TY TABOR On Upcoming KING'S X Album: 'It's 'The Best Thing We've Done In A Very Long Time'

KING'S X guitarist Ty Tabor spoke to Chris Akin of The CMS Network about the progress of the recording sessions for the band's follow-up to 2008's "XV" album. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "[We recorded it] during 2019 and continued to work on it during COVID, just at individual studios. I added some additional vocals down here [at my studio] and actually another guitar part on a song. And we sent tapes around. Jerry [Gaskill, drums] added some more vocals. Doug [Pinnick, bass/vocals] added some more vocals. And we also had Wally Farkas [GALACTIC COWBOYS] singing on the record; he added some more [vocals].

"But other than that stuff being done after we left California, the record is done," he explained. "And it's already mastered and turned in, and there's a release date. And it's gonna come out this year; I just can't say when. The record company, it's up to them to announce all that stuff and do the promotion and all that.

"But, yeah, the plan is, there's a new record coming out this year, and it's the record that we worked harder on than anything we've done since we were very young and, to me, is the best thing we've done in a very long time," Tabor added.

Last October, Pinnick told Talking Metal that KING'S X's record company was "starting the campaign" for the new LP. "We're taking it slow 'cause we're trying to figure out with this whole COVID thing and all the things that are happening," he said. "We wanna put the record out without a lot of distractions and getting sick on the road or just all the controversy. We just wanna wait a little bit longer and do this right."

Regarding the musical direction of the new KING'S X material, Pinnick said: "Every song is completely different than the other — mixed and sonically; everything. We took every song and tried to do like THE BEATLES 'White' album and just sit down with a song and go, 'Let's give it what it needs.' I don't have to have my Doug Pinnick gravelly tone if I need a Paul McCartney-type sound. Ty [Tabor], he would fix his guitars to make… 'This is like a whatever song. Let's make it what it is but still be KING'S X.' So I think that it sounds like KING'S X but hopefully everyone will feel that we took another step forward. The whole point is just to try to push forward [while] still looking back. There's a lot of things on this record that are reminiscent of KING'S X totally, but then there's this new KING'S X, I think. Sonically, we're really excited because it's a complete analog record except with Pro Tools. It was laid down with analog — everything — and it was mastered on analog tape and even EQed with analog tube EQs to saturate the tape to get compression instead of digits. So there's no digits on this record. So when you hear it, it's gonna take you back a little bit. It sounds like you put a real record on in the '70s, sonically. It's, like, things jump out at you, and then they don't. It's, like, you go, 'Wow, the bass is huge, but I can hear everything else,' 'cause you can put your hands in it, almost. [Producer and engineer] Michael Parnin just did an amazing job — a painstaking job — to get it to sound like a record that you can put on and play forever."

The new KING'S X LP was mastered in June 2021 at the Bernie Grundman Mastering facility in Hollywood, California,

Last April, Pinnick told Shawn Ratches of Laughingmonkeymusic about the new KING'S X material: "I had some pretty crazy songs, time-change-wise, 'cause I've been listening to a lot of MESHUGGAH and shit like that. It's not KING'S X, but that flavor comes in. Imagine John Bonham playing with MESHUGGAH… But Ty and Jerry [Gaskill, drums] are singing a lot too. I tell people, it's like from [THE BEATLES' classic song] 'Penny Lane' to the heaviest MESHUGGAH — it's a blend of something in between there. And one song to another almost sounds different, almost to the point where they're individual pieces themselves, like PINK FLOYD used to do. We've got violins and other things in it. I've got some keyboards and all kinds of things to enhance things — piano. Nothing overboard, but just like [Jimi] Hendrix did and people like that — big things coming in and out that gives it that longevity, I would say. Things that you hear and go, 'Oh, wow. That's cool.' That little thing over there. So it's taken Michael a long time to mix it, 'cause he's got a lot of tracks."

KING'S X was sidelined by several health scares in recent years, including Pinnick's two hernia operations and two near-fatal heart attacks suffered by Gaskill.

In October 2019, KING'S X canceled all of its previously announced tour dates for the year so that Gaskill could undergo undisclosed heart "procedures."

"XV" was KING'S X's highest-charting album since 1996's "Ear Candy".

In 2005, VH1 included KING'S X in its list of "100 Greatest Artists In Hard Rock."