Kings County’s bio reads “Orlando, FL based American hard rock band mixing powerful melodic guitars with infectious hooks.” Add originality and a ton of passion to that and I would say you have it’s a pretty accurate description. The band consists of Rob Dexter (Vocals, Bass), Steve Bell (Guitars, Vocals), Joe Lopez (Drums) and Bill Kania (Guitars, Vocals). These guys are no overnight sensation as they have been battling it all in the musical trenches for a long time and paying their dues. They guys unleashed their self-titled full length debut album in 2019 and that combined with their live show has created quite a buzz about these guys. Over the course of the last year, they have been releasing singles and videos as they lay the musical groundwork for the next chapter of their career. I’m Music Magazine has been fortunate have the Exclusive Premiere of their “Bleed These Tears” video as well as feature them in “The Lockdown Lowdown.” We recently sat down with lead vocalist and bassist Rob Dexter to learn a little bit about the band’s past, present and future of Kings County as well as Rob’s professional wrestling name. Yes, I did say wrestling!
Rob, I’m going to get my first music nerd question out of the way and that is about the band’s name. Sometimes there is a story behind it, sometimes it’s something that sounded cool and sometimes it’s just a name drawn out of a hat. What about Kings County?
Rob Dexter/Kings County: The band started out in New York and at that time we were under a different name. We had gone through a couple of member changes so we thought it was a good time to change the name. We kind of wanted to keep the New York theme going so we called it Kings County which is a county in Brooklyn. The funny thing is that none of us are from Brooklyn but rather the Long Island area. It’s amazing how people connect with the name.
You guys were part of Kabang, the house band at Disney, for seven years. Then, you decided to jump into the deep end of the water and head out on your own. Was there a catalyst for that jump?
When the band had originated in the mid-90s, we were pretty much a cover band at that time. That allowed us to play some really great venues with a lot of people. That kind of propelled us to bigger and better things and eventually led us to Disney. When people think Disney, they think we’re a band and it’s probably very watered down and safe, but they were never like that with us. They never told us what we could play or couldn’t play and at that time we were bringing originals in. They had no problem with those and they were pretty hard rocking. As long as we didn’t curse or say anything bad in the lyrics, they were ok with it which kind of surprised me with Disney.
When you play for Disney, the world comes to you as opposed to you going and touring around the world. Every day, there are people from all over the world coming who could be potential fans which was great for us. Disney was really the stepping stone for us. The first show that we ended up doing as an all original band was for Ted Nugent.
Oh yeah, no pressure there, right? I mean the Nuge is a legendary artist who has a pretty good guaranteed fan base that’s going to show up to see him and may or may not care to see an opening act.
A friend of ours who works for the House of Blues here in Orlando and is a part of Live Nation asked me if we knew any bands that wanted to open for Ted Nugent. I said ‘how about us?’ and we did. We hadn’t played a lot of originals at that time so we kind of had to scramble to get things together. We wanted to go in there and not be the opening act but actually put on a show. We didn’t want the people using that time to go get a hotdog or a drink. So, we had a beginning, middle and an end. We had a drum solo in there, we had a jam part and we just hit the audience over the head hard. It kind of started the fire for us to go and do the whole original thing.
Were you guys the least bit nervous going into the show?
We’ve played some big stages at Disney, but you’re playing your music for people who you don’t know how they’re going to react. I don’t know if it was as much nervous as it was I hope they don’t throw shit as us.
As they chanted ‘WE WANT TED! WE WANT TED!
Exactly, but thankfully that didn’t happen. It was amazing and they gave us a standing ovation! You never know what you’re going to get as an opening act, but if you can entertain them for 30 minutes then you’ve done your job.
I’ve been at some of those shows where the crowd only wants to see the headliner and they give the opener hell! I’ve seen some beer cups and bottles thrown before! As far as live shows go, have you guys gone out on a tour yet as an opener?
No, not so much a night after night kind of thing but more of individual shows like opening for Ted and we also got to open for Bon Jovi. I think that’s better for us rather than being a part of seven unknown bands playing a club. It’s a shame with everything going on with the virus that there aren’t a lot of tours going on. It’s great here in Florida because everything is wide open and we do a lot of shows. It’s covers but we do incorporate original music in as well. It’s great because you’re playing to big audiences and you sell CDs and shirts and then they get hooked on your original music which is great.
Things here in North Carolina aren’t wide open and they just eased up on some of the restrictions. We just had a few small venues reopen, but they are only allowed a certain percentage of people in. What’s it like at your shows?
It really does depend on where you’re playing. We still play Disney and we do acoustic there. They have their rules there and you have to come in with your mask on. The band doesn’t have to wear them when playing. Then, you have the self-owned clubs or venues and, depending on where you are, there are no masks or social distancing. It’s just go, which is kind of the way it was before all of this.
In these clubs, what’s the turn out like?
The clubs say you should social distance but they don’t enforce it. In Florida, there is no mask mandate so you can wear one if you want to and if you don’t then you don’t. As far as the crowds go, I would say it’s about 80% turnout so far which is a blessing. We’re originally from New York and we have friends in bands in there as well as California and none of them are playing because none of the clubs are open. I feel bad because we have dates listed on our website like I’m rubbing it in their face. I mean, we have to do what we have to do to survive.
You mentioned opening for Bon Jovi earlier. That had to be a pretty cool experience!
