King’s X have described it as “the most enjoyable album” they’ve recorded to date and Three Sides Of One serves as a reminder that the trio have no plans to pack up their instruments. Despite having had a challenging few years, bassist and frontman Dug Pinnick tells Prog why the time was right to make a bold return with their first new material in 14 years.

Words: Dave Ling Images: Mark Weiss

“It’s really nice to be in a band that doesn’t just sound like another band. It has its drawbacks, of course, but overall we’ve been pretty lucky.”

L-R: Jerry Gaskill, Dug Pinnick, Ty Tabor.

With drummer Jerry Gaskill suffering a pair of near-fatal heart attacks and guitarist Ty Tabor developing an unspecified illness that required “vigilant monitoring”, causing the second axing of a visit to Europe and the UK, the past few years represented a tumultuous era in the history of King’s X. Bassist and frontman Dug Pinnick, too, was twice hospitalised. On top of everything else, the idiosyncratic Texas-based trio were forced to delay entering the studio after a big fall-out with a record label. Don’t forget to throw in a pandemic that devastated the world of music. However, despite their previous album, XV, being released as long ago as 2008, Dug Pinnick insists that there was never any possibility of King’s X dropping quietly off the map.

“No,” he scoffs affably. “My issue was just a hernia. Jerry had two heart attacks but they didn’t cause him to be disabled. He’s probably healthier than any of us right now. Ty has an immune problem that the doctors are trying to deal with. So we didn’t think about throwing in the towel just yet, but it’s going to happen sooner or later. At almost 72, I’m realising that there are things I won’t be able to do forever, such as singing Over My Head, or something.”