Interview by Mark Lacey
Since the arrival of DK to the band in 2018, Kickin Valetina have taken on a new lease of life – focussed on their mutual goal to play rock n roll across the world – and build connections through their music. The UK has become almost a second home after annual visits in recent years and so when they departed these shores in September last year after their first ever headline tour, culminating in a much-lauded performance at HRH Sleaze, fans were left hoping for a quick return. And so, the announcement of further shows in May will be met with much anticipation.
MGM: Good to catch up with you again, DK. Unlike the rest of the band, who live around Atlanta, Georgia, I gather you’re based on the West Coast?
DK: I’m in Kingsburg, California between Los Angeles and Sacramento. It’s like a real small little Swedish village. Great place to live, man. Real chill. Lots of free parking.
MGM: It seems like only a couple of months ago you were here in the UK, with the Midnight Devils supporting, and doing your first UK headline tour. How do you reflect on that?
DK: It was a blast. Those guys were a lot of fun. Putting our bands together was a real good package, man. It was a good night of exciting rip roar, and rock n roll. It’s a party.
MGM: You’ve been over to the UK two or three years in quick succession now. What is it that keeps bringing you back over here?
DK: Well, our label is in Denmark; Mighty Music. So that’s what brings us over to Europe. And as far as the UK goes, I joined 2018-19, and that first run was pretty good. Originally, when I had got in the band, we only had a handful of new songs we were getting ready to release. So, we were doing a lot of the old stuff. But at that time, we had written Sweat, Easy Rider, and Shakedown. We recorded that at Medley Studios in Copenhagen. We were there in Denmark, and we were supposed to play a club called High Voltage. And it seemed like they were having issues with the club. They were remodelling or something, and then they had an issue with the liquor licence, so we couldn’t play that gig. Mike from Mighty Music said, hey, you guys want to go into the studio one day and track some new stuff? We’re like, Hell, yeah, let’s do it. In 13-14 hours, we kicked out ‘Sweat’, and ‘Easy Rider’. We had half of the song ‘Shakedown’ written at that time. We pretty much wrote the rest of that while we were recording it in Medley Studios.
MGM: That EP also includes a live version of ‘Get Ready’ from the Bang Your Head Festival too. I think that was only maybe your third or fourth show with the group as well, wasn’t it?
DK: When we were making the EP, we planned on putting a live track on there. We weren’t sure what it was going to be yet. Then I think it was just days after we recorded that in the studio, we played the Bang Your Head Festival, which was freaking awesome. It turned out so well that we ended up taking ‘Get Ready’ from that show and adding it to the Chaos in Copenhagen EP, and it came out good, man. It was a dynamite show. That was a lot of fun.
MGM: For many fans of the band that EP served as your introduction as the new vocalist at the time. You may be the third vocalist in Kickin Valentina, but when MGM spoke to Chris last year, he mentioned that you were actually the band’s first choice back when they started out back in 2013. Chris said that they’d reached out to you, and you said no. What was that all about?
DK: Well, it was an issue because the band is from Atlanta, Georgia, and I live in California. So, at that point, it was just about how are we going to get together as often as we’d like to. And it just seemed impossible about that time. I was just out of Jetboy at that time when I had heard from Jimmy. I spoke with him, and he told me all about the plans. They wanted to go to Europe and all the stuff that bands talk about, having some goals when you want to get a group going. It all sounded good, but at that point, it just wasn’t feasible. And so, then the original singer went and did Europe, came back, and then they had issues with booking the next tour with the singer. He just wasn’t into it, man. To do these things, you got to be available. This has got to be what you do. I’ve designed my life to do that. I’ve been doing this for 35 years.
After they had done that, they got traction. Highway 9 picked them up. They did the first Super Atomic EP. And a mutual friend of ours, Brad Crimple; I was doing stuff with him. Around that time, I flew out to the East Coast to jam with the band called Saints of Rebellion that didn’t last long. But then Brad was like, do you remember the Kickin Valentina guys? I go, yeah, I spoke with Jimmy a while back. And he goes, well, now would be a good time. They want to get in touch with you and maybe try it again because now it’s possible. They want to fly you out for an audition. So, I spoke with Chris Taylor, and he said, learn a couple of tunes. We’ll get together, we’ll jam, we’ll feel it out. They only wanted me to learn three or four tunes. I think I ended up learning twelve tunes, came in, smashed it, and literally just about an hour or two after jamming with them, we wrote ‘Sweat’ that day, and we had a couple of other really great ideas, too. They’re on the back burner somewhere. I was actually checking out a rehearsal that I recorded many years ago of that. But then, about an hour or so after we rehearsed, we went out and had a cigarette, and they were like, man, we want you to be in the band. We’ve got to stay committed to this because previous singers just didn’t want to go the distance.
