With DJs and electronic mix artists gaining so much popularity in today’s live music scene, it is a breath of fresh air to listen to real instruments – drums, trumpets, guitar – being performed onstage. For Kings Go Forth, a funk-inspired group based in Milwaukee, this distinction was made exceptionally apparent when DJ Tom Moulton – father of the remix – used its song “Don’t Take My Shadow” for one of his many remixes.
“He heard the song ‘Don’t Take My Shadow,’ and I think it reminded him a lot of his golden age when he was really active,” Andy Noble, the founder, songwriter and bassist for Kings Go Forth, said. “Tom really is a mixer or remixer; he’s credited pretty much uncontested with being the inventor of the remix … he said we sounded like the real deal.”
The band, which will be performing Saturday at the Majestic Theater, just returned from a European tour and is excited for what will be its first non-summer performance in Madison – which hopefully equates to a bigger college crowd. Noble said that while the international tour seemed to help band members’ unity and stage presence, he is also anxious to get back to the studio for a sophomore effort.
“We’re really getting pushed in this direction of becoming a live band, more so than other kinds of music just because it’s so dance-oriented and big kind of spectacle – although I’m really trying to make [the album] a priority for the next few months,” he said. “I definitely am excited for it. I mean my favorite part of being in a band has always been recording; I just really get into it. I enjoy live shows, but recording is always the most artistically satisfying part to me.”
The name of the band – suggested by a “film buff” friend of Noble’s, after a Frank Sinatra black-and-white war film – recollects several other contemporaries (i.e.: We the Kings, Kings of Leon), yet Kings Go Forth’s music could not be more different. And, Noble said, it purposely makes their band accessible to a broader range of demographics.
“Names are important because they are the first point of entry for people,” he said. “That name didn’t pigeonhole us as a soul group necessarily, but it didn’t preclude us. Besides that it conveys other things like action…I thought it worked on a few different levels.”
An elusive point of reference for Kings Go Forth is its genre; the styles range through funk, soul, blues R&B and beyond. It is for that reason, Noble said, the band must have so many instrumentalists to create the desired sound – the Madison show will have a total of 10 band members.
“Most R&B records, the funk and soul music that’s the inspiration for this group, are studio projects … you’re hearing all these instruments,” he said. “Soul and funk music classically has been a lot more arrangement based than some other forms – the singer is answered by strings and there’s all kinds of ebb and flow between melodic and harmonic elements of the music, and the rhythmic as well. For the sound I envisioned in my head you need a lot of guys to get it right.”
Noble ultimately started the group while owner of Lotus Land Records in Milwaukee, which he currently opts to do out of his home due to the augmented freedom it affords when the band is between tours. He sees himself as the guiding force behind many of Kings Go Forth’s actions.
“In a big group, the less room for democracy there is. I feel that my job is not to ask their opinion about everything but make sure they’re happy,” he said. “It’s like a ship, and you have to listen to the captain.”
Kings Go Forth will be playing at The Majestic Theater Saturday as part of the First Annual Midwest Funk and Soul Revue. Doors open at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10.
