“When I think back to how we were in 2018 and the years prior, I think we were very naive, but there’s one thing that I have a lot of pride about in the band and that’s that we had this incredible blind ambition,” says King Nun’s Theo Polyzoides.
With the recent announcement of their highly anticipated second album Lamb, Soundsphere’s Dom Smith sat Down with King Nun’s frontman, Theo Polyzoides to discuss the creation of the upcoming release and reflect on where the band have come from.
Lamb (produced by the band’s very own Caius Stockley-Young at The Marshall Studio) is an exploration into what it means to be human and embrace emotion and allow yourself to be vulnerable. Especially in an age when it is so easy to become cynical when facing challenges, King Nun is speaking out on struggles faced by many and expressing that perhaps the answer is not violence but rather to retain our naivety and continue to grow as people. Focusing on the flawed parts of ourselves and working on accepting them is one of the core ideas of this album, Theo Polyzoides comments:
“I think that means that we’ve got to come up and rise to that occasion and the understanding that that Achilles heel we all have is often a beautiful part of us. Don’t let the world crush it because it’s the softest part of us, but we ought to remember it’s there and not steal over entirely. That was in mind when I was writing almost all of the song lyrics.”
When talking about the work that was put into the album it becomes clear that this album has allowed Polyzoides to grow not just as a person but also as an artist and creative. “I think I really really fucking grafted with the lyrics, really really wrestled with them. I just want them to be as truthful for me as humanly possible. I think I was just trying to be honest which maybe hasn’t occurred to me as starkly before and there’s a lot of stuff in these songs. It’s abstract for sure, by nature of how I do lyrics.” For Polyzoides, it would seem that words are of the utmost importance, especially titles. Breaking down the album title Lamb, he exclaims, “Titles are unbelievably important to me. Once we have the title I feel like I kind of understand what the entire project is as a whole. I won’t write a word of lyric until I have a title.”
King Nun’s 2019 debut album Mass, played around a lot with religious connotations, imagery and parody, the title of the upcoming album Lamb, continues in that same theme. “I started looking at biblical references and found this bit in Revelations when a giant lamb shows up and wreaks hell on earth in the apocalypse and I thought that was great, not just because of its sci-fi fantasy weirdness but because the lamb is always an animal of sacrifice in almost every religion. It’s the animal that represents innocence and naivety and kindness but it’s constantly sacrificed and bled out and then for it to wreak revenge at the end of the book, I thought it was a really nice sort of metaphor.” In the last couple of years King Nun have been on a journey, discovering more about themselves and the industry along the way. “I think in this industry you have to be kind of sentimental and you kind of have to be emotional in order to make your art and I think the industry will constantly beat the shit out of you.” Lamb is an introspective reflection of the struggles faced by the band, yet also a celebration of who they are and how they have grown thus far. Theo Polyzoides expresses:
“I like the idea of wreaking revenge but doing that as a sort of coming back to base with who you are and realising that we are flawed.”
Tackling with difficult issues such as substance abuse, pairing optimistic sounds with bleak lyrics, the album is extremely cathartic for the band as Polyzoides points out, “catharsis is a really important part of the band. We really still are, musically, the same band we were back then. We like that catharticness and the escapism we have when writing because we just wanted to go fucking berserk.” Growing as a band, King Nun have created something that is totally theirs, finding the median between their garage punk sound and their meditative and introspective lyrical content.
A vividly emotional release, Lamb allows Polyzoides to reflect, “I think my heart was always right, but the whole lot of us, the four of us, our hearts were always right, about the music and pursuing what we loved. The only times we made missteps were when we overthought things.” He continues, “If you’re a creative person it just means that your thoughts are always going to be creative in nature and if there’s something you’re even slightly concerned about, you can apply all that imagination onto that as well. And that was definitely true back then.” Despite this, Theo Polyzoides maintains that he wouldn’t have wanted it differently, “ I’d say stick to your heart. You’re doing the right thing.”
Lamb is set to be a deeply moving and sentimental album opposing social norms of just bottling it all up and instead letting it out. Never afraid to say what they truly mean, King Nun is always evolving yet at the same time continually embracing their flaws, naivety and vulnerability.
‘LAMB’ will arrive 29th September 2023 via Marshall Records. Fans can Pre-order – HERE. In-store tickets can be found – HERE and album release show tickets HERE
TOUR DATES
September 2023
28th – MOT, London (album release show)
TICKETS – HERE
October 2023
-UK-In Store-
1st – Smugglers Records, Deal
2nd – Banquet Records, Kingston
3rd – Rough Trade East, London
4th – Rough Trade Nottingham
5th – Jacaranda, Liverpool
6th – Vinyl Whistle, Leeds
Listen to the chat below:
