 King's Row started in 1996 when Chris called Dale to ask if he was interested in writing songs. A few days later, they convened at Chris' apartment and by night's end had written the song "Daggers". Before long, Chris was making the long trip out to Dale's house every couple of weeks to continue writing and recording. Several other people were invited out at different times like drummers Doug LaFarge and Adam Williams. A singer named Mike came out a few times and for awhile it was really exciting. He had a great voice, much like Dennis DeYoung or Michael Sweet, but he totally flaked out and disappeared with people even calling the band looking for him. Frustrated that they couldn't find anyone else to commit to working with them long term, Chris and Dale decided to go it alone and aside from a few drum tracks recorded by Doug and Adam, Chris and Dale finished their first CD "Closed" by themselves. They looked to a song title from the CD for a band name and were thenceforth christened "Human Remains". A terribly inappropriate name for sure, but they liked the misdirection all the same.
 Even after the first CD, they were looking for another member to jam and collaborate with. Dale's first band in high school was with Jason Jobe who later ended up playing with Jim Hare in Blind Panic. Stone Cold and Blind Panic played many of the same places and were among the same community of friends (Jim even replaced Dale after he left Stone Cold), so when Dale found out that Jim wasn't currently playing with anyone, he invited him out to see how well they all worked together. That night, they wrote "Salt the Wound" and before long the "Back to Myer's Chapel" CD was finished. It was kind of a hodgepodge of styles and sound quality and more closely resembled a collection of demos instead of a cohesive album, but it was another step in the process.
They continued experimenting with new sounds and styles and by the end of 1999 had another CD ready. Entitled "Protocol", it was never considered official as there was no cover designed and copies were made only for the band. After listening back to the final product, the band was disappointed in the overall sound quality and production and vowed to do better.
With a few new songs under their belt, they rearranged and re-recorded their best songs, changed their name to King's Row (which everyone agreed was much better), and finished "Closed" in 2001, even playing their first gig at Dale's house to unveil the material. They made a decision to work even harder on songwriting, arranging, performance, and production so that the next CD would be something they could all be proud of.
They started off in earnest, writing a whole CDs worth of material with more complex arrangements. However, this required not only a learning curve for creating better sounds in the studio, but they also felt it required better musicians. Jim's fellow Blind Panic member and Dale's high-school bus mate John Tellman was approached to play drums on the CD. A very busy and in-demand drummer for several cover and tribute bands, his time was limited so the guys created demos of all the songs with a click track and no drums.
Then time slowly dripped by. Before long, several other new songs were written, Tellman had less and less time, and the band grew antsy. They decided to group together the less complicated songs and go about recording them immediately. Dale procured a shiny new Roland V-drum set to go along with his Roland V-studio and V-guitar rig, and they got to work. Throughout this period, Jim wanted to build a house for his family so he was away for awhile which meant several of the newer songs ("Balance", "Cracked Window", and "Unconfined") were written largely without his input. Dale had to go off and get cancer so the band was on hiatus while he recovered over the summer. Family members couldn't stay healthy, Chris had to work two jobs to pay off all of his gambling debts, and Jim just couldn't choose between the band and his family so work on the new CD slowed to a creep. At the same time, Dale put out a random ad on a Columbia, MO music site for a singer and Jim Brown from Rutledge, MO answered the call. He sent a demo and since he was much better than Dale, he was asked to sing on the CD. Which he did, as long as the band would help him on a solo CD.
 By the summer of 2005, work on "Transition" was in full swing but because the band was committed to better performances and production, everything was taking much longer than expected. Parts would be played then replaced later by a better sound or better performance. Drums were painstakingly edited to make sure the timing was just right. Vocal tracks were layered multiple times to get a rich, thick sound. Soon, it was summer 2006 and even though the pictures had been taken and graphics were layed out, the music still wasn't finished! In June, they played at the Callaway County Relay for Life, employing Doug LaFarge on drums so that Dale could play rhythm guitar. It was a rough gig since the band went on at 3:00 AM, but it was good to bring the songs out into a live format.
By mid-summer, "Transition" was finished and released en masse to an unsuspecting public. The CD was placed on the CD Baby website and was brought to the attention of Greg Allen, host of the talk radio show "The Right Balance" who used the song "Reanimate" as intro/outro music for awhile. Response from everyone was great and the band vowed that the next CD would be even more ambitious.
The next project, however, would be Jim Brown's solo CD. He gave the band 10 songs which were a mixture of acou stic pop and rock, all with a contemporary Christian message. The demos were stripped down with just vocals and acoustic guitar (with a few being only the vocal line). The band worked up some basic arrangments and fine-tuned them with Jim then got to work on recording. The music is definitely different from the norm for King's Row, but it provided an opportunity to experiment with different sounds and techniques. By summer 2007, "2 Sides to Every Man" was finished and Jim soon found himself being asked to perform songs at local churches and small community festivals.
During this same summer, Dale decided to pack up and move to Alaska for a year to teach at a rural school. It was a once in a lifetime experience, but it meant work on the next King's Row CD would be put on hiatus. Dale worked on demos in Alaska while Chris and Jim kept doing some jamming back in Missouri. When Dale returned in 2008, he was ready to get to work. The past two years have been spent writing, rewriting, arranging, and recording the next CD, "Unbroken". Hoping for a fall 2010 completion, the CD will contain 9 songs and looks to be almost a full 80 minutes in length. The music will be much more progressive than it has been in the past while still retaining the King's Row sound combining the dynamics of heavy guitars with acoustic moments, strong melody lines and rich background vocals, while still focusing on songwriting throughout. Hopefully, it will be finished soon and enjoyed by all!
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