Review Fix Exclusive: King Park’s Timon Moolman Talks ‘Stuck in the Middle’ And More

Review Fix chats with King Park’s Timon Moolman, who discusses the band’s origin and new single “Stick in the Middle.”

Review Fix: How did you get involved in music?

Timon Moolman: When I was in grade 5, my friend Graeme showed me Dashboard Confessional. We would write songs in the basement with broken acoustic guitars about fake heartbreaks that had obviously never happened. I still remember the first one we were ever proud of. The lyrics were: Please stop this ride, I need to puke, I’m so sick of your lies, when will you tell the truth?! Arguably still the best thing I’ve come up with. The next year for my birthday my mom said I can get a Nintendo or an Ibanez. I made my decision and the rest is history. 

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Moolman: Generally speaking, King Park writes every song in two ways. I will jam with a band member or members and we will riff off of something until we feel we have something good. Then we will record it instrumentally on my iPhone and I will obsess over the lyrics and melodies until I feel like we have something solid. The other way, which was the primary method for our upcoming album Everett, is that I will wait until I get my heart destroyed by a terrible breakup and will sit in our bassist’s backyard and write songs in a haze until the sun starts to rise. 

Review Fix: What inspires you?

Moolman: My biggest inspiration is wanting to write songs that people can relate to. I think that at the root of all people is a desire to be happy. Sometimes we are just really bad at it. For me, music has always been a way of identifying the things that make you feel something special and important and it has the incredible ability to bring people together based on that shared experience or emotion. 

Review Fix: What does music mean to you?

Moolman: Music has been a large part of every best moment of my life. My buddy Alex and I had a list of bands we wanted to see and over the past decade of my life, we have been crossing them off the list. People are my favorite thing in this world. And music has the incredible ability to bind us together through dancing, singing, and feeling deep things together. 

Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you?

Moolman: King Park is heartfelt and introspective, with blends of high contrast indie rock and emotional post-hardcore. King Park’s newest track ‘Stuck in the Middle’ is full of chiming, swirling guitars, and the kind of textures that listeners of classic post-punk will immediately recognize. 

Review Fix: How are your live shows different from your studio work?

Moolman: Our live shows are either heavier or more chill than our studio work. This is because, when we can, we like to scream and give a ton of energy live. But because of the nature of our music scene here in Hamilton, we find ourselves playing a lot of stripped-down/acoustic shows. The first time we set one of these up was due to a lot of the heavier bands we were supposed to play with dropping out. As most of our friends play acoustically, we had them fill the spots and we nplayed stripped-down versions of our songs. It was an absolute success. The show was so fun, and we have been keeping these versions in our back pockets ever since. These shows also started effecting our songwriting and we have an acoustic version of our first single from 2007 coming out next month with a live video from one of these nights!

Review Fix: What inspired your latest single? 

Moolman: Our upcoming album, Everett sits in that familiar moment after life has fallen apart, and before a way forward seems possible. “Stuck in the Middle” is a snapshot from one of those times where I felt pinned to the spot. If you’ve ever felt stuck in a moment, unable to get it out of your head, screaming at yourself in the car to just stop thinking about it, lying awake all night unable to remove what happened from your skull – then you’ll get where this song comes from. 

Review Fix: What are your goals for the rest of 2020?

Moolman: Our goals are to get back in the studio to record a stripped-down EP with acoustic versions of some of the album songs, record a music video for the title track of the album, and to release a crowdfunding campaign to help finance the release of a few more singles from the album. 

Review Fix: What’s next?

Moolman: When we met with Andrew Roach who used to work at Dine Alone records, he told us that we should put our effort into writing and recording the best music that we can and to sell out Horseshoe Tavern if we want their attention. COVID has pumped the breaks on that plan, but we will continue to work towards that goal. I think the most important thing to do is keep grinding through – playing as much as we can given the times, and writing and recording the best music we can for future releases. 

Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add? 

Moolman: Thanks so much for this opportunity! If you’re reading this, please go check us out wherever you listen to your music – and if you like what you hear, give us a follow for more great tunes coming soon!