A Interview with
'King Kraken'
The Welsh Rockers who play Stonedead Festival @ Newark Showgrounds on 23rd August, 2025.
Interviewed by Dale Holford
on 20th May, 2025.
Dale: Can you tell us a bit about yourself, your rolls in the band for those who are just discovering you?
King Kraken: We're King Kraken, a heavy rock band hailing from South Wales UK. We've been together since 2018 after Pete Rose (Rhythm Guitar) left an old band he had joined, due to inability to have song writing access and put together a very successful campaign bringing people of the same mind and goals together. This was done quite easily as it goes and after a few jam sessions with friends and a few adverts on social media, the process sort of just happened without much hassle at all. It was meant to be.
Karl Meyer (Bass Guitar) joined after meting Pete through a friend and a jam led to him being singled out as such. Richard Mears (Drums) then joined after his old band was falling apart and and he began to search for a musical home. It just happened to be a band that Pete followed. Then Joined Mark Donoghue (Vocals) after responding to a Facebook ad on a music page and last but least, joined Adam Healey (Lead Guitar and sarcasm) who to this day states to that he auditioned us..
That was literally how easy it was getting this band together.
Dale: Who are your influences?
King Kraken: We're a strange old bunch really, everything from Lamb of God, Pantera, Black label society, through to Jimi Hendrix and (70's era) Status Quo. Throw it in a blender and drink that chunky blend of raw protein right down! It'll put hairs on your grandmother's back!
Dale: You are currently on tour. How is it going so far? What is the good parts and bad parts of touring?
King Kraken: Ahh it's been a wild one and lessons are being learned (we’ll go in to that another time) the good parts- Selling out our album launch in one of the bigger venues we're playing. Making new fans, seeing the same faces following us all over the UK and hearing fans singing our songs back to us at gigs.
Bad parts - feeling crippled after being stuck in the back of a transit van for hours. Booking the sh*ttiest of hotels and the obvious one, eating crap food you don't want to eat. Apart from this, it's bloody awesome!
Dale: You won the 'Battle of The Bands' to play at Stonedead. Have you been to the festival before as gig goers?
King Kraken: Most of us have been two or three times yes, and what an absolutely amazing festival it is! We love the feel and set up of the festival, it's real old school. It reminds me of the good old days when Monsters of Rock was the festival to go to. Reminiscing galore! If you haven't been before, you need to experience this once in your life!
Dale: You beat off some fierce competition and now you are the worthy winners. last year it was The Hot One Two. Are you hoping this will propel you to bigger and better things?
King Kraken: To be fair, the competition was unbelievable. We were so proud and humbled winning this amazing opportunity, and to answer your question, things are already looking up and the bookings are already coming in for the end of 2025 and 2026. The Bloodstock winter gathering and dates with Phil Campbell are among the few we can mention but we cannot wait for next years shows! Watch this space!
Dale: So a new album. Two in two years! That is really good going. A lot of bands struggle to write. Who does the writing?
King Kraken: Our process usually involves Pete and Karl bringing a riff or two to the band at rehearsals or Mark jumping on something random being played unintentionally when not writing at the time. The process often takes an unexpected turn and births itself when we least expect it. Mark writes the lyrics and we often give things time to breath before hashing the ending through.
Dale: The instrumental breakdown in 'El Giganto' is off the scale. Brilliant song. That has made me really excited to see you at Stonedead. Do you have a song that you are particularly proud of?
King Kraken: Ahh, great choice! We all have different songs we love for different reasons, Karl loves ‘Scream’ as he says, “it's a seven minute song played in three” There's so many changes and interesting bits in that one. Pete loves the the breakdown played under the solo in ‘Man Made Monster’ as it reminds him of an army marching in unison to battle.
When played live, the octave pedal on this sounds fierce and gives you a real kick in the teeth! Adam loves ‘March of the Gods’ In his own words, “it's the best song on the album!” Richard loves playing ‘Preacher’ as it's so different and interesting live, breaking things up in the set and Mark loves ‘Hero’, which is an absolute classic live.
Dale: You are a really heavy band, proper Heavy Metal! 'B*st*rd Liar', I know I am going to headbang the hell out of that song so...tell me more about 'Hero'? Your first ballad!
King Kraken: Rich had always fancied playing something slower-paced as a band, and we often jammed ideas, but nothing ever stuck or felt good enough nothing worth taking a risk on until Karl brought the bare bones of a riff to practice. We loved it, played around with it, and made some changes. Adam added a bluesy solo, and it started to come together nicely.
We needed an ending section to lift the song back up, and that’s when Pete came up with the dual guitar riff, which gave Mark the freedom to add his vocal magic. Mark had always wanted to write a tribute to his late father, and when he sang the chorus melody, we knew straight away that this was something special.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Dale: Your artwork is amazing. Brings me back to my youth of loving Helloween Albums and the Saxon Crusader album. who does the art? Has it been the same person throughout?
King Kraken: Up until recently, Mark did most of our artwork for gig posters, t shirts, the first album covers, the singles etc but due to time constraints (all of us unfortunately still work full time) in between gigging, writing and recording, we had to accept some changes and one of these changes led us to look for someone to take over (most of) the art work duties.
Mark, who is extremely talented and experienced in this area, still worked on the single release artwork for the new album but the album artwork itself was handed over to the fantastic Andy Pilkington at Very Metal Art, who does all the artwork for the likes of Bloodstock amongst the many other amazing promotional work he deals with.
We were looking for an album cover to take us back to the 70's and 80's vinyl albums many of us spent too much time studying in our youth as we listened to our favourite music. We loved the likes of Boris Vallejo who did such Album covers as Ozzy Osbourne's ‘The Ultimate Sin’ or Eliran Kantor who worked with Helloween. Andy fulfilled our goals and gave us a beast of an album cover and t shirts to join it! Absolutely fantastic stuff!
Dale: So what's next for King Kraken? Eventual Bloodstock headliner? Download Headliner?
What are your dreams and plans?
King Kraken: Our dreams are coming to fruition and our goals change daily but we don't want much, just fame, fortune and world domination! actually, Adam states that he wants a statue of himself after seeing the Godfather himself, Lemmy's being unveiled recently!
To be honest, we'd love to have a name out there, sell tickets (at a reasonable price) play the big festivals and become a household name…nothing much haha! To have a nice house overlooking the sea would be nice and the opportunity to give up the rat race and focus on the things that matter in this world! Music is what matters for all of us and we need to get this music out there!
Dale: Thank you to all the lads from King Kraken for answering my questions. I will meet you at Stonedead festival!
Photograph Credits:
Hutchie 224 Rock, Metal And Roll