MGM: You’d had a pretty solid career at that point as a musician. You’d been playing with Beggars Ball, you’d been playing with Slam Alley, and of course, the Jetboy thing.
DK: And then I did the Beautifully Demolished record that was pretty much my solo album at that time, just keeping busy. Literally after that, boom, we booked a tour and went out into the great unknown. We get along famously, me and the guys. I used to tell myself and my friends, I just need three other dudes like me, which is a needle in a haystack sometimes between bands. And yeah, we got along great. We gelled instantly. And two records later, here we are.
MGM: It would have been a tough job for you to join a band that was so well established, and they already had a couple of EPs and a couple of albums under their belt at that point. The distance will also have added to that challenge, with you being on the other side of the country. How did you approach it in those early days; playing that legacy material, and being respectful of what came before?
DK: It was cool because they had cool songs, and that’s a really big thing for me. I’d normally been the guy that writes all the words, usually forms the bands. So, it was a different thing for me, aside from jamming with Jetboy, where I also had to learn their stuff, and we wrote some music together that actually never got recorded. But getting into that situation, yeah, I wanted to keep it as true as I could to what the fans were used to hearing and put my spin on it. The band, boom, levelled up. We got a great live show. It just works. And it only works with guys who make it work. We all do our homework. We all want to be great. The last thing you want to do when you’re on stage is be sitting there wondering about the next song, the set, what are we going to do? So, we’re all pretty seasoned players in that aspect, and I think it shows in what we do.
MGM: Kickin Valentina’s live show is electric. There are so many bands these days that just get up and go through the motions, and it’s a rare thing when you see bands that connect. That connection with the crowd was really evident at HRH Sleaze last year.
DK: That’s what we do, brother. We connect. We throw a party. We’re fans of rock n roll music, too. It comes very natural to what we do. We like to rock.
MGM: Were you well connected with the other guys in the band before you joined? We discussed that you were approached much earlier on, and you that Jimmy had reached out to you. But, how well did you know the group before you joined?
DK: I didn’t, really. For me, it was what I was looking for. And then it cemented. Once we jammed, it was like, oh, yeah, this is absolutely going to work. As long as everybody’s 101% down, we’re going to do this. And I was right.
MGM: Since you’ve been together, as well as the EP, you’ve now done two successive albums; ‘The Revenge of Rock’ and ‘Star-Spangled Fist Fight’. Chris mentioned that you wrote quite a lot of songs together for that last album. You put out ten of those songs, but what are the plans for the others?
DK: You know what? We just released ‘The Gotaways’ as a single, and it’s doing well. The fans really dig the tune. We write in different styles; everything’s within our wheelhouse and rocks. But we don’t usually have two songs that sound the same, and that’s what I like. I like storytelling, and it’s got to have a hook, man. Got to have the big melody. It’s got to go off live. It’s got to connect. There were three songs that we did not put on the ‘Star-Spangled Fist Fight’ record because you could only put ten on a vinyl. We had plans somewhere to release these three songs, whether it was going to be a B-side for Japan, and we were just waiting to see what was going to become of these songs. We’re coming back to the UK, Scotland, Wales, and then we’re going to Europe, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and we thought his would be a great opportunity to release these songs and keep it fresh for this next run. So, we have an album coming out. It’s called ‘Raw Tracks, B-Sides, and Bootlegs’. This is going to consist of the three songs from the ‘Star-Spangled Fist-Fight’ recording sessions, along with some live tracks, and some of our raw tracks that were demos off ‘The Revenge of Rock’ album.
DK: Not here. But these guys send me 30-40 ideas … that’s how we record. They’ll get together and jam and write these tunes. They send them to me. I’ll go through them, and I try to fish out the ones that I just know are going to work, and I’ll sit down, write to them, get an idea, get a title, get a hook, get a melody line, and then send it back. It’s pretty much as simple as that. And then when we get together, I’ll usually fly up either before a gig, a tour. We have a couple of days’ rehearsals, and boom, we’re on our way. We work really well together. We really do.
MGM: What can you tell me about this new album you’re going to put out? Is it going to be put out officially or are you just going to sell it at the shows? How do you plan to do it?
DK: It’s going to be on Mighty Music, on the label. We’re going to be making vinyl, CDs. It should absolutely be out before we go and hit the UK and Europe again. Every time before we leave for tour, we usually do a gig at the Dixie Tavern in Marietta, Georgia. All of our record release parties have been there. So, we’ll hit that hard, hang out with the fans, and then we’ll take off for the UK.
