You may not have heard about the Kings Royal, but you will. They are a prolific song writing machine, who back up their album with an awesome live show. We first took notice of the band with the release of thier first album, The Beginning - a strong effort for a new band. We were taken back by the power and feeling which you can find in the album. They can make their music come alive while on the stage, with a live show that has to be experienced rather than seen. We had to talk to a member of this band, so we sat down with Benny Marchant, the Kings Royal lead singer. 

BnR: How was the tour? I know you guys just finished a tour with Candlebox.

Benny: Yea, the tour was awesome.

BnR: How were those guys to tour with?

Benny: They were awesome. They were great. They took care of us. As my first tour ever, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

BnR: The story of how the Kings Royal became a band seems so organic and natural. The story that I read is you met Dave Holman recording your first solo record in Nashville, Tennessee. You moved to L.A. to meet up with Holman again to start work on your second solo album. That is when you met Sean Hurley and Brian Burwell. I guess that is when Sean Hennesy and Adam Kury joined you in the sessions and that is when you became a full band. Was it really that organic? It just seems it happened that way.

Benny: It happened so easy. It is actually more difficult to try and explain it, that is how easy it is. It was amazing. Brian Burwell, who was one of the session guys, he was good friends with Adam Kury and Sean Hennesy. He is the one who introduced them to us. Sean and Adam didn't even audition. I just met with them and they were really good guys. We took it from there.

BnR: Did you have any songs recorded before you started with the full band?

Benny: Oh yea. David and I were working on some songs before the Kings Royal came about. We wrote about 15 songs and then when the band got fully together we went into the studio and put down 15 more tracks. So we were working with 30 some odd songs. We are actually going back into the studio again. We are pretty prolific.

BnR: That is really good, especially for a band that just starts out. To have that many songs that you can keep your name out there in the press. When you moved out to L.A. were you looking to start a band or was that something that just fell into your lap?

Benny: It kind of fell into my lap. Being new to the whole music thing, I didn't really know what to expect. I was just thinking of becoming a song writer and selling my songs to people. Just get a publishing deal, you know. I didn't really know what to do, so I just kept writing and writing. I kept putting myself out at places and meeting people and I knew something would happen.

BnR: Can I ask about the genesis of the band's name? Did you grow up idolizing the French Kings like Louis XIV.

Benny: It actually came from two different things. It came from Edgar Allan Poe and it came from The Royals, the baseball team. Edgar Allan Poe wrote a story called "King Pest." We were originally going to call ourselves that. But there is a band in England that has that name. They have a small little MySpace page. So we decided not to mess with that.

BnR: We are from Philly and there are a lot better teams out there than the Royals.

Benny: I am from Baltimore originally so I am an Orioles fan and also kind of a Yankees fan a little bit. The reason I like the Royals is I am a gamer. I play a lot of video games. The reason I like the Royals is because I am able to build their team up in the game. Make trades and stuff and make them good. In the games, they are the worst team and the least amount of money. So it is actually a challenge to build them up.

BnR: What systems do you have?

Benny: Xbox 360, two or three different kinds of them, the regular Xbox, the Wii, Playstation 3, Playstation 2, I am a huge Warcraft player. My guild is in the top 500 guilds in the game.

BnR: You sound like you are describing my house. If you went with the Baltimore connection, the Kings Orioles doesn't have the same ring to it. How is it being in a band rather than a solo artist?

Benny: I love it. I'd never been a frontman before and it makes it a little easier when you have that camaraderie with a group of friends and what they bring to the table, musically. It is just great.

BnR: When can we expect a follow up to The Beginning?

Benny: Well I am actually in the studio now. We break it down into two parts. We go to Sunset Sound in L.A. That is where we record the drums, bass, scratch guitars and scratch vocals. Then we do the rest of the work up at Holman's studio, which is called Cactus Studio. We do all the guitars and vocals and orchestrations here [Cactus Studio]. Right now, we are actually recording vocals for the other songs that we did that were not on the CD because we had to quickly put a CD together before we went on the road. So we emulated the live performance, which is what the Beginning is. It is more of what we performed live during the tour. We are finishing up the other 15 and then going into the studio to record 10 more songs. I think we are going in late October. New record should be out in January, I hope. We really want to do a record a year, at least.

BnR: That is very prolific and ambitious if you are going to tour behind those albums.

