DUG PINNICK - King Strum Hums Up Sum Page 2
by Martin Popoff

Perhaps it was because of the band chemistry, but Dug saw fit to offer a bunch of extended jams on many of the album's tracks (in reality, it was more so because he originally had only 30 minutes of music!). In any event, stand-out track 'Smile' isn't one of these...

"Oh god, Smile is one of my favourite songs - that I ever wrote," says Pinnick. "And I think I've only written three or four songs that I really like. And 'Smile' is one of them. And it isn't me preaching, it isn't me standing up for some stance that I change my mind about later (laughs). It's just a simple song about smiling and how effective smiles are. I hope that someday I can sell that to Crest or Colgate. You know, I'm serious. I'm thinking commercials with some of these songs. But it's a very short song, and I like it."

In closing, Dug talks about his swing back to the big band at hand, King's X, and the new Michael Wagener-produced album called XV. "I wrote all the songs on Strum Sum Up and all the songs I wrote on the new King's X record, all at the same time. So pretty much what you hear on my solo record is what you'll kind of hear on the new King's X record, except with Jerry and Ty's flavour, which changes things a lot. People are telling me that it's sort of a mixture between Dogman on the aggressive side, but Gretchen on the diverse side. You know, I'm happy with it. It always depends on how you sequence the record. And I sequenced it so that the first eight songs just kick your ass. So it sounds like a real heavy record. But when you change it around and put the slower songs and the mellower songs in different places, it can come up almost like an Eagles record or something. So what we opted for, was to make a sequence that was more middle of the road. Because our manager said to me, about a month ago, because I was complaining that, 'Well, we don't appear to be heavy enough! We don't look hard enough!' And he said, 'Dug, contrary to what you believe, you're not a metal band.' He said, 'And your fans are not metalheads per se. It's time you started thinking about the way they think.' And I thought, OK, we'll give this a try (laughs)."