King for a Day is a CT supergroup made up of Benj LeFevre Randy Funke, Kurt Berglund and Dan Labich. All have played in successful bands including Deep Banana Blackout, Stone Cold, and the Grapes.
King for a Day is more than just a band...it is an idea, a feeling and most of all, its what our fans and us feel like after a show!
Since its formation nearly a year ago, King for a Day has focused on securing a fan base on its home turf, Fairfield County. For 2007, the band aims to spread its music throughout the Northeast and beyond. Guitarist Randy Funke said that if Internet sales of King for a Day merchandise are any indication, the audience is there. "We get a lot of buying our stuff from outside Fairfield County, so now the plan is to hit the Northeast corridor a little harder, go up to Maine and Vermont and maybe do some stuff south of here," he said in a recent phone interview from his Norwalk residence. "It's just a regional branching out that bands have to go through." If that branching out takes time, Funke and his bandmates are quite content to slowly expand their influence in neighboring states. "We all feel that way," Funke said of singer-guitarist Danny Labich, bassist Benj LeFevre and drummer Eric Kalb. "We really want to do this the right way, which means writing great songs and playing as much as we can and being fair and honest in our marketing,'' he said. "The new model for us, in terms of music industry stuff, is we can do pretty much everything ourselves." Funke knows a lot about the music business, not only as a performer, but as a recording engineer and video editor. He works on the Web site ..www.artistshousemusic.com, which helps musicians navigate in the new era of the industry. "It's how to survive in the music business without thinking that you have to get a record contract and
Advertisement
hire 20 people to work for you," Funke explained. "The moral of the story is have a good Web presence, have great songs and put on great shows." King for a Day, which plays Caf Nine in New Haven Saturday night, has added a unique way to get its music in the hands of fans: just give it to them. "One of the things we're doing differently than other bands is that we're giving away our music at live shows," Funke said. "We have a live CD that we give out and we have stuff that we recorded over the past seven or eight months. We just print up a bunch of them with some minimal packaging and just give them out. "It's great to see people walking out with the CDs because, for us, it's really important to get the music out there and that's what we're doing." King for a Day does have an album available for purchase at www.kingforaday.org, called, with tongue in cheek, Greatest Hits Vol. I. The band also has been in the studio with Jay Newland, an ultra-successful producer who worked on Norah Jones' debut disc, Come Away with Me.
"He signed on to the band early on," Funke said of Newland, who is his wife's uncle. "Right when we first got started, he heard a couple of tracks and really, really loved the way Danny's voice sounded He's been great to us. "He's been a really great person to work with because he's got hundreds of records' worth of experience and he's got 12 or 13 Grammys. He just has a certain insight to the music and to our path as a band that is invaluable to our growth as a band." King for a Day also can rely on the experiences of Kalb and LeFevre, who were part of the band Deep Banana Blackout, which managed to become a national touring act. "Benj really worked hard on the marketing and growth of Deep Banana Blackout; he was instrumental in that," Funke said. "His perspective that he brings to King for a Day is awesome because he knows every club in the United States and has an encyclopedic knowledge of how to build a band." With 50 percent of the group having roots in Deep Banana Blackout — Funke was previously in The Grapes and Labich in Stone Cold — you might expect King for a Day to have a funk feel, but that's not the case. The band is straight-ahead rock 'n' roll. "I think the fact that those guys have been in Deep Banana Blackout helps initially, like 'Oh, maybe I'll check out this band because I know that band,' " Funke said. "But once people hear us, they know we're not a funk band. But I think we can appeal to that audience because we are a high-energy rock band, as opposed to an acoustic band." Funke pointed to the band's slot at the Gathering of the Vibes in August as a highlight of 2006 and the band is looking to take part in this year's festival when it moves back to Bridgeport's Seaside Park. It will be just another step in King for a Day's progress. "The name of the game for us this year will be mini-tours and opening up for larger bands," Funke said. "I'd like to see us play twice as many shows as we did last year, which I think we're on our way to doing. We recently signed on with a manager — Jennifer Jennings — and she's been amazing. "We have a really great team in place to take this music somewhere."
Download PDF Version HERE
The members of King for a Day comprise what might be called a Fairfield County supergroup. The core of the new band used to play in the bands Deep Banana Blackout, Stone Cold and The Grapes.They came together late last year in a pretty organic fashion - when singer/guitarist Danny Labich showed bassist Benj LeFevre some songs he had written. "We hooked up again and he started playing me all these tunes and I was into how great they are," LeFevre says.LeFevre spent almost a decade holding down the bottom end for Deep Banana Blackout while Labich went from the powerhouse classic rock of Stone Cold to blues standards in Triple Threat Blues Band. Guitarist Randy Funke was the last member to sign on. He had left The Grapes in late 2004 and was spending most of his time as a recording engineer. "I spent that winter working on other people's projects wishing I was playing guitar more," Funke says. "Thankfully I ran into these cats. I feel likeKing for a Day is everything you'd want in a band, nothing you wouldn't want and Dan."Given the pedigree of the musicians, it might come as a surprise that King for a Day is not a funk or jam band. Instead the quartet - the drummer position for performances is being split by Deep Banana Blackout's Eric Kalb and Electric Hill's Hans Broecking until a permanent skinsman is found - reaches back to a more traditional American rock sound.
