Before his recent show at Mohegan Sun’s Wolf Den, John King took some time to sit down with New England Country Music to talk about touring, his upcoming single and album and even some football.
John got his start playing college shows, something they still enjoy. As he explained “we do a lot of college stuff, it’s kinda how we built our fan base before we got a record deal, doing a lot of the sorority/fraternity stuff at a lot of the universities. We still do a lot of colleges, I went to UGA, kinda got into it that way; it’s a good way to build a fan base!”
Since the University of Georgia days, John and his band have picked up their touring quite a bit. Last year they performed close to 220 shows and they don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. “We were doing about 150 before I ever had a record deal and then with the single last year, it helped us. Already this year we’ve been full throttle. Last year was crazy with my radio tour, first single being released. This year we started out the year with Eric Paslay up in Chicago down through Wisconsin… we were with Sam Hunt last weekend; it’s been a really good year already!” John says that they are planning on playing a lot of fair and festivals this coming summer, in addition to appearing with other artists including more shows with the artists mentioned before. John’s already played shows with big names such as Rascal Flatts and Florida Georgia Line.
Despite playing so many shows a year John says him and the band have no problem getting excited to go out and put on a rocking show every night. Backstage before the show they were all laid back and relaxed but when they hit the stage they kicked it into high gear! As John put it, “It’s like a switch flips every time I hit the stage, I love it up there. Doesn’t matter if there’s 20,000 people which we’ve played in front of with FGL and Cole Swindell or if it’s you know a club where there’s 100 people, or whatever, you know it doesn’t matter, we love it and we have fun on stage.” Having seen his show that night, I can vouch for how much fun they truly have on stage. While the Wolf Den is on the smaller end, the band had an absolute blast. At one point the band was playing from in the crowd, and at another, John actually had his guitar player on his shoulders.
The set included a mix of fun covers and awesome original songs including his next single, ‘On Your Lips,’ which officially comes out March 2nd. John described the song, “It’s a fun song, we’re gonna play it tonight, it’s a rocker, it’s up tempo and you know ‘Tonight Tonight’ was kinda the anthemic thing which was what I loved about it, this one kinda shows the other side of me which is the full on southern rock and roll, just no holds barred. It gives a good taste of what we do live which is what I love about it.”
John wrote the song, along with most of the songs on his album, which is coming out later this year. Ahead of the full album, he has an EP coming out very soon, around the same time as the single. One song to look out for is another one he wrote called ‘Something In The Water’ (not to be confused with the Carrie Underwood song of the same name). Talking to John before the show, and hearing him intro it during his set, you can tell this is one that John is really proud of. He calls it “a little autobiography of who I am and where I come from, growing up down in Georgia.”
During our interview, John correctly picked that our New England Patriots would win the Super Bowl but seemed more excited for the halftime show which featured his dream duet partner, Katy Perry. His face lit up when we asked him about her. “Heck yes! That’s my girl right there, I love her! I just love her personality, I think she’s got this cool vibe on stage and she just knows how to own a crowd!”
John also discussed what it was like having his song featured on Thursday Night Football during this past NFL season. His dad called him to tell him that his song was on, and John had missed it live. But luckily his dad had DVR’ed it and ended up taking a video of the recording on his cell phone and sending it to John. Hearing his song on TV or on the radio, John proudly describes it as being surreal. “Just surreal, there is no real feeling that you can describe. The only thing better than that is hearing fans sing it back to you live at a show. That’s the only thing that’s better. I mean hearing it on the radio, we’ve been working a long time. I’ve been doing this since I was 15 years old, out touring, and these guys most of them have too. So it’s great to see it kinda pay off, finally hear your song on the radio.”
Be sure to keep your ears out for ‘On Your Lips’ as it will be digitally available starting March 3rd. John takes care of all of his own social media and says he loves staying in touch with fans give him a follow John on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
This was actually John’s second time doing an interview with NECM, you can check out the previous one here. We appreciate his friendship and graciousness. John is just as good of a guy as he is a performer and we wish him nothing but the best of luck for continued success!