King Mungi: Now Fear This.

King Mungi launch Fear The Little People at The Healer on Saturday, the Rose’n’Crown, Surfers Paradise on March 6 and the Sands Tavern on March 9.

One of the year’s most anticipated local releases is finally going to see the light of day. Fear The Little People, the debut recording from local metal quartet King Mungi has been sitting, waiting for release for many a month now. Both fantastically heavy in it’s depth and ultra modern in sound and concept, Fear The Little People is certainly a worthwhile end result. Drummer Clayton takes some time from work to explain just why it’s taken so long.

“We actually mastered the CD last July and it’s taken this long to get it on the shelves. Things with artwork and injuries in the band, it’s just been a really long project. For us it’s the first thing we’ve released, so we’ve learned a lot from the process.”

Eight months is a long time for a band to sit still. The obvious question is how much has the band changed since the recording was finished?

“It’s still very much what we do. It’s still very much the kind of thing we’re doing now. It’s still hard and heavy with that melodic element in there. It’s very spasmodic in a way. Our influences from other bands come from things like Glassjaw, Faith No More, System Of A Down and Incubus in their earlier stages from like Science. The reason the band got together was because we all liked the same type of music.”

“Individually as band members we’re into different music. Luke (guitars) is into things like Buckethead and all this guitar type music.”

You’d be the first person I’ve ever interviewed to have cited Buckethead as an influence…

“Luke is just Buckethead mad. If he could walk around with a KFC bucket on his head, he’s be doin’ it. I’m into things like Parliament, Stevie Wonder type stuff. Even Level 42. Corey (bass) is into Reggae, and Ben (vox) is into his heavy stuff. We’re pulling things from each other, which is how we got the sound we’re creating.”

Considering those influences it’s kind of nice to see the band didn’t come out sounding like Praxis…

“There’s so many bands doing that kind of thing now. That funny funk. It’s not what we enjoy playing on stage. We just have to get up and squeeze out all the energy we have, and the best way to do it is to play hard loud and heavy. That’s what we tried to capture on the CD.”

“Not bad for a bunch of local boys, hey?”

You know, they’re right.