The most accurate description of Glen McKenzie and the Road Kings is Roots Rock and Roll all the way! Slashing guitars! Songs about life, love, cars, bars, motorcyles, girls, politics and guitars...what else is there? Modern stylings meet Rock, Classic Rock, Southern Rock, Country and Blues.
I grew up listening to Rock and Roll 45's on a mono record player, ya know, the kind in the little suitcase? My parents were into Elvis, Johnny Cash, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass and Country music of all sorts and they played that on their big ol' Zenith HiFi Stereo, bigger than some houses. I eventually graduated to my Uncle Bill's hand-me-down Portable Stereo record player. I'm not sure why they called it "portable" as it was pretty big. It was pretty cool though...green tolex and brown speaker grills. The speakers were of course detatchable and I could spread them way apart and get the ultimate seperation on my 45's and eventually my first real LP's that I bought with my own money. My first "album" I got for my birthday was The Isley Brothers. Then I bought the Animals - Animalism. Then the ultimate...The Beatles - Hey Jude! Man, I listened to that record over and over and over. On occasion my parents would have their friends over for dinner and drinks and they would listen to the grown up music on the hifi and sometimes they would let me play my Beatles records on it while they were in the room...wow!
After losing a wrestling match with a trumpet I got my first guitar for my 12th birthday. It was a Harmony guitar with a stella neck, for what it's worth. I finally talked my mom into that cool Yamaha acoustic and went to lessons and watched my psuedo hippy teacher sing Abraham Martin and John, but I survived the great folk scare of the 60's and early 70's and when I was 14 I got a Pan bass (Gibson's Japanese Epiphone I think) and a Sonar bass amp and my buddies BJ, or Bryan Jones (not of the Stones obviously) and Tony Barnes started the School Boy Punks. After several people asked us "do you play punk", as it was all the rage here and there and we didn't, we changed our name to "Squeeze Play". That didn't last long as playing Kiss and Bachman Turner Overdrive covers didn't seem to be in vogue. The Gibson Grabber bass was a step up but not by much. I much preferred the Gibson EB-3 that I got from Tony. A real man's bass. Eventually we broke up and BJ and I waited for the perfect moment to start a band up again, but this time, I had graduated to a Rickenbacker 4003 bass my senior year...really sweet bass and BJ had a really good set of Ludwigs. We added a couple of guitar players a second drummer and girl singer and we were off. I went in and out of music and in and out of bands over the years but always kept writing and my desire to play and record never waivered.
I think my sound is mostly influenced by the Beatles (who isn't?), The Rolling Stones, Cream, Dwight Yoakam, ZZ Top, Johnny Cash, Steve Cropper, Grand Funk, Chris Isaak...the list goes on. I just try to focus on making songs that you can tap your foot to, that make you smile, or make you think, or all of the above. What I do is raw, and real, and I think that you can feel that. I don't hear a lot of stuff anymore that I can say that about. Every now and then I get to hear a Lucinda Williams or Dwight Yoakam CD that hits me that way. "Kompressor" is my first release and I really think your gonna love this CD as much as I loved making it!
