Hometown: Finland Formed in: 2000 Members: Gonzo Wolf Starbuck Shank Crash
The hippest damn rock act that would ever shake the earth came to be at the turn of the century in the year 2000. The brainchild of Canadian-born retro-cadet Starbuck, Stoner Kings was born out of sheer necessity. No longer to be held down by the infiltration of pseudo-rock, a bastardizing tidal wave swept in from the coasts of the once-great United States, Starbuck´s Stoner Kings arrived in order to restore the foundations of what we know as the spirit of true Rock´n´Roll.
Rock´n´Roll -- the very term exudes the spirit of it´s true incarnation in the 1970´s, a time of new awareness and expanded consciousness. Starbuck, himself a child of the hippest generation that ever did live, found the true calling of Rock´n´Roll within his soul. The wellsprings of creation began to break open from the depths in the year of 1996, and the music began to flow. The spirit of the 70´s met with the heaviness of the new millenium, and soon Starbuck´s universal anthems began to accumulate.
Beginning in 1996 with the Trouble-inspired hit Journey´s End, Starbuck discovered the soul of his music. It was to be a message to all generations, a parable in the form of a rhyme, a voice to speak into the minds and souls of all who would hear. Whether it was to be the heavy as all hell rumble of all that truly is heavy, or the numbing moving of the subconscious stream, Starbuck´s music would scream in the face of public perception. It was a high without the drugs, a trip prompted solely by the spirit that would move the music. And the Jouney´s End was to be only the beginning.
Starbuck ventured to the northern wastes of Finland in 1996, where he would find the chosen ones who would accept the calling of the juggernaut that would become known as the Stoner Kings. Beginning with his introduction to Shank (guitar) and Crash (drums) in the spring of 2000, Starbuck found two superb musicians who make no apologies take no prisoners in defending the true flag of heavy Rock´n´Roll. The chemistry was instantaneous. The trio began in earnest to delve into the music that would set them apart from all the rest - - music born purely out of spirit. By the time that the rock had begun to roll, Gonzo (bass) and Wolf (guitar) were added to the mix. Starbuck´s dream had come to fruition, the Stoner Kings were born!
Over the course of the ensuing year of 2001, between critically praised gigs and intense ground work, Stoner Kings set out to make the best assortment of heavy rock hymns not yet known to man in recorded form. Tapping their raw energy into a successful form of controlled chaos would require a lenient time frame, unrestrained by deadlines and feeble pressures. The band ventured into the highly-acclaimed Studio Watercastle in Jyväskylä, Finland to record a barrage of hit material from which only "the cream of the crop" would be chosen for the band´s highly anticipated album debut.
Between fall 2000 and fall 2001, under the auspices of producer extraordinairé Art "R-2" Sarvanne, Starbuck´s Stoner Kings compiled an unparalleled monolith of recorded sound to mark their storied album debut Brimstone Blues.
So now it stands - - beyond any industry cliché, beyond anything seen or heard of before - - the Stoner Kings have come to warp every pre-conceived definition and notion, crush every disposition, and blast the world of what is known as stoner rock on its sky-high ass. The leaders are few, the followers are many...and only a select few can ultimately be "kings" among us.