What do you get when you form a new band with musical influences as diverse as The Beatles, The Police, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, The Band, Led Zeppelin, James Brown, Talking Heads, Frank Zappa, The Meters and Johnny Cash?
An exciting new band featuring musicians who have performed with Deep Banana Blackout, John Scofield, Chuck Berry, The Allman Brothers, James Cotton, Tom Tom Club and many other great artists -- You wind up with a regal cocktail of new sound called King For a Day.
King For a Day was formed in the Summer of 2005, and the diversity of the band members help make KFAD one of the most exciting new rock bands on the scene today.
Bassist BENJ LEFEVRE began his musical journey at the ripe old age of 12 in Norwalk Connecticut, playing trumpet in his middle and high school bands. At 18, the lure of the bass and garage bands
took over, and Benj was on his way. In 1993, he joined an eight piece funk/soul band called Tongue and Groove. For three years Benj toured with Tongue and Groove, playing hundreds of shows
throughout the East coast. In 1996, a new group was forming from members of Tongue and Groove called Deep Banana Blackout.
Also an eight-piece horn driven soul/funk/rock band, DBB amassed a huge following and toured continuously from 1996 until 2003, playing over 1500 gigs in the US, Europe and Japan.
_______________________
A native of Fairfield Connecticut, lead singer DAN LABICH worked with numerous Boston area favor-
ites in the early 90’s, including The Digg Band, and clubs such as The Paradise and Harper’s Ferry. In 2001, he joined The Triple Threat Blues Band, and sang with other blues groups around Connecticut.
In 2005 he hooked up with Benj, and became a founding member and vocalist for KFAD.
_______________________
Kurt began playing the drums at the age of 9 in his home town of Woodbury. He started taking lessons through his elementary school, eventually studying privately, which led to performing in pretty much every band that his junior high and high schools had to offer. After graduating, Kurt went to Western Connecticut State University to study percussion, while also taking lessons with Joe Morello, Joel Rosenblatt, and Kenny Washington, and performing in both school ensembles and weekend gigs on the side. Since graduating from WCSU, where he won the Music Chairman's Award, Kurt has performed with a wide array of different of groups, including big bands, classical orchestras, rock cover acts, musical theater, wedding bands, even playing on and being an extra in a German movie! He has opened for Bela Fleck & the Flecktones, The Wild Magnolias, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, The Tom Tom Club, Toots and the Maytals, and Buju Banton.
_______________________
Stamford, Connecticut born guitarist RANDY FUNKE started playing guitar when he was just eight years old. By the age of 14, Randy was performing in clubs and bars around Connecticut. After playing
in numerous bands in Connecticut, Pittsburgh, California, and New York, he met up with Benj and Danny to form King for a Day.
When Randy is not performing or recording with KFAD, he is usually engineering, producing, or editing a variety of music projects. He has been fortunate enough to work with artists including Chris Frantz
and Tina Weymouth of The Talking Heads, Clark Terry, Ron Carter, Cecil Taylor, and Derek Trucks.
_______________________
With their debut CD, the tongue-in-cheek titled ”King For a Day Greatest Hits, Volume 1”, and an extensive touring schedule planned for 2006, King For a Day will continue to crown the music scene for years to come.
Long Live The King!
Booking Contact 203 258 5890
King for a day
Nick R. Scalia
06/07/2006
Online version
Bassist Benj Lefevre, formerly of Bridgeport's eclectic funk/soul/rock/jam octet Deep Banana Blackout, used to be one of the driving forces behind a band that lived and died on its booty-shaking low end.
But with his new full-time gig, as part of the classic rock-styled combo King For a Day, all the poppin' and slappin' and groovin' have taken a backseat; these days, it's all about being an effective piece of the puzzle.
"It's a chance to lay back a little bit more, to let the songs have their space," says Lefevre, who grew up listening to the Stones, the Beatles, and Zeppelin before turning his attention to funk in the long-running DBB. "I love being able to play bass within the context of making the song sound good, as opposed to, in a funk band, the individual soloists taking the stage — it's more about the player sometimes, or the energy."
Posted in Press login or register to post comments | read more
Submitted by randy on Thu, 06/08/2006 - 06:02.
To open a floating player, click the "Listen While Browsing Button"
