THE KING KHAN & BBQ SHOW (SOON TO BE KNOWN AS 'BAD NEWS BOYS')
ARE IN LOS ANGELES TONIGHT AT THE EL REY!
CHECK OUT THE BRAND NEW VIDEO ON NOISEY FOR 'WE ARE THE CHAMPION'
TAKEN FROM THE ALBUM TO BE RELEASED IN EARLY 2015 THROUGH IN THE RED RECORDS
Photo: Miron Zownir
"A love story... of hate."
After a long, hard hiatus, it was love that finally resurrected this pioneering rock'n'roll legend.
The King Khan & BBQ Show are back. This time teaming up with long time brethren, the Black Lips, to launch a full-on North American Invasion this coming Autumn.
"It's deep love and commitment to right the wrongs and bring the kids what they really need, what they deserve: true, passionate, overtly-erotic, heart-melting ROCK and ROLL!!!" - King Khan
"We give up the ghosts. If we open that portal on stage or on vinyl and you choose to step through it, we can give you release. We're like a budget Thai massage done with Ex-Lax fingers." - Mark Sultan (BBQ)
2014 saw Sultan write a 'love note' to Khan in his own bile and blood. Khan crafted a portrait of Sultan during that same time, using pints of unused semen and various fingernail clippings. Sadly both art pieces were destroyed by the recent flooding in Serbia, where they were being exhibited and housed along with other works from the past 10 or so years, like the rare 16mm master print of their fabled 2009 art-house masterpiece, 'Shaved Anus'.
Fans who couldn't make the trip to the Balkans to see their oft-lauded heroes lick tears from the faces of dwarves dressed-up like hot dogs (their performance piece 'Raus! Raus! Reetz!'), were finally rewarded for their patience when the band stepped out of its musical hiatus to play a few shows earlier in the year.
"Returning to the stage wasn't the hard part, it was going to court to fight to keep our name" said King Khan, referring to the recent court case in Germany in which a 'historic' local eatery by the name of 'KING KHAN UND BBQ' decided to sue the band. "It seems like these restaurant folk have a lot of pull in the community and even in the government, and this might be the last tour we do as The King Khan & BBQ Show. Canadians don't really have rights here in Berlin; we are basically just refugees. Polite refugees. Sorry."
"What became sickeningly apparent right away when this whole lawsuit was thrown at us, is that no matter how many kids' charities we pay into, no matter how many fisting competitions we win, we will always be 'Auslanders' - and that hurts. More than fisting." said an obviously distraught Mark Sultan. "I hope those döner dudes are happy."
The new name, 'Bad News Boys', was actually the band's original monicker in 2003. "We have made a lot of strange decisions in our band's history. The time Mark ate a bunch of expired yogurt backstage in Iowa was one, for example. His (farts) made some of the audience puke," Khan laughed. "Slightly less acrid a decision was opting for the KKBBQ name years ago, but who woulda ever known... We're completely different people from where we were even last year, and we're excited to be playing again."
"(The 'King Khan & BBQ' name) seemed like a good idea at the time, and though we're big fans of Number 2, we maybe could have stuck to our first choice that one time" Sultan added, thoughtfully. "Situations like my alias ('BBQ'), history and contributions getting swallowed up by Khan's infamy led to resentment over the name, too, unfortunately. Bad spelling and wording on posters and ads, or how some folks can't understand the difference between ourselves and Khan's other band ('King Khan & The Shrines') is a bummer... On some level, we're thankful to have been sued. It's like we went full circle and got a second chance to fuck up."
All of this comes just after a short, focus-group tested run in major cities across North America and Europe using the monicker 'Jumbo Lions' came to a screeching, disasterous halt. As In The Red Records head honcho Larry Hardy remarked, "(Their) attempt at using that particular bandname made the subjects VERY uncomfortable. To the point where fights and wind were breaking out from just the mere mention (of it). Granted, (Khan and Sultan) made the folks believe they'd be testing a line of tribal-tattoo themed energy drinks," Hardy paused, angrily. "And don't get me started on the whole 'Zen Machines' debacle."
A new album is going to be released on In The Red Records in early 2015, under their new name 'BAD NEWS BOYS'. Until then, you can see them (and hear a bunch of new songs) as 'The King Khan & BBQ Show'.
REMAINING SHOWS:
10/7 - El Rey Theatre - Los Angeles, CA
10/8 - Great American Music Hall - San Francisco, CA
10/10 - Dante's - Portland, OR
10/11 - Crocodile Cafe - Seattle, WA
10/12 - Electric Owl - Vancouver, BC