LITTLE KING – interview

Introduce your band, and describe your latest release: 

Great to speak with you again! This is Ryan from Little King. You knew that, though.

I am proud to announce the upcoming release of our 8^th album, Lente Viviente, due on Friday, September 26, 2025. (Okay, maybe we have some EP’s thrown in for good measure, but if I start parsing words, I get into this being our 10^th release, as we’ve had 2 singles from 2023 now thrown into the equation. More on that later!) This collection of 7 songs has all of the hallmarks of a classic Little King record, and with a new rhythm section and different engineer, I think we have outdone ourselves and created the best collection of songs we’ve ever released.

My “other job” is as CEO of a company called LivingLens Memoirs. We are based in Arizona, and the crux of our business is interviewing (usually) senior citizens about their lives and legacies. Since we released Legacy of Fools in 2008, I have been pretty fascinated with life-stories, heritage, and what we are all “willfully leaving behind” (that line is from the press release back in the day.)

As I was interviewing our clients and some family members last year, I was constantly struck with how we see ourselves and each other through unique and almost uniformly biased filters. We don’t all see ourselves the way others look at us, and we all bring our DNA and life experiences to our reflections on truth and nostalgia.

Sometimes, we really get it wrong. I know my family and friends see me differently than people who just know me through my music. Hell, I have neighbors from 50 years ago who still disagree as to how a particular event went down. I love the Mandela Effect phenomenon and how so many people can have the same WRONG memories from an event! This was, I believe, coined after so many believed without question that Nelson Mandela died in prison. Spoiler…he didn’t.

But whatever the subject, I really examine the lenses and the light by which we all see the world. Songs focus on nostalgic memories with family and friends, the effects of drugs and homelessness, appearing to be kind and gentle while absolutely ROILING inside, the vagaries of identity and place as it relates to ancestral homelands, and more. Lots to chew on, eh? “Lente Viviente” is the Spanish translation of “Living Lens,” so it’s certainly directly correlated to my current gig.

What’s the hardest part about being a band in this day and age?

Top 10 list incoming:

10. Competing with 5 billion releases a day on streaming outlets

9. Touring without having to sell plasma…shit’s expensive

8. Addiction and debauchery…this may be the first addiction-free lineup I have ever been a part of in Little King (and oftentimes, at least before 2019, I was the addict…alcohol, anyway.)

7. Loudness wars…my favorite albums are not Brick Wall SLAMMED with volume, but that’s what people sort of expect. Until Spot or YouTube smash it to pieces with their respective compression, of course.

6. Asking your friends and family to stream a song while actually knowing that they won’t and don’t really care…no shade, just truth. Especially at this point in my career. “Oh, another Little King album? How quaint.”

5. Maintaining consistency in quality and originality while releasing new music yearly. I swear, we pore over every note and word. Do other bands? Probably a lot of them. But we care lots.

4. Keeping a lineup together without the promise of financial rewards. Yeah, I pay my team pretty well, and I’m proud of that. But getting buy-in when you’re kind of the side gig is hard. Understandably, of course. I’m not the meal ticket…maybe just a rent payment or something. I hope that all changes next year.

3. Social Media…I hate it. I don’t think I’m that good at it. I do it because we have to and that’s fine, but I feel odd talking about myself and my art every goddamn day. It’s antithetical to who I am. I don’t WANT to talk about myself. But it’s a contest in the modern world of music promotion, influencers, and the like.

2. It’s hard to be at peace with the musical choices when the album is done and off to the distributor. Like it or not, we are surrounded by second-guessers who, many times, have never even written and released a single song. But that is NOTHING compared to how much we doubt ourselves. I’m past that now, but the week of mastering is brutal, and I definitely try not to beat myself up too much. This album sounds great, so I am in a good place. For now!

1. Getting better after 28 years…that’s the hardest thing. We’ve done it, though. Check out the new record and then let’s talk.

When did you realize that your project had the potential to be much more than just a fun idea?