Benny: Yea, I don't really want any down time. I got back from the tour two weeks ago and have been in the studio the last two weeks.

BnR: If you are recording and touring and don't want any down time, how are you going to keep your guild in the top 500.

Benny: Dude, it is hard. I had to actually back down. I was a full raider, where I was on every day for at least 12 hours. I had to say 'Listen I have to be a back up.' I now play about 3-4 days a week. It was hard to let go.

BnR: Does some of the inspiration for your songs come from World of Warcraft?

Benny: Not really, Warcraft has hurt my writing I think because I am not writing as much. But now I am. I am back into it [Warcraft]. The tour kind of got me away from it. I did a lot of writing on tour. I guess inspiration about anger. I get angry when I can't beat a boss that night. I might write something because of that.

BnR: If you can work LOL into some of your songs, that would be great.

Benny: Aw that would be awesome. LOL or WTF.

BnR: Exactly, maybe talk about some of your BFF's. Where do you draw inspiration?

Benny: I guess goals and just traveling. I am so glad I live on the West Coast. I think I was born to live here. I have been on the East Coast my whole life. I like that whole traveling and following the sun. I enjoy traveling and meeting new people and new experiences that is where I get the writing from. And stories too, but I am not as big of a reader as David is. He is more the lyricist guy for us.

BnR: Did you ever do some small tours as a solo artist?

Benny: No, the only time I ever really performed as a solo artist was in Nashville when I was doing my song writing. I did a lot of open mics. I did the Blue Bird. I was there almost every Monday night?

BnR: How did you get out there and promote your work, if you didn't do any touring? I don't mean extensive touring around the US, but you have to do some shows around Nashville.

Benny: The reason I didn't put the first record out was because it wasn't me. I wasn't comfortable with it. It was very pop-oriented. I worked with a producer where it didn't really work out. I wouldn't tour with it. I decided not to do it. It was way too pop-oriented, and that is just not me. That is why I stuck with the open mics and kept a low profile until I got to L.A.

BnR: Was it the decision of the producer that made you so pop-oriented at the time? Or was that your mind set at the time?

Benny: I was so new to the game and it sounded like a good idea at the time. You know, he said 'I can make this into a huge pop record.'

BnR: Your first tour was this tour with the Kings Royal. On that tour, you got to play some great rooms like the Viper Room and the Cat Club.

Benny: Oh before the tour, yea. We had a residency at the Viper Room.

BnR: How was that?

Benny: It was awesome. I love that place.

BnR: Did you see the ghost of River Phoenix there?

Benny: I heard so much about that. It is kind of creepy. I didn't see it, but I definitely heard about it.

BnR: What place was your favorite to play?

Benny: So far? I am going to say the Viper Room. I think the audience and the bands and the club itself sound amazing. They always have the greatest sound guys there. Outside of that with our actual tour with Candlebox, I would say my favorite place was Denver. I think it was called the Bluebird Theater or something like that. It was an old theater, that had theater seating. It had curtains and really fit the profile of the band. It really gave it a good intimate setting and it was completely packed.

BnR: How have the fans received you guys?

Benny: It's been wonderful. Their fans [Candlebox] are very prompt. They get to the shows early. So being an opening act at a Candlebox show is a great thing. Everybody that was going to be there that night, was there when we would play. It brought the energy of the band up.

BnR: Any crazy road stories while you were out there on your first tour?

Benny: I had to fire my first musician. Everybody was freaking out about this guy. Well you will figure it out. We fired our keyboardist on the road and left him in Atlanta. He was driving everyone insane. We were in Atlanta and had a week off. The buses were going to drive from Atlanta to Spokane, Washington. I wanted to stay on the bus because I was loving it. So I called up my girlfriend and flew her out to Atlanta. We were going to take the week off and live on the bus and drive up. As we were leaving Atlanta, we got all this stuff off the bus and he is running after the bus. I was watching him run. We were good. We shipped his stuff home, we gave him his pay and bought him a plane ticket. But he was nuts.

The other good story is the prank. You know on the last show of the tour, bands will prank other bands. The second opening act was a band called Small Town Sleeper. I decided the last show for us in Charlotte, to streak the stage while they were playing. I went up and gave the singer a big hug. I did the whole Texas Tuck thing. So you couldn't really see anything at first. After I did my little thing, I gave a bow backwards so they could see all my junk. It was cool because my mom was there and my family was there. I told them to all go on the bus. I said 'Listen I have to go do something, just stay here real quick.' It was a good time.

