MY INSPIRATION: Dead River Kings

Teesside heavy rockers Dead River Kings unleash their debut EP, Hymns Of Hope & Despair, this week. Here, the band talk about their inspiration behind the release…

As a band we have a wide variety of inspiration musically that we wanted to incorporate, and because of this we took our time in creating our sound as we were all really passionate about wanting to hear as many of them as we could.

We first began to hear the direction of the band 18 months ago when we wrote track one of the EP, God Die. It wasn’t the first track we wrote but it definitely defined our future approach to writing. It was dark, had groove, and really created a thoughtful atmosphere that set it apart from tracks we had already written. 

Lyrically our inspiration, like many before us, is drawn from life stories and experiences but intertwined with opinion (We like to throw opinions in the mix). 

God Die: This is simply a reflection of how I have felt most of my life, having other people’s religious beliefs pushed onto me and then dealing with their reaction to my beliefs not being aligned to theirs. So it’s not a middle finger to religious belief, more pointing out how people will act and do things which goes against their own beliefs just because others are not following suit. The song is asking why don’t we all just let people be different and have their own beliefs even if it’s the opposite of yours. I like red but you might not, so what. 

Pipe of Gold: It is a very political track discussing the gaps in society between the rich and powerful and the everyday Joe. Rich wrote the lyrics to this and I loved them, barring a few word changes, the principle is Rich’s. I loved the nod to the pied piper and the rats used as an analogy to our current situation (Brexit). People follow an ideal given from a leader who is purely out for political gain. This is us saying we won’t fall for the same trick again. 

Spiritual Gold: It came together from conversations with Marc our drummer who is a recovering alcoholic and been dry now for many, many years. We discussed writing an epic song or songs on the subject and the result so far was this track. I tried to capture the darkness of his history and Spiritual Gold (a play on words obviously) being his medicine used to escape his life at the time. I ended the track lyrically at his lowest point, leaving space for the next chapter…

Four Words: This is a personal subject about being used and left to deal with the outcome of having hurt people around me which I had to confront. It’s about childish games played by people and my reaction to them. Musically this track stepped up the feel of the band and really captured many of our influences. A great track for me to listen to personally. 

Jaded ‘n’ Blind: It was probably the first track we wrote as DRK and really set the tone for quality and strength in writing. Lyrically this again is a personal subject about relationships going round in circles and falling into the same issues with different people. I used sirens of the sea as an analogy for how we can be heading into trouble and even though we see it, we do it anyway. Leaves you feeling a lack of trust in new relationships but still blind to those signals of danger!

Clearly all our songs are dark in nature and discuss the good and the bad things life throws our way, hence the title of the EP.

The band play The Green Room, Stockton on Saturday 6^th April.