Making Music: Before The King

By Alasdair McClintock @aldothewriter on May 6, 2021 in Arts

Living for the gigs. Photo: Cooper Hill @capturedbythehill

Cranking Before The King’s latest single immediately brings one back to the early 2000s. The Arctic Monkeys were about to burst onto the scene, emo was dying, and black hair and Dickies pants were being replaced by big hair and skinny jeans. The ‘70s were back, basically, in both style and sound, though I’m not sure anyone involved realised it.

Fast forward to now and the Sydney-siders feel like a second (third?) coming of sorts. Let me just say, if this sound is coming back, I am well and truly down with it. It’s impossible not to draw comparisons with Arctic Monkeys’ first album, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, and considering that was lauded as “one of the best British albums of all time”, this is no bad thing. The band make no apologies for it either (and why should they?), proudly declaring “Early-‘00s indie rock is our canon,” when they caught up with The Beast.

They are three quarters Maroubra boys, made up of lead vocalist, Dean Smusko, drummer, Gabe Jammy (best muso name ever?), bassist, Dan Radomsky, and lead guitarist, Oscar Dalkin, who is actually from Blackheath and “lives in a solar powered shack in the Blue Mountains.”

They bring with them the tongue-in-cheek cockiness of the era too, which is evident in the sharpness of their lyrics and certainly makes for an interesting interview. “Sydney has some of the greatest bands in the world!” the band said. “And by having the word King in our band name … well, you get the idea.”
There were more than a few they gave a shout out for though, “Ambient Book Club, I Know You Know, The Lazy Eyes… and many, many more.” It’s indicative of how tight the local scene has become since it started feeling suspiciously like the state government and even the universe itself wanted the live music scene to implode. It hasn’t though, and it won’t, because people, quite simply, dig music too much.
Before The King managed to stay busy through the worst of it. “2020 certainly put a dampener on our plans. We live for our gigs, and took their absence heavily. That said, we released two singles – both of which were met with a warm reception – and ran a number of ambitious social media campaigns.

“In May, we reached out to renowned music blogger Damien Keyes and pestered him until he agreed to host a 30 minute Skype call with us. Later in the year, we scored our very own, eponymous burrito from Beach Burrito Co and hosted a single launch at their Newtown shop.”

You can listen to Before The King’s new single, ‘You Think You’re Right (But That’s Where You’re Wrong)’, on all the standard streaming platforms and hit up the usual socials to catch a gig soon!