“Thanks so much for talking to me,” says Bryan Joyce, a.k.a. King Leg. “I was really excited about the interview. Hey, what’s your address? I want to send you some of my promo stickers.”
Such down-home enthusiasm is rare these days—especially when artists can be tormented with countless interviews during media campaigns for their albums. But gabbing with King Leg was like hanging out in a club with a musician you’d actually want to hang out with. You can feel all the appreciation and joy he has for being able to make Meet King Leg [Sire], for being “discovered” by country-music icon Dwight Yoakam (reportedly while waiting on him in a Nashville restaurant), and for having heavies like Yoakam and Chris Lord-Alge co-produce his record. And his wry, nutty humor is contagious—just check out his album cover. (By the way—the stickers arrived as promised.)
I read that you had given up music as a serious career for a while. Do you feel the “vacation” helped you reenergize your creativity when you returned to the struggle?
Well, I was still writing. I was playing in the garden the whole time. But I took some time to play just for fun, and to get to know some artists I hadn’t delved deeply into before—such as the Smiths and Roy Orbison. There were new discoveries along the way that kept fueling the fire. I was really lucky that I had a job at the time where I was able to listen to music and do research online to get ideas about where I wanted to go.
How do you typically find songs?
My approach is to sit down with a guitar and start noodling. As I’m humming along, or making noises like a baby babbling, a song may start