Biography
In the underground circuit of Southern rock and roll, King Louie Bankston earned recognition as an extraordinarily productive vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer. He championed the raw urgency of punk while drawing deeply from the foundational traditions of Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana, the two cities where he lived for extended periods. Although Bankston issued a vast quantity of solo material, he also earned admiration as a versatile collaborator, contributing to groups such as garage rockers the Royal Pendletons, unrefined Southern punks the Bad Times, melodic punk traditionalists the Exploding Hearts along with their related endeavor Terry & Louie, and numerous additional projects. In the role of frontman, he led the high-octane garage unit King Louie & the Loose Diamonds, the power-pop-to-punk ensemble King Louie's Missing Monuments, and the stripped-down punk-blues force known as the King Louie One Man Band. In 2023 he assembled the retrospective collection titled Harahan Fats.
Louis Paul Bankston entered the world in Harahan, Louisiana, a community situated twelve miles from New Orleans, on December 18, 1972. His relatives operated a hardware business, and during his early teenage years Bankston developed an intense enthusiasm for skateboarding; following his recommendation, his father began stocking skateboards and related equipment at the store. Eventually the business grew into one of the state's most prosperous skate shops, and Bankston encountered figures such as Tony Hawk and Rodney Mullen. Through involvement in the regional skate scene he discovered punk rock and metal, leading him in 1987 to establish his debut group, the two-piece punk act the Intelligenitals. He subsequently started another punk band, the Lame Ones, alongside fellow skaters and soon received an invitation to join the garage rock outfit the Clickems.
Bankston joined forces with guitarist Michael Hurtt in 1990 to create the Royal Pendletons, a band that blended garage punk with Southern frat rock and beach music elements. Serving as drummer, Bankston helped the group achieve greater impact through live performances than through recordings, though toward the conclusion of their tenure they completed the 1998 album Oh Yeah, Baby under the guidance of Memphis figure Alex Chilton. Concurrent with his work in the Royal Pendletons, Bankston launched the garage rock project the Persuaders, taking on guitar and vocal duties, and issued a solo single as King Louie the 69th & The Harahan Crack Combo in 1993. He participated in the short-lived collaboration Bad Times alongside fellow garage punk figures Jay Reatard and Eric Oblivian; a single-day demo session from 1998 appeared on LP in 2001. Bankston relocated to Portland, Oregon, in 2000, and the next year he entered the tuneful punk band the Exploding Hearts at the invitation of singer and guitarist Adam Cox, who valued his songwriting abilities. He performed on keyboards with the group for nearly a year before departing on cordial terms, though he continued to supply songs. His exit from the Exploding Hearts ultimately proved fortuitous: in July 2003, after a performance in San Francisco, the band's van overturned on the highway, leaving only guitarist Terry Six as a survivor. A decade later, Six and Bankston began composing and performing together as Terry & Louie, resulting in the 2019 release A Thousand Guitars.
Bankston occasionally presented solo performances in which he supplied percussion through foot pedals while singing and playing guitar. In 2001 he entered the studio with the King Louie One Man Band to produce the LP Jesus Loves My One Man Band; he followed with the second One Man Band album, Chinese Crawfish, in 2005. While issuing lo-fi singles via the projects 10-4 Backdoor and Kajun SS, Bankston assembled the comparatively refined group Rat Tail in 2003, whose members included Jack Oblivian, Harlan T. Bobo, Adam Woodard, and Chad Booth. The ensemble, later renamed King Louie and the Loose Diamonds, delivered the album Memphis Treet in 2007. Guitarist Julien Fried later joined the Loose Diamonds and also performed with Bankston in Missing Monuments, which issued Painted White in 2011 and the self-titled follow-up in 2013. After guitarist and singer Ben Glover established the psychedelia-infused garage punk project Bipolaroid in 2003, Bankston joined in time to play drums on the third album, 2010's Illusion Fields, and subsequently appeared on 2013's Twin Language and 2019's Paint It Blacker.
