(you know, for the all that time you’ll be spending in your cabin!)
Doug has earned a vacation, right? He’s been working in one band or another for as long as most of us have been listening to music. And he’s done nothing but pick up the pace of late, writing, recording, and touring in multiple acts over the course of any given month.
Well good news! In nine days (Feb. 24) Doug leaves from Miami on a cruise to Jamaica.
No. It’s not quite a vacation. He and King’s X are one of the featured bands on the Monsters of Rock Cruise (MORC) 2019. But still, I’m sure it’ll be nice.
This isn’t his main band’s first performance as part of a floating festival either. Back in 2016 King’s X was part of KISS Kruise VI, joining Whitford/St. Holmes, Skid Row, The Dead Daisies, and others on the featured act’s undercard.
Tesla is headlining MORC. Skid Row is part of the festivities again. New to sharing a boat with King’s X, but familiar to all dUg fans, is Richie Kotzen.
Also new for this voyage is the perfect onboard reading material: ‘What You Make It: The Authorized Biography of Doug Pinnick.’ You can download it for Kindle or buy a hardcopy in case you get a chance to grab an autograph from the man himself.
Either way, if you’re going on this cruise you’re in for a treat. Just look at the lineup!
Tesla, Tom Kiefer, Extreme, Queensryche, Saxon, Skid Row, Y&T, UDO, Kix, Danger Danger, Richie Kotzen, D∙A∙D, Pat Travers Band, The Quireboys, The Wildhearts, Rose Tattoo, Killer Dwarfs, Vain, Bullet Boys, Faster Pussycat, Jetboy, and the list goes on…
More good news? Even if you’re not on MORC you’re going to have plenty of chances to see dUg in action this year. And recording of the NEW KING’S X RECORD gets underway.
The boat returns to Miami on Mar. 1. Two days later Doug takes the stage in Pompano Beach, Fla., as part of the 2019 Experience Hendrix tour, wrapping Apr. 6 in Wallingford, Conn., at which point he rejoins Ty and Jerry in the studio to begin making their first new music together in more than a decade.
dUg takes a brief intermission in the first part of May from crafting new King’s X to roll with 3rd Ear Experience from New Orleans (May 1) through Texas, Arizona, and California. 3EE is a desert jam collaboration led by dUg’s long-time friend Robbi Robb. The two first met when both were on Megaforce and have had overlapping musical journey’s ever since (as chronicled in ‘What You Make It’).
And finally, King’s X leaps back into live action with a string of northeast dates at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ; NYC’s Gramercy Theatre; and the Tail Winds Music Fest with The Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Black Stone Cherry, Geoff Tate’s Operation: Mindcrime, and Sass Jordan.
Enjoy the rock! Enjoy the read!
Chris Smith, Author 