DUG PINNICK - King Strum Hums Up Sum
by Martin Popoff

King's X legend - nay, insanely legendary legend - Dug Pinnick finds himself still obsessively writing songs, by his count, about one a day (totaling over 2000!), and then finding a place to put the damn things. The world is better for the fact that most of the time, he lets Ty Tabor and Jerry Gaskill fool with them, but it's also a groovy trip into the creative process when he doesn't. Ergo, there goes two Poundhound records and now two similarly totally solo albums, under his own (slightly truncated) name.

The new one is called Strum Sum Up, and there actually is a difference this time - a fierce band has been hired to electrify Dug's songs, most notable in the ranks, Wally Farkas from Galactic Cowboys.

"I'm going to try to condense this, because I have a habit of going on and on," says Dug, who proceeds to go on and on! "But basically after working with King's X for so long, the songs I've written for Kings X., they change, and after that happens, sometimes I'm not happy with them. Not that King's X did a bad job, but they change from what I originally wanted them to be. Now, I don't say that my original version is better or worse; that has nothing to do with - it's all about art. So what the main problem was, was that I wanted to make something where I had 100% control. On the first two Poundhound albums, and on my first solo album, Emotional Animal, I played all the instruments except the drums because I just wanted to get my point across. But the thing was, I realize that it's important to compromise. That's what makes a band great. But I'm a control freak also, so I did those records and played everything myself. Okay, as a result of that, I got everything I wanted out of my system."

"But I learned also that I'm not the greatest all by myself. You're only as good as the people around you (laughs). So that's when I decided to put the band together with people who moved me emotionally and gave me goose bumps when I saw them play. So I grabbed a bunch of people to do that, and did my solo record, Strum Sum Up, and what I was so excited about, was that those guys played the way I write songs. When I write songs, there are certain people and certain songs and certain things that give me creativity. And these musicians inspired me, in songwriting, in the past. So I got them together and it was so great to see them do what they do, what I always wanted to hear them do. It lifted my music up, rather than made me feel like I was in chains or something. They kind of got on the Dug bandwagon and made what I did better, rather than fixing it or changing it or making it work for everybody else. And once I got that out of the system, now I'm back with King's X, and we've got a new record out and everything's great (laughs)."

DUG PINNICK - King Strum Hums Up Sum Page 2