Dave King (musician)

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Dave King (b. 12th November 1961 in Dublin, Ireland) is the lead vocalist and primary songwriter and lyricist for the Irish-American post-punk band Flogging Molly. He is now based in Los Angeles, California.

[edit] Personal life

Dave King grew up in a Dublin neighborhood known as Beggar's Bush near an old British Army barracks, the flat his family lived in had only two rooms and one window^{[citation needed]}. The IRA used to march and train in the barracks every night^{[citation needed]}. Music was strongly encouraged, his house was full of it, in the front room was a piano, and every Friday and Saturday night his parents would come home from the pub with friends to sing and play each other music^{[citation needed]}. King was allowed to stay up late to partake in the music. When he was around the age of 6 or 7 his parents bought him a guitar.^{[citation needed]}

When King was ten, his mother, father and he were sitting at the table in front of the sole window of the flat. The sunlight hit is father's face and his skin appeared yellow (he was jaundiced). King, as he was young, thought it was cool and exclaimed, "Hey dad, you're, you're yellow." That was the last time he saw his father alive.^{[citation needed]} His mother went outside and phoned an ambulance which took his dad to hospital. The next time he saw his Father was when he was at his funeral. He died of cancer^{[citation needed]}As it had been King who had mentioned the colour of his father's skin and thus "raised the alarm", he thought it was his fault his father died, and that if he hadn't said anything his father would still be alive. For years after his father's death King would lie all the time about everything. King has said that his father's death was the most traumatic event of his life.^{[citation needed]}

After emigrating to the United States, he was without a United States Permanent Resident Card for eight years, making him incapable of visiting his home. Such events in his life have contributed to many of Flogging Molly's song lyrics.

[edit] Career information

Prior to forming Flogging Molly, Dave King was the vocalist for Fastway, a 1980s-early 1990s heavy metal band, featuring guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke of the metal band Motörhead. They recorded their first four records with King on vocals, as well as a live record. After disbanding Fastway (Eddie carried on the name with all new members) King formed Katmandu with Mandy Meyer (former member of the band Krokus), who released one self-titled album, had a couple of minor hits but later disbanded. Dave King retained a record deal with Epic records, who wanted him to sing for The Jeff Beck Group, but he declined. He started working on new material with a distinct Irish sound, but still retaining the hard driving, loud and fast musical style. He asked to be let out of his Epic contract because "they wouldn't know what to do with the new music anyways...". Since then Dave King has had great success with Flogging Molly, reaching a peak position of #20 on the Billboard charts top 200 and a #1 on the Billboard Indie Chart.