King of the forest

Can a rock album be like a gourmet meal and a wooden ship? How about a giant squid and Vincent Van Gogh's painting "Starry Night?" Or maybe just John Wayne because he's bad ass? Well, when talking with the Battle Creek-based alternative band King of the Forest, all of those things and more emerge from their brand new full-length, Intensive.

King of the Forest will release Intensive at Planet Rock in Battle Creek March 6, but the disc has been a long time coming. The beginning could be traced back to November of 2008 when the then two-year-old band parted ways with their previous drummer Fred Trogdon shortly after they released their debut album, The Nerve. The band – made up of sisters Michelle Russell (vocals) and Ashley "Kitty" Russell (guitar), and cousins Joe Klein (guitar) and Willy Klein (bass) – soon advertised for a new drummer, finding Mike Censke on Craigslist.com.

"I didn't know anything about this band or what to expect," Censke, who had previously spent time in the country music scene, playing with Dave Caley out of Kalamazoo and the Steel Rose Band from Burlington, told Recoil about responding to the ad after his wife forwarded it to him. "I met Joe at the Shell Station in Athens, where he gave me a copy of The Nerve to take home and learn for the audition. When I listened to it, I was blown away! I knew instantly that I wanted to join this band, so I learned every song inside and out. When I showed up for the audition, we just ran through the entire album as if we had always played together."

The band then offered Censke the position, and they've played together ever since. They spent the next seven or eight months developing their existing songs while also writing new ones, and by July 2009 began the first stages of recording for their second album. The group also pulled in a few past favorites written before Censke joined the band, like the autobiographical "On Hill Road," a track about the Russell sisters' experiences growing up in Bellevue and dedicated to friends who have passed away.

"We went to a whole new level in our songwriting," Michelle Russell said about the songs King of the Forest has written for Intensive. "I was very happy with The Nerve. That to me was a huge accomplishment. Intensive is so much richer than The Nerve. I can't even describe how emotionally attached I have become to this album. It represents some of the most important people and things in my life. Anyone who really knows me will totally recognize that."

All of the band members agreed that they have added much more variety to their already-varied sound, taking direct influence for the album from records like The Who's Live at Leeds, Red Hot Chili Peppers' One Hot Minute, Incubus' Light Grenades, Weather Reports' Heavy Weather, and bands as different as Kings of Leon, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Dishwalla, and King's X.

"Our influences have always played a key role in our sound, but the older the band gets the more we try to step away from even kind of sounding like someone else," Kitty Russell said. "When someone plays our songs I want there to be no doubt that it's King of the Forest."

Stylistically, the band felt comfortable embracing new things as the group grew more focused and in sync with each other in practices and onstage leading up to the new album.

"Willy and I listen to a lot of funk, and you can really hear that in this CD," Joe Klein said about some of the differences found on Intensive. "We had funky parts in The Nerve, but we have grown as funk players since then. That has been fun to write and play... Our musical changes have become darker and more sophisticated. And Michelle's lyrics deal with some pretty deep stuff on this CD. The songs just feel bigger."

King of the Forest recorded Intensive on their own, undergoing a process involving a lot of trial and error for the first-time DIY band, who had previously recorded their debut with Chris Frankhauser out of Kalamazoo.

"We fell into some recording equipment pretty cheap, and it made sense to try," Willy Klein said. "It has been hard to do it on our own, but I am proud of the results.

"Money and time were the biggest factors in the decision to record ourselves," Joe Klein added. "I also really like recording, and wanted to see if I could record a whole album. Learning all the little details about recording has been insanely hard and frustrating, [but] I love it! I really like problem-solving, and recording has given me plenty of problems to solve."

King of the Forest is currently mapping out a regional tour for this spring to promote Intensive, with hopes of breaking out of a Battle Creek music scene they find to be unchanging.

"It's my desire to seize every opportunity to expand our geographic reach and share our music with anyone who will have us," Censke said. "We live in an age where bands come and go so quickly. We're not getting any younger and our time in the sun is short, so we have to make the most of it."

King of the Forest will release Intensive at Planet Rock March 6. For more info and other upcoming show dates, check out myspace.com/kingoftheforestrocks.