With a hardcore fanbase which has stuck with them for many years, a reputation for adrenaline-driven live shows and no qualms about tapping into the most emotional sides of their music, King No-One are the definition of a true grassroots band. Through their years of treading the stage, they have accumulated a remarkable catalogue of music, energetic and soul-baring in time, and after a select series of well-received past releases, they have now delivered a much-anticipated debut album. ‘The Burden Of Empathy’ perfectly captures what the band is about, even from its title, the complexity of its music matching the complexity of feeling it is endeavouring to portray. As the buzz around the album keeps rising, we had a chat with vocalist Zach Lount, reflecting on the band’s past, present, and future. 

Introduce yourself and where you’re from.

I’m Zach Lount, I’m the singer of King No-One. The band is me, Joe Martin on guitar, and Rob Gration, he’s on bass. I am from Leeds myself, Rob is from Leeds also, and Joe is from York. 

What do our readers need to know about you?

If you’ve got one selling point for the band, it has to be the live show. You’ve got to get to a live show. People have said once you see us live, you come back again and again, which is lovely to hear, and we pride ourselves on advancing the live show every time. Now that we’ve got an album out, the show is going to evolve even more. People are loving the album, which means we get to connect over it and make it even more dynamic. We’ve always had an issue managing to get the energy from the live show into a record, it’s always been what we strive for. When it came to this record, we managed to find a producer who specialised in capturing the energy of the band, and he helped us capture that live feel, the push and pull of the band playing together. 

What have you got coming up that you’re most excited for?

I could say I’m ready for some time off, but actually I’m ready to look to the future now. We’ve got album one out and now it’s time for album two. And in the process of getting album one out, we’ve actually been writing the second album. Because album one was an amalgamation of the journey, while album two is very, very much in its own direction. So we are really excited to move on to that. And then we are going on a world tour-ish, Europe and the UK, and we are so excited to get on the road. We have fans who are very dedicated and have been following for a very long time, it’s like they are part of the family. It’s great to share it all with them. 

What’s the best run-in you’ve had with a fan?

We went on tour in 2023 for the ‘Dead Hotel’ EP, and I wore this magnificent green jacket. It was fluorescent green, it reflected everything. I think the German fans in particular loved that jacket. After the tour finished, I ended up losing it, of course. Then at the Leeds gig, some German fans flew into the show, and they had managed to find that rare green jacket. They had replaced it for me, which was incredible. That follows another story of fans buying me white Doc Martens, because mine had a flap on them, the bottom of the shoe was coming off. Some fans saw it on tour and then replaced them the following night, which is mental. They all chipped in to cover that. It’s the kind of stuff where fans affect you every day, it fills your heart with warmth.

What’s been your biggest ‘I’ve made it’ moment so far?

Because we’d always been independent, you don’t really have time to come back, you don’t realise how far you’ve come. Pre-COVID, we were selling unbelievable amounts of tickets, we were doing venues up to 1,000 capacity, we were really living in the moment. We didn’t realise that we’d gone somewhere because we were striving to get signed. Then, of course, COVID hit, and the finances of what had been propping up that whole project fell because we were funded by the touring and the busking. We were really struggling. It really felt like our fan base had dissipated because we couldn’t play Manchester and do 1,000 tickets anymore. What we didn’t realise was, we could do a lot more tickets playing places we had never played before. So when we started this album campaign, we shut down our social media and left only one post saying something along the lines of, “we’ve been a band for 10 years, it’s time to think”. Which admittedly was a little rage-baity. But the response to this post was unbelievable. Our phones were constantly going off, we were getting calls from people from all over the industry. Fans were worried we would quit. It felt like we were important.

What are your three “desert island” albums?

The thing is, sometimes it’s all about a song. So for me, I’d have to take ‘Girls Can Tell’ by Spoon, which was released in 2001, because it has a song called ‘Everything Hits At Once’, and that was the first time I had completely fallen in love with a song. I was only about six years old when I first heard it, and I remember my mum was just testing it out and I forced her to buy it, and every time I was in the car I’d ask her to play it over and over again. Then if I’m on the desert island on my own, it would have to be Cat Stevens, because it makes me think of my mum and dad. ‘The Very Best Of Cat Stevens’. And I barely listen to Cat Stevens, but when I do it, I do it for a reason. Then the third album would have to be Big Thief, ‘Capacity’. It’s probably my favourite album of all time. 

Sum up your sound in three words.

Riveting, dramatic, and considered.

Chiara Strazzulla

@cstrazzull

Image: Courtesy of PR

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