That was in an arena and our first official arena to play for. It’s kind of funny how that one came about. A friend of ours sent us a link that iheart Radio was looking for original bands and you submit your video of your original music. When I see those kinds of things, I think nobody really wins them. So, I kind of ignored it and it was the last day that you could submit something and I thought what the heck. So, I put one of our songs in there and I received an email that from the radio station asking for my cell number. Now, I’m thinking that they don’t call you to tell you that you lost. So, I kind of had an idea that we had won this. They called about three hours later and told me that we had won and we were opening for Bon Jovi. It was pretty surreal, like did we really win this thing? I called the guys individually and asked what they were doing on Wednesday night April 18th? They thought we just had a regular gig until I told them that we were opening for Bon Jovi. That was pretty amazing; it was definitely the next step for the band. We had press everywhere for that one and it was 20,000 people, SOLD OUT.
That’s a nice little audience to have!
That was another thing about all of those years playing for Disney on their stag that helped. Playing on an arena stage that size was no different and we took advantage of that. We put on a show and kick the place’s ass. Whether you knew our songs or not, we were going to keep your attention.
If you’re in that audience and that happens, suddenly you like what you’re hearing and you fall right into it.
Exactly!
How long did you get to play?
25 minutes and one of the things that Bon Jovi’s manager requested was that we played no covers. We do this thing where we go from the middle of one of our original songs into a part of “Kashmir” by Led Zeppelin. We had to get permission from Bon Jovi’s management to do that and they were fine with it. It’s only about 50 seconds of “Kashmir” and when you do stuff like that, you definitely get people turning their heads. It’s like ‘are these guys playing what I think they are?’ It’s funny because the tempo of our original song is twice as fast as “Kashmir” so when you go into “Kashmir,” which is half-time, it fits perfect.
If you didn’t have their attention before then, you now had it for the rest of the show.
Absolutely and the great thing is all of the press was there to review Bon Jovi and they’re like ‘who’s this band out there?’ That was great because the press can eat you up and rip you apart but we didn’t get that which was awesome.
You mentioned doing covers before and your latest single and video is your rocked out version of “I Ran” by A Flock Of Seagulls. Were you doing 80s songs like that back then?
Oh yeah, we played a bunch of that. One thing I noticed about 80s new wave like The Cure and Depeche Mode is that those songs really convert well to rock. If you throw some electric guitar in there or convert some of those keyboard parts to guitar, it works really well. We were looking for a song to remake and we had done a ton of that stuff from the 80s. We were working with Producer Chuck Alkazian and he mentioned that being a cover band at one point that we had to have something that we’d be interested in. We needed something upbeat and driving that we could really crush. We always got a great response when we did “I Ran.” Regardless of the song, when we played cover songs towards the heavier side they always got a great response. We could play “Brick House” and it would be heavy.
The video for it is pretty awesome because I love the way you incorporated elements from the original 80s video. How did all of that come together?
When we started talking to the director, he was in LA and we were here in Orlando, we started bouncing ideas around. We both agreed that there should be elements from the original video to drag in those people who remember it, but we also want to do our own thing. He had the idea of the girl with the makeup but we just went darker. He had the idea of taking her and she gets sucked into the mirror and we’re playing inside of a prism. We think it’s pretty amazing.
To put the time and effort that you guys did into making this and in a pandemic is pretty awesome.
It took a little longer than we wanted it to. He came here and shot us and then went back to LA to build a set. You never know what you’re going to get so you have to put your trust in your director. You give him the ball and let him run with it. You never know what the end product is going to look like, but it really turned out great.
You’ve also been posting teaser clips for a new song called “My Addiction.” What can you tell us about that one?
We just finished filming the live band performance part of it here in Orlando with Tommy Costanza and he’s done work with Alter Bridge and Tremonti and things like that. We knew him from another band here in Orlando who recommended him. What a creative visionary! He’s going to film the conceptual part soon and it’s going to be off the rails. We can’t wait to get it out there for everyone to see.
So, what’s your focus right now? Are you just geared towards singles or is there an EP or album maybe in the near future?
That’s a good question; we’ve really just been getting singles out. My guitar player and I are about to head up to Detroit to start writing with Chuck (Alkazian). We’ve got some great ideas but I’m not sure if we want to keep them as singles or not. We may want to put together a full length album depending on how much music we get done. I think we’re going to make a great team. We sent some stuff back and forth via the internet but this will be the first time that we’re actually sitting together in the same room and doing things from scratch.
Chuck definitely has a special vision and touch. We’ve done a lot of work with some newer stuff that Chuck’s finger has been on but there’s also a lot of older stuff that I’m a fan of that I had no idea that Chuck was involved in until I started backtracking his portfolio.
He’s got such great ideas! You can send him a raw piece and he will mold it onto a masterpiece.
Well Rob, my time is about up and we like to end our interviews with something that we call “3 For The Road.” Do you remember the first album that you bought with your own money that you had to save up?
It was Iron Maiden’s first album, the one with Paul Di’Anno on it.
Do you still have it? Has it survived all these years?
I do! I’m sure you did the same thing with your vinyl collection with cds coming in and then everything being online. I did keep a certain number of my vinyl and that was one of them.
If you could have literally anyone be your inner voice, who would it be?
That’s a great question. I think when we talked before you asked about my favorite cartoon character as a kid and I mentioned Bugs Bunny. I think I’d have to go with Bugs on this one too because he was such a wise ass and he got away with everything.
Last one; if music was over today and you had to go into professional wrestling, what would your wrestling name be?
The Big Dex because that was kind of my nickname as a kid because my last name is Dexter.
Interview by I’m Music Magazine Owner/Editor Johnny Price
