At first listen, one might think The King Khan and BBQ Show is a throwback to the past. Their music combines a heavy dose of ’50s and ’60s doo-wop with early R&B, fuzzy garage rock and a genuine punk attitude. They’ve been slinging dirty, fast and fun music for almost two decades, and recently, for better or for worse, TikTokers have added their classic “Love You So” to millions upon millions of videos. The dynamic Canadian duo comprised of Arish Khan, better known as “King Khan,” and Mark Sultan, better known as “BBQ,” are bringing their insanely energetic and occasionally chaotic show to the Earl in East Atlanta this Saturday, Sept. 17, and the one and only King Khan joined “City Lights” senior producer Kim Drobes via Zoom to talk about the band’s strange journey.
Interview highlights:
Carving out their own path since the beginning:
“We actually met when we were teenagers. Mark had this punk band in Montreal, and I started a group with a bunch of other friends. So basically we’ve been playing together since, I mean I was 17, so it must be … over 20 years ago,” Khan recalled. “It’s funny because, I guess, at the time we were really discovering lots of rock and roll music from all different eras, and we were just really inspired, in a sense, continuing the tradition of wild rock and roll, but not being purist about it; doing it ourselves, in our own way.”
“There’s some people who, when they play music like ours, or ’60s rock and roll … there’s more attention to emulating the exact thing, in terms of costumes,” said Khan. “For example, our stage outfits, which have always been pushing the envelope of very weird and bizarre. So there was no formula, ever, in our band. And we were just always laughing and not taking life too seriously, and, you know, wearing bondage outfits, and I was dressing like Tina Turner for, like, 10 years. Yeah, so we wanted to take like an untraditional way of approaching this music.”
