There is this common thread of playfulness, jollity, and intellectuality, too. It’s as if Irish music, pop, and rock all met in a classroom at Berkeley and decided to form a trio.

As we reach close to the halfway mark, “Party Clothes” tinges the sky purple-grey, and we transition more of the flavor of “The Cure”- but only for a second, then we switch to a reggae-feeling offbeat- but no, then we’re right back to this bleak 80’s noir vibe. It’s like the sun is constantly coming out and being hidden by a cloud, over and over again…

Buckminster Fuller is a contagious sonic-punk-treat with its “Bah bah bahs” and a catchiness that rivals the love songs of the Ramones… then there’s “St. Margaret’s Cotillion” a story-type Celtic-infused ballad.

There are nuggets of life lessons shimmering, hidden within the (fun-loving) messiness of it all.

Love is Punk encapsulates life. Our desires, and even, the simple moment of looking up at the sky (See “Helicopter”).

The penultimate “Shaking Us to the Ground” begins from the distance and slowly comes into focus. It’s plucky and adventurous, and has a playful mantra of ‘shakin’ us to the ground’. And as we make our way to the end of the album we finally hear the line “Love Is Punk” nestled inside the chorus of the title track.

The seasons are changing, the college kids are back at the bar…and then we come to the conclusion: Love is punk.“Love is Punk” feels like walking out and the end of a musical after the outro music begins to fade. We’re feeling nostalgic, sitting in the sunshine, and watching the time pass.

We’re a bit sad, a bit nostalgic, and most certainly in love- With the changing of the seasons, and with the person next to us at the bar.

As a whole, Love is Punk is a folk rock exploration- moments of anxiety, grief, desire, and longing are all twisted up together, like how Heather’s roots might twist together underground in a bog…

“As musicians, we’ve all been in other bands and played on many stages and gained a lifetime of experience. This time we’ve dropped all pretenses. This time it’s for real. We’ve played in both loud bands and comfortable bands that wouldn’t offend anyone. Now we’ve taken off our armor and we are standing out here without protection. This is what we believe. This is our best idea at beauty. Love Is Punk.”
JP Kennedy

Q&A

First of all, why is love punk? How did that idea first come to you guys?

It’s an idea that grew – rather than us being struck by lightning. The core of the band has been around the Asheville music scene for 10 years – and being in bands is like being in a relationship. Tons of emotions. Bands break apart and bands come back together. But it’s all worth it. It’s worth picking yourself up and trying again, putting yourself out there. The song “Love Is Punk” was written last summer after two guitar players left and Merlin joined on guitar and Kyrie joined on violin. It’s a wordy narrative song and doesn’t have a lot of melody and people sometimes get up and get a drink when we play it – but it stuck around and we recorded it. The idea slowly grew on us – yeah – love is punk. Love is DIY. Love is noisy and love is trying to be yourself and trying to find someone else and jumping around on stage and just trying to connect. Especially in this world, yeah, love is rebellion. So… Love is PUNK! We finished the recording and Kevin Moloney said: “I hope the album is called Love Is Punk.”

What was working with Kevin Moloney like?

On August 21, 2023, Kevin Moloney reached out to us. “Hi guys! Tis Kevin Moloney here. I’m a record producer from Ireland now resident here in Asheville… I’m digging your raw beautiful songs & will make it along to one of your upcoming gigs soon….” That’s the producer of Sinead O’Connor’s first two albums and engineer of U2’s first five albums. It was crazy. He came to our shows and hung out with us. Craig lives in an old homestead on a dirt road up in the mountains, with small rooms, low ceilings, and a wood fireplace. We’d practice there and Kevin would sit in the doorway with his small book and take notes. He looks like a wizard and speaks with a heavy Irish accent with lots of Irish idioms. If we played “Party Clothes” he’d get up and dance. We played music and drank beers and Irish whiskey into the night. He made us believe in ourselves. It was the sweetest most magical thing.

Who are some of your favorite Irish and Celtic bands who inspire you?

We’re like 3rd Wave Celtic. Is that a thing? Like we’re massive fans of bands who were massive fans of original Celtic music. The Waterboys are a big favorite and we’ve covered a number of their songs. The Pogues are massive too. Sinead O’Connor – of course. U2. Dropkick Murpys. Gogol Bordello – they’re not Celtic but they have a similar energy. The Levellers. We’ve covered Thin Lizzy. The Undertones are great. Stiff Little Fingers. They’re more Irish punk. New Model Army. Big Country. The Skids. Dexys Midnight Runners.

Is Buckminster Fuller about the American architect/ theorist?

Yeah. We live in Black Mountain, where the Black Mountain College used to be located, and Buckminster Fuller taught here. We thought it would be funny to write a song about all the artists from that time period trying to hook-up – because you know that was happening – including Buckminster Fuller.

What is each band member’s favorite art-pop song- and why?

Merlin – Lene Lovich “Lucky Number,” Bayla – Bjork “Enjoy,” Colleen – CHVRCHES/Robert Smith “How Not To Drown,” JP – B-52s “Wig,” Craig – Of Monsters And Men “Little Talks,” Kyrie – Blur “There’s No Other Way.”

I almost noticed some Southwest or cowboy-sounding moments in the album, was this intentional?

You’re not the only one. This album “Love Is Punk” is a bit of a transitional album, if you will. Dark City Kings started as a more folk and country and western band. We like narrative songs. We like the epic nature of those kinds of songs. Some of our songs have the fiddle and guitar work reminiscent of cowboy songs.

Lastly- How does one blend rock and Celtic influences so seamlessly, is there a key to it?

So we’re from Black Mountain, which is 20 minutes outside Asheville, here in the Southern Appalachians. There’s country music, Celtic music and also underground indie music and punk music in the air. We’re not faking this. This is what we breathe. You’ve referenced a number of influences – Celtic music, western music, art-pop – and yeah people are trying to figure us out. We’re trying to figure ourselves out. We think that the 3-minute love pop song is the greatest art form ever – and you find this in 80s indie underground pop of The Cure’s “Let’s Go To Bed” and you find it in Steve Earle’s “Galway Girl.” We call it flirting music. We’re never going to be millionaires. And a million dollars won’t make us happy anyway. But we’re all going to remember that night when we drank Irish whiskey and danced and every song seemed perfect and we ended up making out in a dark corner of a music hall. That’s flirting music. That’s – Love Is Punk!

LINKS:
https://www.darkcitykings.com/
https://www.instagram.com/darkcitykings/