by John Kennedy of The Dark City Kings
Out of the blue? That doesn’t even describe the moment. Dark City Kings was the runt of the litter in the Asheville music scene. We’d lost two guitar players in the Spring and had just brought in a new guitar player and fiddle player. The core of Dark City Kings has been around the Asheville music scene for a decade – but this band was the runt of the litter and then tossed into a raging river to drown.
Dark City Kings? We were a drunken brewery band that was slowly writing original material. We wrote simple songs. We meant them. We wrote melodies you can sing in the shower and big sing-along choruses. We’d just decided to try again, write an entirely new songbook with this new band formation, practice twice a week, and play a show once a week.
We played our first show together on August 5th.
Listen to the album while reading the text.
The Producer
Then, on August 21, Kevin Moloney reached out to us. August 21, 2023. I still have the message on Instagram. “Hi guys! Tis Kevin Moloney here. I’m a record producer from Ireland now resident here in Asheville… I’m digging your raw beautiful songs & will make it along to one of your upcoming gigs soon….” That’s how the producer of Sinead O’Connor’s first two albums and the engineer of U2’s first five albums reached out to us.
I googled him. He’d been part of the recording crew at Windmill Studios in Dublin. He’d worked on a recording with The Edge and Sinead O’Connor. When Sinead recorded her first album, she fired the first producer and scrapped the initial recording. With no budget and an outsider gang of musicians, she returned to the studio with Kevin Moloney and recorded “The Lion and The Cobra.” I owned that album. I adored that album. She passed away on July 26. She was everywhere in the music press – and Kevin Moloney was sending the Dark City Kings instagram messages.
To be honest – I didn’t trust it. Kevin Moloney looks like an Irish magician, like Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings, and he speaks with a heavy Irish accent and all these Irish idioms. I think I was overly cautious. I had beers with Kevin Moloney. He came to our shows, shows with terrible sound, shows when we were recreating ourselves.
Rehearsing
Craig, a massive bearded mountain man, has an old family home on a dirt road in the Swannanoa Mountains. It has a wood stove, a low ceiling, and small rooms. We’d be there twice a week practicing and writing new songs. Kevin Moloney would sit on a stool at the doorway to the tiny, cramped practice room. He’d listen and write in a small notepad. He’d listen, laugh, joke, and drink with us – and he even got up and danced around when we’d play “Party Clothes.” He was supportive and excited and slowly pulled us out of our shells, filled us with a strange magical confidence.
The pieces fit together. We could hear that the songs were getting better and better. These simple songs were pure catchy pop, influenced by the storytelling of the Southern Appalachian Mountains, influenced by Irish bands like The Waterboys. We were growing at each practice. Our singer, Colleen, sounded like Debbie Harry. Our guitar player Merlin was adding grooves and movement. Craig and Bayla were singing along, playing bass, and banging on the cajon. And our violin player Kyrie was making everyone weap with her beautiful playing.
Recording
We practiced two times a week and played a show a week. On New Year’s Eve, we played a 5-hour set. That winter, The Orange Peel invited us to play a local Asheville showcase with two other upcoming bands. And then, on January 21, we went into the Citizen Vinyl studio with Kevin Moloney. This is the same as Kevin Moloney, who was interviewed by the New York Times and Spin Magazine about his work with Sinead O’Connor. Kevin Moloney.
We went in to record for a weekend. We didn’t know what would happen. The idea was to see if we could record one song. Then, see if we can record two songs. Maybe we’d record a 3-4 song EP by the end of the weekend.
We got in at 9 a.m. and stayed late into the night. At the end of the weekend, we’d recorded eight songs. Kevin Moloney was so happy with the recording that he wanted to go back to the studio and record two more songs for a full album. It took us a month to book another weekend at the studio. By then, we’d written two more songs: “Trouble” and “True Believer,” which are the heart of the recording.
The Album
“Love is Punk” – this was the runt of our songs. It is a long, wordy, not very melodic, narrative song. We rarely played it live because people would go and get another drink whenever we played it. It’s the last song on the recording – but the idea of “Love is Punk” grew and grew in the band. Love is Punk. Love is DIY. Love is anti-establishment. Love is noisy and bold. Love is like a song. It is nothing and it is everything. Kevin Moloney said: “Love is Punk – I hope that’s the name of the album.”
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