Perfectionists all, Citizen King prepares for big time

March 07, 1999

Citizen King should be happy.

The funky "collage" rock band is about to put its major label debut on shelves around the nation. The first single, "Better Days (and the Bottom Drops Out)," is already a regular spin at more than 100 radio stations nationwide, and MTV has added the song's video to its playlist. National press, including Spin and Billboard, are gushing over the quintet.

At the moment, however, no one in Citizen King is smiling.

Rehearsing in late February in an empty and cold Modjeska Theater, the band members are too preoccupied with the smallest details of their sound to notice the brouhaha building around them.

For hours, they've been listening to rehearsal playbacks, dissecting every note of every instrument. The snare drum is too quiet on "Checkout Line." The mike sound is off on "Skeleton Key."

They tinker with their equipment, run through the song, and then play it back, analyzing it all over again.

Citizen King's first tour as a major label act will kick off at the Modjeska on Saturday, then crisscross the States with side trips to Canada and Europe. Perfectionists to the core, the band is giving its live show the same attention to detail it gave its album, "Mobile Estates," in stores Tuesday.

Some critics have likened CK's sound to that of Grammy-winning Beck -- not too shabby a comparison. And there are parallels, particularly in the pastiche approach to layering sounds of diverse genres.

But while Beck sometimes gets distracted making art for art's sake, Citizen King prefers to create, as drummer DJ Brooks succinctly puts it, "music to make your ass move."

"They have good energy and good hooks," says Lewis Largent, VP of music and programming for MTV, explaining why the band's "Better Days" video is getting played several times a week on the music channel. "Even a corporate behemoth like MTV can recognize (that)."

"I get a lot of tapes with good songs on them," says Geoffrey Weiss, VP of A&R for Warner Bros., Citizen King's label. "But I thought there was something smarter about them, about how they approached their craft. To find a band where you've got five perfectionists is special. They have musical intelligence, and a wider range of interests than most musicians."

"We're our own worst critics," keyboardist Dave Cooley, 29, admits a few days later, as he relaxes in an east side coffeehouse."

"Everyone is a little anal as a band," adds turntablist Malcolm Michiles, 28. "We really want to re-create the record live."

Re-creating "Mobile Estates" onstage will be no easy task. Co-produced by Eric Valentine (Smashmouth, Third Eye Blind), with Cooley and lead singer/bassist Matt Sims, the disc is 13 tracks of complex, beat-driven tunes full of samples and hooks as infectious as they are eclectic -- when was the last time you heard hip-hop mixed with harpsichords and a sample of polka thrown in for good measure?

"In a lot of ways, this band has an identity crisis," says guitarist Kristian Riley, 26. "I think 'collaged' is the best way to describe our sound. . . . It's the same thing as hip-hop, drawing on all the things in your culture, recycling and spitting them out again."

Aside from the energy and richness of sounds, "Mobile Estates" is a crazy quilt of what it means to be a band in Milwaukee.

Michiles scratches the heck out of former Mayor Henry Maier's recording of "The Milwaukee Polka" on "Milky Way." "Long Walk," with its loping bass lines, retraces the steps of a bar-hopper after closing time. The rear-wiggling funk of "Basement Show" gives a nod to the makeshift venues where local bands and their fans take shelter during the chilly half of the year.

"When you hear songs from bands in California, it's always about going to the beach, whatever," says Brooks. "We talk about having a basement party because it's too damn cold to do anything outside, about how our cars have salt stains."

Even the video for "Better Days" has a distinctly Brewtown flavor.

For much of the song, set in an all-night supermarket, the band is trapped in a meat locker. The video was shot in downtown L.A. after the band's first choice, on Milwaukee's east side, fell through.

"We wanted to film it at Koppa's (Fulbeli Deli) on Farwell, but Mike (Koppa) was really worried about all the film lights," says Sims. "He's got a lot of frozen sausages and sauerkraut and was worried about it all thawing out under the lights. Only in Milwaukee."

Citizen King's road to becoming a household name has been a long one, with more than a few potholes.

"We're like Mr. Magoo," says Brooks. "We wander into things that should be a disaster and we wind up OK."

The CK Chronicles begin in the mid-'80s with Brooks and Cooley, then students at Rufus King High School.

For Brooks, the son of a professional trumpeter and sax man, becoming a musician was almost pre-destined. The drummer grew up immersed in classic R&B and funk,and got his first lesson from the legendary drummer Clyde Stubblefield.

Cooley, a computer-obsessed multi-instrumentalist, counts American rodeo music among his passions. Both he and Brooks, like the rest of CK, are avid record collectors and serious bowlers -- "We've all got our own balls with our names engraved on them and everything," says Cooley -- but it was the pair's shared admiration for the rock-ska band Fishbone that got them together.

Brooks' and Cooley's band eventually grew into the popular local ska act Wild Kingdom, of which Michiles was also a member. When Wild Kingdom dissolved in 1992, the three started over from scratch. And with scratching.

"We made a conscious effort to put the turntables out in front," says Michiles, whom Sims calls "the Funk and Wagnalls of hip hop," referring to the breakdancer-turned-turntablist's impressive vinyl collection and working knowledge of the genre. "Whatever we couldn't play (on instruments), we'd play on a record."

More than just beefing up the band's overall sound, Michiles started taking turntable solos. Back then, it was unusual for any band to make the DJ its soloist, especially in a town full of guitar fans.

