Diesel King
#gofuckyourselves
APF Records
Released 23rd June 2017

Back in late 2013 Chris West dropped the bomb that he was hanging up his drum key and leaving Trippy Wicked & The Cosmic Children Of The Knight, one of my favourite bands. His replacement was announced as Bill Jacobs. I had never heard of Bill Jacobs. I did a Google and saw he was also in a band called Diesel King. I checked out their recently released “The Grey Man” album and had a fairly instant fanboy moment. Riffs the size of small continents, hammer-smashed into submission by a brutally tight rhythm section, with an enormous body-building giant screaming over the top of the melee. I liked it. A lot.

Where fanboy-ism turned into pure stalking was with the “Horror, Disgust” single, which Diesel King unleashed into the ether on 10th May 2014. It ticked every box on my dirty, downtuned, chunky as fuck list of things I like heavy bands to do. Mark O’Regan’s growling in the chorus gave me the raging fucking horn.

2015’s “Concrete Burial” album just upped the ante. It was nastier, grimmer, more sledgehammer. Second track “Inferis” became my favourite Diesel King track overnight. I listened to it so loud in my car I popped a speaker. My ears ring to this day because of it.

As those who know me well will attest, I just can’t help but turn into a dribbling wreck when I meet people who have created music which gives me goosebumps. To me, if you’ve released something I listen to incessantly then you are a rock star and I’m gonna have trouble treating you as anything other than that. In my mind you are playing arenas and stadiums 200 nights a year. It matters not that the reality is your EP was self-released and that you play a handful of gigs a year in piss-infested rathole venues in places like Slough to 5 people.

Over time I got to meet this Bill Jacobs dude and he managed to tolerate me and my drooling. We eventually bonded over an 11am double whisky bender in Cardiff in 2015. He’s my mate now but I still turn into a 13 year old whenever I see him. Same for the other lads in this sickest of bands.

Fast forward to 2017 and I’ve set up a record label. One of my targets is Diesel King but they’ve already been all over Facebook saying they’re releasing an EP in the summer and it’s recorded and coming out in June. I’m annoyed at myself for not contacting Bill, Geoff (guitar), Will Bass), Mark and Aled (guitar) before I set up APF Records to see if they might lower themselves to talking to me. “Next time” I think to myself.

Then in May I’m pissed and online (never a good combination) and chatting to Bill and he tells me they’re self-releasing the EP but haven’t sorted it out yet and that “you should sign us”. Once I’d run around my house doing gay screaming, punching the air like a complete twat, I said “yeah OK then”. Quickest deal I’ve ever done – Diesel King were signed by the end of that day. And I was as happy as a pig in shit.

What the band gave me was #gofuckyourselves, a four track EP. It was exactly what I hoped it would be: so very heavy, utterly unconcerned about what anyone thinks about it, and with its tongue planted firmly in its cheek. Opening cut “Declaration” starts with the line “go fuck yourself – how does that sound?” and that’s Diesel King in a nutshell. These boys just don’t care. When the EP got a good review by an online publication prior to release the band’s response was “frankly we prefer the negative ones”.
My favourite is track number two, “Cut The Cord”. It takes me back to the 90s and Pantera and Machine Head and has bouncy riffs and a chorus to die for. Third track “Skin Graft” starts with a proper chugger of a riff before heading into double-bass-drum overload. It’s so fucking good.

The EP closes with a cover of Phil Collins’ “Easy Lover”. Hearing Mark O’Regan growl his way through this has been a highlight of my 2017 thus far. Even though Diesel King are just fucking with me and having fun here, it sounds ace. Keyboards on a Diesel King record? You betcha!

I hope they let me release more of their stuff in the future. I fucking love Diesel King, I do. And #gofuckyourselves is exactly why I started a label in the first place – to put out music like this, regardless of what you all may think. I couldn’t give a flying fuck if no one had bought this EP, I would have paid to release it anyway. It’s exactly what I wanted to hear. So proud of my boys!

Diesel King. Crushing heads since 2010. Long may they reign.