With a groundbreaking album release this March for both themselves and their label in the form of Creation/Destruction, alongside an ever-increasing number of stacked tours with the likes of I Declare War, The Plot In You, and Oh, Sleeper, things are looking pretty bright these days for Solid State Records’ own Fit For A King.
We recently had the chance to speak with frontman Ryan Kirby at the Christian metal scene’s annual summer centerpiece, Scream The Prayer, about a variety of topics including the group’s successful sophomore full-length along with a plethora of future plans which range from re-recording their independent debut to covering a Christmas song. Even with the year half way over, there is undoubtedly still a ton in store for the band throughout the rest of 2013, so read on and get excited for what has yet to come.
Last night was your first show on Scream The Prayer. How did that go?
It was awesome. There was a lot of kids there. It was a really cool crowd, no fighting or anything like that, but they got down and had a good time and were really into all the bands.
What part of this tour are you looking forward to most in particular?
I’m looking forward to Dallas, Texas, because that’s where I’m from and I know it gets pretty awesome out there so I’ll see a lot of friends and stuff.
Let’s rewind a few months to the release of Creation/Destruction: that album was the highest selling first-week debut in Solid State history. Now that you’ve had a while to sit on it, how does that accomplishment feel?
It’s crazy cause I grew up listening to almost every Solid State band. I’d buy all the DVDs with music videos and all of the This Is Solid State [compilations], so it’s really weird that it outsold As Cities Burn’s first record’s first week or Underoath. It’s crazy.
The album is great overall, but I think the lyrics are one aspect that really stand out. Can you tell me what types of experiences influence your writings as a vocalist?
A lot of them are just spiritual battles I have with myself or things in life that annoy me or bother me that I see others doing or falling into, including myself.
For a band that carries a lot of heavy elements, “Skin & Bones” was an interesting change of pace similar to “A Love That Transcends Understanding” from Descendants. How have fans reacted to the song and would you consider writing more of that style of material in the future?
We try to do at least one of those songs every album, as like a, uh, “parent pleaser.” It’s crazy; it’s actually played on a bunch of Christian radio stations. It was originally an instrumental track, and we were like, “yeah, we’ll put vocals on it if we have time.” Then our bass player, Aaron, who sings on it, just started writing and he sang it, and we were like, “wow, that’s awesome,” and he got really emotional while recording. And now it’s the second or first most downloaded single off iTunes and it’s played on radio. It’s really weird that it turned out that way.
You guys definitely seem to have a lot going on in the near future. First off, you’ve been teasing a Descendants re-release. Are there any details you can share about that?
I can say there will be a re-release. We’re actually, after this tour, going to Andreas Magnusson, who we did Creation/Destruction with, and we’re re-tracking the entire album and re-working some of the songs, like how we envisioned them. We had a really stressful mixing and recording and a limited budget when we were unsigned and put out Descendants. There’s so many things we wanted to change. It sold awesome and received a lot of support from our fans and Solid State saw that, so they’re giving us an opportunity to re-do it as we envisioned it.
Do you find it kind of strange coming back to re-record music you wrote a few years ago considering you’ve had time to progress as musicians?
It feels strange, but it’s really cool at the same time cause not many bands get a chance to reinvent an album they’ve already released.
I also saw you recently tweet about a Fit For A King Christmas song. Is there anything you can tell us about that yet?
It’s a cover and it’s pretty soft. Our guitarist describes it as “Jonny Cash meets Pirates of the Caribbean,” [Laughter]. But yeah, I can [also] say, the Descendants re-release will have a new song. That’s due out at the end of this year.
Switching gears a bit, I wanted to talk about the eerie music video for “Hollow King” that was released earlier this year. Although a lot of the footage features the band performing, it also shows you being dragged and floating across a desert. Did you have a concept in mind behind that?
The concept from what the director told us, cause he actually had wrote it for us after reading the lyrics (we wanted to leave it up to him for the artistic direction)… Basically, it’s me running from myself the whole time and finding out I’m dead at the end. It was just a lot of me being drug through the sand [Laughter]. So it wasn’t super fun filming it at the time.
But I’m sure it paid it off.
It did. It was really cool. “The Lioness” video was kind of an experiment for a friend to do a music video, so it wasn’t a legit Solid State video. We’re gonna being doing two more legit ones, including a possible “Skin & Bones” video and a “Warpath” video.
Looking forward, do you guys have any plans touring-wise once Scream The Prayer is over?
We’re going to Australia in September, and we have a full U.S. tour, a really big one in the fall, but I can’t talk about [it yet]. But it’s a big tour.
Make sure to stay connected with Fit For A King on Facebook and Twitter as they roll out more details concerning their seemingly endless array of projects and tours in the future.
Written and conducted by: Michael Giegerich – Follow him on Twitter