Oh, I don’t think I EVER felt that way. It’s just a fun idea still, honestly. We have so few expectations. Or I do, anyway. My new band members, Tony Bojorquez on drums and Dave Hamilton on bass and cello, I think they expect that people are gonna be surprised when they hear this record. Particularly their fans and friends, as this recording is a bit of a departure from what they’ve both done in the past. I’m like, “Yeah, we did great work…don’t get your hopes up though that too many people might actually CARE!”

I absolutely do this because it’s fun. I’m not obsessed, I swear. Fingers crossed.

Tell us about your latest release, why should we check it out?

As I mentioned before, the lyrical content is inspired by the lenses and filters that color our perceptions and our versions of truth. Musically, having 2 new collaborators made this a particularly fun and exciting project.

Dave Hamilton arranged strings and played cello on the last 2 tours and the albums Occam’s Foil in 2019 and Amuse De Q in 2021. He’s an amazing player and a great dude, and we have chemistry as friends that makes the playing and writing/rehearsing process a ton of fun. Lots of giggling.

Tony Bojorquez came to Tucson to live for a bit earlier this year and literally posted on IG that he was looking for a new project. I had laid the demos down with Eddy Garcia, the drummer and engineer for Little King since 2007, but they felt kinda flat to me. So, when Tony and I got together, we hit it off instantly and put in a lot of work to get the 7 songs ready to track. They sounded good between the 2 of us, but when Dave came in to complete the trio, we KNEW this was going to be good.

The theme of this album was “micro-epics.” We would finish a song early on in rehearsal and I would ask Tony and Dave how long they thought it was. “5 minutes?” Try 3:30. No WAY! It was funny…the songs are intense and complex but also concise and compact. That became the aim. We wanted to create songs that were memorable and hook-y but also pleasing to musician nerd in all 3 of us. It’s a balance not easily struck, by the way. There are plenty of passages on the new record that could have extended into full on jam territory, and some of the tunes do have some serious PLAYING. But overall, we say what we need to say and move on, hopefully leaving the audience wanting more. When we do finally debut these songs live, hopefully the Fall here in the USA, there will be ample time to extend ourselves and jam. I look forward to that!

How would you describe your sound to an unfamiliar reader?

Little King has sort of latched onto “Dynamic, Melodic, Progressive Rock.” I like that, even if it’s a bit wordy. But those terms sum up our sound nicely. We want to keep listeners engaged and on their toes. It is so fun to NOT be able to predict what is coming next for me as a listener, so I try to offer that to our fans. Hopefully they agree that this album makes that leap nicely.

I think we live in a short-attention span universe. Don’t really need to rehash why, as it should be plainly obvious that social media and all of the CHOICES for entertainment have made it more important than ever to keep it moving, keep it interesting, and to engage from beginning to end. I won’t say that we think about that while writing and recording…we honestly do what we want and hope the listener will take that ride with us. But I do acknowledge that it’s a good idea to try and appeal to SOMEONE other than ourselves. Like…the cat seems to dig it!?

What do you want listeners to take away from listening to your band?

The listener deserves to feel respected when they decide to spend 3 or 25 minutes with us. We are NOT cheating anyone by writing common songs, simple arrangements, and appealing to their basest nature as music fans. Yes, there’s some head-banging and some singing along for sure. That’s good songwriting…emphasizing the dynamics and taking the listener on a short journey. But I think we do a good job of being accessible while still requiring a few more listens to full grasp the subject matter and the musicianship. That’s Lente Viviente in a nutshell.

If someone hears us and says that it sounds clear, clean, they love the harmonies, that the words made them THINK on a deeper level – whether that is the intention or not – then I feel like we have held up our end of the deal between artist and fan.

Where would you really like to tour that you haven’t done so yet, and why?

Let’s do Europe! I was in Spain (and Morocco) earlier this summer, and I have spent a bit of time in Europe over the years, but not enough. As a kind of prog-rock anomaly, Little King does pretty well with press and radio in Europe, and I think festival season next year will see us on stages throughout the EU and the UK. Now…if I have to sell plasma to pay the band, we are NOT going. Let’s hope the music carries us.