Riley plays more of a supporting role in the band. Before attaining Citizen-ship, Riley had played jazz and studied the cello.

Chief lyricist Sims, at 24 the baby, is fond of '70s dance music and '60s "black psychedelia." After playing in a series of local ska and punk bands, starting out on guitar but taking up bass "because my fingers stopped moving so fast," Sims joined CK in early 1993.

Even with its lineup solidified, the band was in no rush to hop onstage.

Instead, the five avid record collectors pooled their vinyl and began systematically to pick it apart. The band deconstructed entire discographies of their favorites -- starting with the seminal New Orleans R&B band The Meters -- note for note, teaching themselves about where good music came from.

"We would spend hours and hours -- 18 hours a day -- sitting in a room and talking crazy," remembers Sims. "You know Play-Doh? You have a green can and a red can and a blue can . . . but when you get done playing with it, all the colors are mushed up. We looked at musicians we liked and respected and tried to figure out what colors they had, what Play-Doh they were playing with."

When CK finally performed, as the opening act for Paul Cebar at Shank Hall, they were arguably the best schooled rock band in town. It should have been a great gig.

It wasn't.

"It sucked," says Sims, laughing now in hindsight. "It shocked all of us. We had conceptualized it, but we didn't back it up."

CK "retreated and reformulated," as Cooley puts it, becoming tighter, funkier and more cohesive. After three years of the typical circuit, from east side bars and Summerfest to basement parties, they attracted the interest of the label 510, a subsidiary of MCA.

But just months after signing the band in 1996, 510 folded. MCA passed on the contract, and it seemed the group would be in label limbo indefinitely. To hear CK tell the story, however, getting kicked to the curb by MCA was the best thing that could have happened.

"When they (MCA) turned us down, we were stoked," says Cooley. "The guys who signed us to 510 were good guys, but when that label folded . . . MCA didn't know how to pigeonhole us."

Because the band had already recorded an album -- and retained ownership of it -- under the original 510 deal, CK didn't come out of the fiasco empty-handed. They quickly turned the unreleased record into a promotion tool.

"As soon as we started shopping it around, there was a buzz," remembers Riley. "All of a sudden, we were 'the thing.' We were like, oh, so now you want to sign us?"

After a bidding war, the band found a happy home with Warner Bros.

As part of the deal, the label kicked in six digits to fund Bionic Studios (625 N. Milwaukee St.), described by a giddy Cooley as a "virtual cornucopia of gadgetry -- full of crazy, blurky, bleepy things."

The band sees the studio as an important investment for their future, regardless of how well "Mobile Estates," recorded at Bionic, fares.

"People record now wherever it's 'cool,' wherever there's a 'vibe,' " says Michiles dismissively. "But we thought we'd get our own spot and then work on getting a vibe with the people we brought in to work with us."

Even with solid radio and MTV play for "Better Days" and Warner's formidable buzz machine firmly supporting the band, CK face an uphill challenge. "Mobile Estates" is just one of some 20,000 albums that will be released this year. Standing out in the crowd will be tough.

"Juxtaposed with what else is out there, Citizen King sounds different. There's innovation there," says Terry Havel, DJ and assistant programming director at WLUM-FM (102.1), who has been spinning CK material for years. "(But) they're still at the mercy of public tastes and radio programmers."

CK insist they're not worried.

"The only two successes I feel passionate about are being able to quit my day job at United Way and making this record," says Cooley, exuding calm as the countdown to the "Mobile Estates" release nears. "Whatever else happens, happens."

Faced with more "positivity" from CK than even The Spice Girls can manage, you start to wonder if the band has truly achieved a Zen-like state of serenity amid the hype and expectations -- or if you're just seeing their game face.

Eventually, chinks in their armor start appearing.

Sitting in the balcony of the Modjeska, watching the rest of the band rehearse, Riley 'fesses up to feeling a little constrained by the group's studio-oriented perfectionism, which carries over to the stage.

"I wouldn't really even want to play a guitar solo in this band because of the stigma, guys playing the solos and looking at their fingers like they're surprised at how fast they're playing." He thinks it over for a moment and adds, wistfully, "Still, it might be interesting to get more improvisation."

A few evenings later, over tea, Michiles admits it's been rough finding quality time with his 2-year-old daughter, Tien. The only father among the Citizens, he's less than enthusiastic about the long tour ahead.

"I like it least of everyone," he says, Tien on his lap with her head buried in his coat. Live music at the coffeehouse is upsetting Tien, and Michiles covers her ears gently as he talks about the irony of success.

"It's funny how, when you get the thing you wanted most, you think, 'Okaaaay, but what about all those years before when we could have been touring?' " he says, shaking his head.

CK also knows that their achievements rankle a bit with other local musicians who have worked just as hard for just as long -- and who are still hustling for Friday night gigs in the 414 area code.

"There's charm in Milwaukee, but there's also competition. We know some people have been saying this or that about us," says Brooks. "But we've always been on a mission of our own: to get the band together, to keep it together, and to possibly make enough from it to pay the rent."

Cooley shrugs off the green-eyed glances of other bands. He offers to settle any outstanding scores with other bands in a distinctly Milwaukee style.

"Citizen King issues a standing challenge to any band who wants to bowl against us. We will beat them down."

Gemma Tarlach