BnR: How do you keep occupied on the bus?

Benny: I went through a lot of different stages. A lot of drinking, but then I calmed that down. I went through a period where I was smoking a lot of cigarettes and actually got bronchitis. I had to stop that. I quit smoking on the road, which is pretty weird because it is usually the opposite. Then video games for me. Having my girl there, that helped a lot because she came in on different spots of the tour.

BnR: As a video gamer, what are your thoughts on the Rock Band, Guitar Hero?

Benny: Never played it. Though a lot of my friends love it. Guys who aren't in bands...I actually don't know anyone who is in a band who plays it. But I will play it, if we ever get a song in there.

BnR: Well that is up to your record company. Growing up, what were your favorite tv shows? My favorite tv show growing up was Transformers.

Benny: Oh nice, OK. Definitely Transformers and G.I. Joe. I love G.I. Joe. I had so many freaking toys. I was old enough to get all the Star Wars toys, but then I moved up to G.I. Joe because their legs moved differently. I got to a point where I would take the pieces away because they had that screw on the back that you could actually unscrew and take them all apart. You could actually put things together and make the characters look different. So you could have the head of someone else on the body and legs of someone else. My favorite character , I want to call them B.A.Ts. They were the robots. You could put in different tools on their arms.

BnR: I don't remember them. I was more into the Ninjas and the bad guys. Good guys are for pussies.

Benny: Oh yea, I know. In Warcraft I am the horde.

BnR: Any guilty pleasures music wise? Any Celine Dion in your iPod?

Benny: I don't have Celine Dion. I do have It's Your Love with Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. But that is mainly because I was friends with the A&R girl who found that song for them.

BnR: That doesn't count then.

Benny: Yea, so maybe Tina Turner.

BnR: No, Tina Turner is awesome. I'm talking American Idol or something like that. Coldplay to a certain extent.

Benny: Yea, you know, I loved Coldplay's first record, but that was it. Good mellow music.

BnR: Good hang over music.

Benny: Yea. Third Eye Blind dude.

BnR: You are a big Stephan Jenkins fan?

Benny: I am dude.

BnR: Well we are going to put that on the site so everyone knows to get you some Third Eye Blind memorabilia.

Benny: For some reason, I can't turn it off when it is on. My favorite song writing that Third Eye Blind did was their first record. But I am a loyal fan of bands, so I have to buy all their records. I am the same way with Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana, even Pantera. If a band gets me with one of their songs, I own all their records. I even own Coldplay's records, but I haven't listened to them.

BnR: I got some of the first Incubus albums and I was like this band is great, they are going to be huge. Their last couple of albums have been terrible, but I continue to buy them, hoping they will return.

Benny: A band that has done a good job putting out good records besides the Stones has been The Who. Man they kept coming up with great records. And the Kinks too.

BnR: How many Pearl Jam live albums do you own? You know they do one for every tour stop.

Benny: Before I got into music, I didn't get into music until I was out of college although I studied it. I had gone to a couple of Pearl Jam shows. I guess it was the '98 tour, which is the Yield tour, when they started that whole thing. I bought so many. I guess I have about 12 of them, until I realized they all sound the same. I would buy it because if there was a song that I didn't have, like a different version of Yellow Ledbetter or Crazy Mary, or any of those songs I didn't have, I would buy. I would get that live show, just for that one song.

BnR: I find myself buying the ones I actually attended, just to remember where the drunken idiot fell down.

Benny: Yea I did that too. I definitely have the DC shows. In '98, I saw them a bunch of places, Jersey, Philly, and Virginia. I saw them in Camden.

BnR: Good god! I am sure your memories of Camden are not that great.

Benny: Well the venue is great. The venue is awesome.

BnR: Have you been to Philly with the Kings Royal?

Benny: No

BnR: We will have to get you here.

Benny: I would love it. I have a lot of friends who I went to school with who now live in Philly.

Thank you Benny for sitting down and talking with us. Please visit The Kings Royal mainsite or their MySpace site to hear the band and keep informed about their goings on. Of course, we will let you know when they go on tour and coming to a town near you.