Despite the extensive scope of Bankston's recorded output, he also maintained an active live schedule, joined friends onstage, and produced numerous solo recordings featuring dozens of original compositions alongside covers ranging from gospel standards to underground hip-hop tracks. King Louie Bankston's ceaseless creative path concluded on February 12, 2022, when he died in a New Orleans hospital from complications of heart failure worsened by prolonged alcohol and drug use. Toward the close of his life, Bankston organized plans to gather rare and unreleased material from his archives onto a two-cassette anthology titled Harahan Fats. Although he passed before completing the project, Goner Records, the Memphis-based independent label that had previously released several of his works, issued Harahan Fats in November 2023 as a fifteen-track CD and LP edition together with a limited-edition double-cassette version containing an expanded twenty-two-song sequence, honoring Bankston's original concept. ~ Mark Deming
Louis Paul Bankston entered the world in Harahan, Louisiana, a community situated twelve miles from New Orleans, on December 18, 1972. His relatives operated a hardware business, and during his early teenage years Bankston developed an intense enthusiasm for skateboarding; following his recommendation, his father began stocking skateboards and related equipment at the store. Eventually the business grew into one of the state's most prosperous skate shops, and Bankston encountered figures such as Tony Hawk and Rodney Mullen. Through involvement in the regional skate scene he discovered punk rock and metal, leading him in 1987 to establish his debut group, the two-piece punk act the Intelligenitals. He subsequently started another punk band, the Lame Ones, alongside fellow skaters and soon received an invitation to join the garage rock outfit the Clickems.
Bankston joined forces with guitarist Michael Hurtt in 1990 to create the Royal Pendletons, a band that blended garage punk with Southern frat rock and beach music elements. Serving as drummer, Bankston helped the group achieve greater impact through live performances than through recordings, though toward the conclusion of their tenure they completed the 1998 album Oh Yeah, Baby under the guidance of Memphis figure Alex Chilton. Concurrent with his work in the Royal Pendletons, Bankston launched the garage rock project the Persuaders, taking on guitar and vocal duties, and issued a solo single as King Louie the 69th & The Harahan Crack Combo in 1993. He participated in the short-lived collaboration Bad Times alongside fellow garage punk figures Jay Reatard and Eric Oblivian; a single-day demo session from 1998 appeared on LP in 2001. Bankston relocated to Portland, Oregon, in 2000, and the next year he entered the tuneful punk band the Exploding Hearts at the invitation of singer and guitarist Adam Cox, who valued his songwriting abilities. He performed on keyboards with the group for nearly a year before departing on cordial terms, though he continued to supply songs. His exit from the Exploding Hearts ultimately proved fortuitous: in July 2003, after a performance in San Francisco, the band's van overturned on the highway, leaving only guitarist Terry Six as a survivor. A decade later, Six and Bankston began composing and performing together as Terry & Louie, resulting in the 2019 release A Thousand Guitars.
Bankston occasionally presented solo performances in which he supplied percussion through foot pedals while singing and playing guitar. In 2001 he entered the studio with the King Louie One Man Band to produce the LP Jesus Loves My One Man Band; he followed with the second One Man Band album, Chinese Crawfish, in 2005. While issuing lo-fi singles via the projects 10-4 Backdoor and Kajun SS, Bankston assembled the comparatively refined group Rat Tail in 2003, whose members included Jack Oblivian, Harlan T. Bobo, Adam Woodard, and Chad Booth. The ensemble, later renamed King Louie and the Loose Diamonds, delivered the album Memphis Treet in 2007. Guitarist Julien Fried later joined the Loose Diamonds and also performed with Bankston in Missing Monuments, which issued Painted White in 2011 and the self-titled follow-up in 2013. After guitarist and singer Ben Glover established the psychedelia-infused garage punk project Bipolaroid in 2003, Bankston joined in time to play drums on the third album, 2010's Illusion Fields, and subsequently appeared on 2013's Twin Language and 2019's Paint It Blacker.
Despite the extensive scope of Bankston's recorded output, he also maintained an active live schedule, joined friends onstage, and produced numerous solo recordings featuring dozens of original compositions alongside covers ranging from gospel standards to underground hip-hop tracks. King Louie Bankston's ceaseless creative path concluded on February 12, 2022, when he died in a New Orleans hospital from complications of heart failure worsened by prolonged alcohol and drug use. Toward the close of his life, Bankston organized plans to gather rare and unreleased material from his archives onto a two-cassette anthology titled Harahan Fats. Although he passed before completing the project, Goner Records, the Memphis-based independent label that had previously released several of his works, issued Harahan Fats in November 2023 as a fifteen-track CD and LP edition together with a limited-edition double-cassette version containing an expanded twenty-two-song sequence, honoring Bankston's original concept. ~ Mark Deming
Albums
Singles
