The Amazing Crowns

In the driver's seat is tattoo-riddled lead singer and lyricist Jason "King" Kendall, with a reserve tank of wild-eyed energy and piston-pumping resolve. Not far behind him you'll find J.D. Burgess with his hollow-bodied guitar, Jack "The Swinger" Hanlon with his stand-up bass and Judd Williams with his pounding kit, all equipped with slick, vintage coifs. Together, pointed chops and all, The Amazing Crowns look like a classic rockabilly outfit circa 1957. But the truth is a little more complicated. Or is it? "Our music is just greasy rock and roll," says Kendall. "It's part punk rock, part rockabilly. Back in the 50's, rockabilly was punk rock. To us, it still is."



Together since 1994, The Amazing Crowns fuse the best aspects of bands like the Clash, Carl Perkins, Link Wray, the Cramps and Social Distortion to come up with something all their own. It's a slant-six full of noxious fumes, red-hot fuel injection and good ol' fashioned greased lightnin', not to mention a work ethic that'd send most underground rockers scurrying back to their Kerouac. "You've got to make choices," Kendall admits. "When we decided we were gonna go for this, we gave up almost everything. I grew up on a truck stop. A lot of our music reflects that desperado feeling. For us, it's all or nothing." And the band backs up its attitude with action. In 1998 alone they criss-crossed the globe, playing a whopping 300 dates. They've even adopted a slogan: "Live to Tour/Tour to Live." With that kind of attitude, ya gotta believe.



No matter the technique, the result is the same: The Amazing Crowns light it up and their audiences feel the burn. "If you're up there sweating and givin' your all to an audience, that's the most important thing," says Kendall. "We're a working class band. What's on alternative radio these days is just filler. What we do is real American music; music that speaks to people and reflects their lives. It's place is underneath popular music. You have to scratch the surface to find us, but we're there All we care about is giving our audiences a part of us to take away with them when they go home."



The band stayed away from their old moniker until the fall of 2001, when they decided to call it a career with one last concert as the Amazing Royal Crowns.