MGM: There must have been quite a lot of material to choose from when you were compiling ideas for this new album. How did you go about making decisions on what to include?
DK: Well, there’s a couple of songs on there from that Bang Your Head Festival in Germany on our first run. And a lot of these were recorded brilliantly through the board. So, we already have a really good mix. We send it off to Andy Reilly in Muse Music right there in Georgia, who’s done all of our records. He’s like the fifth Beatle with us. We love him. And he doctors them up a little bit. Basically, we just picked some of the best recordings that already existed in a live setting.
MGM: The band are coming back to the UK in May to play seven shows, including the Cart & Horses, and you’ll be returning to Bannermans in Edinburgh.
DK: We love Christian at Bannermans … Boom!! That’s our boy!
MGM: Well, Christian’s currently playing around the country with Jizzy Pearl and Love/Hate
DK: And of course, he also does Warrior Soul. That’s going to be awesome, man. It’s the 35th anniversary of, if I’m correct, the Blackout in the Redroom album? When I was 18, my band opened for Love/Hate on that first tour here. A quick little side note story. When I was living in Hollywood, I had formed the very first Motley Crue Tribute Band ever. We replicated the Shout at the Devil Tour, back in ’96. After that fizzled out, my drummer from that went out playing with Jizzy and Love-Hate, who were opening for Dio. They had called me to play guitar in Love/Hate. I remember driving down to SeaWorld where they were opening for Dio, and speaking with Wendy Dio. I hung out with Jizzy, my drummer, Robbie, and also Cordell Crockett from Ugly Kid Joe was playing bass for the band at that time. Also at that time, I had a band called the Radio Children in Hollywood, and KLOS just started playing our music, so everything was looking good. I didn’t want to leave because if I had to step out, I’d probably have been out for four months if I was going to go play guitar with Love/Hate, so I turned it down and I stuck with my band.
MGM: When you’re over here in May, you’ve given yourself a pretty relentless schedule. You’ve only given yourself one day off on that tour. How do you go about keeping your voice in check during a run like that?
DK: Mind over matter. You wanted this, here it is, so we don’t bitch about it. I don’t have any specific warmups or affirmations to get ready. Normally, man, it’s a couple of shots of whiskey, grab the mic, lights go down, intro music comes on. Let’s do it. In the UK, we’re playing a lot of great places. We love the Waterloo in Blackpool. Everybody’s awesome there. We love playing the Tivoli in Buckley. Bannermans has been a second home for us too. We look forward to jamming and rocking everywhere this tour.
MGM: The last two albums seem to have provided a real catalyst for you increasing your footprint in the UK and Europe. Since ’22, ’23, you guys have really broken through and developed a really loyal fan base over here. Why do you think you’ve been able to get that traction in such a quick period of time?
DK: I’m not sure any more than that they love a good rock show. We throw down a good rock show. And we’re really close with our fans, too. We like to go hang out. A lot of bands don’t do that. We go hang out. Our meet and greets are always free. So, we’re out drinking beers and cutting up with all of our fans. And then the party’s in the front row when the KV machine hits the stage. And then even when we’re done, we’ll take a minute for ourselves, and boom, we’re right off to the merch booth, signing autographs and taking pictures and conversing with all of our fans. It’s not always about music. We’ll sit there and talk about their lives, their family, their favourite bands, their pets. It’s like a small rock n roll family. And I think that’s why we love the UK and Europe so much. It’s a lifestyle over there for these folks. They show up for the first band and they stay till the last band.
DK: We’re working right now with our agent here in the States, and I think he’s scouting out something for some US dates. We’re looking this time to go out and take a couple of other really kick-ass American sleaze rock bands with us. We want to have a sleaze rock package for the US run. It’s time for some of these bands to get out and be heard, and it doesn’t hurt when you put two, or three of them together. The States are a little bit harder. Unless you got a single or something from the ’80s or the ’90s, they’re really not interested in booking new bands, which is sad. It’s hard to break through unless you got relentless support. We always try to keep busy. As soon as we’re done with one thing, we’re on to the next thing.
Kickin Valentina are returning to the UK in May:
May 14th – Trillians, Newcastle
May 15th – Bannermans, Edinburgh
May 16th – The Waterloo, Blackpool
May 17th – Corporation, Sheffield
May 18th – Yardbirds, Grimsby
May 20th – The Tivoli, Buckley
May 21st – Cart & Horses, London
For more information:
https://www.facebook.com/KickinValentina
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