“It works like a charm,” laughed bassist Pete “Pal” Wasserstein. “We irritate the hell out of the fans with 20 minutes of Walker Hayes and Florida-Georgia Line before we come on stage, so that our admittedly ‘just okay’ musicianship and songs blow them away.”
“They were awesome!” said a fan walking out of King Planter’s recent Mobile show. “I don’t know what it was, but their sufficient musical abilities and reasonably passable songwriting just sounded on a whole new level tonight; I don’t know what it was!”
The four-piece update the “Lowered Expectations” Spotify playlist weekly, adding anything that’s the latest snap-beat sappy song hitting the country charts or the most annoying viral country-rap song on TikTok. This week they added David Morris’ “Carrying Your Love,” a rap song which features an interpolation of the similarly named George Strait hit.
“Oh God, they hate it!” laughed vocalist Jay Henderson. “But after that shit, I sound like Otis Redding or Chris Stapleton compared to that dude, when I’m really just a C- on a good night.”
King Planter, who list The Band and David Allan Coe as their primary influences, have failed to catch on in ‘the scene’ in three years of existence. According to the blog Bama Mericana, King Planter “look the part and check off all the requisite topics in their music, but the lyrics can be best described as reasonable and their playing is ehhh… fair to middling. No offense because it pays better than being in a band, but they’ll be hanging sheetrock in 9 months.”
All this might be so, but crowds are growing lately thanks to their unique modus operandi. “Word of mouth, baby!” said an excited Wasserstein, surveying the tens of fans in attendance at their Big Star Tavern show in Montgomery last night.
At press time, King Planter was about 8 months from disbanding.
