{"id":245387,"date":"2026-03-31T18:04:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T18:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/245387\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T18:04:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T18:04:07","slug":"louis-xiv-releases-new-single-ahead-of-gig-at-north-park-festival-of-beers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/245387\/","title":{"rendered":"Louis XIV releases new single ahead of gig at North Park Festival of Beers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Two<\/a>A reunited Louis XIV performed at the Casbah in 2025. The band returned to the stage after a long hiatus. (Photo courtesy of the band)<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Louis XIV<\/a> will take the stage at the North Park Festival of Beers<\/a>, the annual sampling of 80-plus craft beers held in front of the historic Lafayette Hotel. It\u2019s a fittingly
unpretentious setting for a band that has spent its entire career being widely
misunderstood.<\/p>\n

Originally hailing from Poway, like their punk brethren Blink-182, the group carried a
reputation that never quite matched reality. There was even a time when a U.S. city
found Louis XIV so offensive it banned them from performing.<\/p>\n

Critics called them too sharp, too rehearsed. Some heard an accent and concluded they
must be British \u2014 perhaps even\u00a0David Bowie. Others believed they were manufactured,
with a powerful label behind them carefully shaping every move.<\/p>\n

None of it was true.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were one of the only bands that were literally recording our tracks completely
without a producer, without an engineer. It was just us, mixing our own stuff,\u201d said lead
singer and multi-instrumentalist Jason Hill.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019re getting ahead of ourselves.<\/p>\n

From Convoy to Louis XIV<\/p>\n

Before Louis XIV existed, Hill and bandmates Brian Karscig (guitar, bass, vocals) and
Mark Maigaard (drums) were making inroads in the alt-country and rock outfit Convoy.
Signed to an Atlantic subsidiary, the group was touring through Midland, Texas, with the
most-requested song on local radio. And yet, fans couldn\u2019t find their record anywhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cI called the record company and they were like, \u2018We can get more records there in a
few weeks.\u2019 It was disheartening,\u201d Hill said. \u201cThis is what it\u2019s like to be signed by a
record label. It doesn\u2019t mean that there\u2019s competence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of doubling down, they did something far less calculated: they started over. The
band morphed into an alt-rock foursome, adopted the name Louis XIV and committed to
doing it all themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had written the song Louis XIV, I think Brian came up with the title, and the concept
grew out from there,\u201d Hill said, explaining how the group\u2019s name came to be. \u201cThat first
song really had the character of what defined the band, and we just tracked it live to
tape. The whole song was written in one night; it was just effortless.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band\u2019s 2004 debut album, appropriately titled Louis XIV, featured 11 songs
completely written and recorded in about 10 days. It was not meticulously crafted, but
discovered in real time.<\/p>\n

That same ethos carried into their sophomore breakout The Best Little Secrets Are
Kept. Two standout cuts from that album, the colorful \u201cPaper Doll\u201d and \u201cIllegal Tender,\u201d
were almost entirely improvised. <\/p>\n

Recalling the recording session for \u201cPaper Doll,\u201d Hill said, \u201cIt was three in the morning. A
drum beat happened, I moved the mic from the drums over to my guitar amp, and I just
played that groove. I ad-libbed the whole thing, with the exception of one line. That was
the thing with Louis. It wasn\u2019t going to be overthought. It was a sandbox to play in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The success of Secrets \u2014 bolstered by their Top 30 Billboard hit \u201cFinding Out True Love
Is Blind\u201d \u2014 put Louis XIV on the map and fueled more confusion and controversy.<\/p>\n

A ban in Birmingham<\/p>\n

Their early reputation for sexually provocative lyrics, suggestive album covers and racy
videos didn\u2019t always land well. While touring in 2005, Birmingham, Alabama\u2019s City
Council called an emergency meeting days before a scheduled gig and banned them
from performing at any public facility. The last-minute replacement act? Snoop Dogg.<\/p>\n

The following year, as the band was concurrently breaking in England, David Bowie
referred to Louis XIV as his new favorite group and invited them to play at what would
become his final live public performance, 2006\u2019s BLACK BALL, an AIDS in Africa charity
event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always wondered \u2014 did [Bowie] think we were British, too?\u201d Hill quipped in reference
to his nuanced vocal delivery, which he chalks up to deliberate enunciation.<\/p>\n

And then there was the time when a music reporter who was unsure what to make of
the band caught them at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City. He enjoyed the show
but had one interesting takeaway.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gave me a backhanded compliment, saying I\u2019d obviously studied Jimmy Page so
well that all my solos were note-for-note perfect,\u201d Hill shared. \u201cFunny thing about me: I
don\u2019t have the patience to ever play the same solo twice or to learn what I played on the
record. The only true enjoyment I get playing live is improvising solos all night long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Louis XIV released just one more full-length album, 2008\u2019s \u201cSlick Dogs and Ponies,\u201d
before breaking up the following year. At the time, Karscig said the band \u201cstarted to feel
more like a business.\u201d Hill referred to the split as a \u201clong liaison\u201d and said things went
south when their songcraft became \u201cmore labored.\u201d<\/p>\n

Together again<\/p>\n

The group made its reunion official in January 2025 with two nights at the Casbah,
including bassist Jake Pinto in the lineup. On March 12, they released a new single,
\u201cStatues,\u201d which they\u2019ll play at the Festival of Beers. It wasn\u2019t written in response to the
current war in Iran, though it might sound that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt certainly pertains to what\u2019s going on, but to me it\u2019s more of a song about resilience,
pushing forward and seizing the moment,\u201d Hill explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cStatues\u201d actually dates back to 2008, unearthed from a trove of unreleased material the
band recently rediscovered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so many great tracks that we haven\u2019t released,\u201d Hill added. \u201cNow it\u2019s like, we
have to get this stuff out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since 2014, Hill has become better known as a composer of film and TV scores<\/a>, from
the Netflix series \u201cMindhunter\u201d to Apple\u2019s \u201cDark Matter.\u201d He\u2019s currently busy working on
an undisclosed David Fincher project but said he expects Louis XIV to release a full
album of recovered old tracks, B-sides and new material by the end of this year or early
next.<\/p>\n

First up, however, is their North Park set. Hill said some friends may join them onstage
and \u201cit\u2019s gonna be a really fun show,\u201d but they\u2019re not planning to overly prepare. They\u2019re
just going to do what they\u2019ve always done, mostly wing it, and be what they\u2019ve always
been.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur whole big motto back in the day, and I still live by this, is just try to be your own
favorite band,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you like it, then people can like it or leave it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donovan Roche is a longtime music writer\u00a0and regular contributor to Times of San
Diego.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A reunited Louis XIV performed at the Casbah in 2025. The band returned to the stage after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[330,983,74,76,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-245387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-music","9":"tag-north-park","10":"tag-san-diego","11":"tag-san-diego-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}