For more than two decades, Laura King has been one of the most in-demand drummers in North Carolina.
You can learn a lot about the evolution of indie rock in the Triangle just by tracing her career. Drumming brought her to North Carolina in 1999, and since then, she has played a major role in local underground scenes ranging from alt-country to punk. In 2023 she landed her biggest gig yet as the new drummer for North Carolina indie rock titans Superchunk after long-time drummer Jon Wurster left the group. These days she is also one quarter of the genre-defying noise project Speed Stick.
"I've been playing in this scene now for 25 years, and as it's changed, I've changed," she said. "Your town is kind of your chosen family, and there is definitely a closeness within our music community. There's just so much talent coming out of here and there always has been."
King gravitated towards the drums, and music in general, at an early age. Growing up in Baltimore, her earliest memories of drumming are from when she was nine years old. Her first kit came from Toys "R" Us and she remembers playing along with Micky Dolenz when reruns of The Monkees aired on MTV.
One day when she was in 7th grade, her father picked her up from school and told her it was time to get some real drums. He took her to a local instrument shop where she picked out a black Pearl Export kit.
"The drums just really came naturally to me," she said. "I remember when we took that kit home I brought it down to my parent's basement and set it up myself and could immediately play a beat."
Growing up, King went to Catholic school in Baltimore, but for the most part played music with kids who were in public school. In 1993, when she was 14, she joined her first band, Pedge. The band put out a few 7" records in 1993 and 1994 before breaking up.
Gerty, Grand National, The Moaners
In 1998 King was asked to record an album with the Baltimore band Gerty. Their drummer had just moved to New York, and they had plans to travel to North Carolina to record their second record at Duck-Kee Studios in Mebane.
"They wanted to record there because they wanted to be a part of the Chapel Hill music scene," she said.
The members of Gerty moved to Chapel Hill later that year, and soon after encouraged King to do the same and to join the band as their full-time drummer.
"I was in my early 20s so it felt like a good time to take a risk," she said. "I didn't even know it was a college town when I first moved. I knew it as a music town."
In the 1990s, bands like Superchunk, Polvo, Squirrel Nut Zippers, and Archers of Loaf put Chapel Hill on the map as a hotbed for exciting music.
A few months after King got to North Carolina, Gerty broke up. They eventually got back together, but decided to replace King with a drum machine.
Fortunately she had played enough shows in town to make some friends and she quickly joined the band Grand National, replacing drummer Jon Wurster. Grand National was the alt-country project of Ed Crawford, more famously known for his role in the band fIREHOSE.
After a few years in Grand National, King met Melissa Swingle at an event called Honky-Tonk-Arama that took place at Local 506 in Chapel Hill. The Triangle was known for alternative country at the time, and Swingle's band Trailer Bride was one of the most successful bands on the scene.
King and Swingle hit it off and soon after Trailer Bride dissolved, they formed the band The Moaners. That band released their debut album "Dark Snack" on Hillsborough-based Yep Roc Records in 2005. It was recorded in Mebane with Rick Miller of the band Southern Culture On The Skids.
"I was excited to have a record label behind us," she said. "It was the first time I had ever worked with a label, so it felt nice to have people rooting for us while we were out doing our thing."
Flesh Wounds, Bat Fangs, Speed Stick, Cold Cream
The Moaners disbanded in 2011, and soon after, King started the garage-punk band Flesh Wounds with her friend and co-worker at the time, Montgomery Morris. That band put out a single on Merge Records and eventually joined Superchunk frontman Mac McCaughan on a solo tour of the east and west coasts of the United States. Flesh Wounds opened the shows and then joined McCaughan as his backing band during his set. One of the stops on that tour was the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
"That was my most memorable tour," King said. "We were playing two sets a night, and I actually became a vegetarian because of that. I realized I couldn't eat a burrito with chicken and then go play two sets in a row."
While on that tour, King met Betsy Wright who was playing bass in the Washington, DC based band Ex Hex. They started talking about playing music together, and in 2016 they formed the band Bat Fangs.
"Betsy had sent me some MP3s of new songs she'd written on guitar and I was like 'Oh my God. She's a shredder,'" she said.
At the time, King was working at the Chapel Hill club The Nightlight and was using it as a practice space. After a couple of quick sessions the duo had four songs recorded and later released their debut on Don Giovanni Records in 2018.
Also in 2016, King was approached by her friend, the free jazz musician Charles Chase about performing at a residency he was hosting at The Station in Carrboro.
"I just said, thanks for asking but what the hell am I going to do? You want just me as a drummer?" she said.
She eventually asked fellow drummer Thomas Simpson to join her at the residency. The two had drummed next to each other in 2016 at the Hopscotch Music Festival as part of a special performance that featured 16 drummers.
"Let's try to do something weird as two drummers," she said to Simpson. After a quick practice session at The Nightlight they agreed to the gig at The Station, and their project Speed Stick was born. The band is still going strong, and now Chace has joined, along with Polvo frontman and guitarist Ash Bowie.
The Speed Stick live show is something you have to witness to understand. Amongst a cacophony of fog and flashing flood lights, the two drummers set their kits up facing each other while Chace and Bowie are nearby, both on guitar. The music is completely improvised, so no show is ever the same.
Around this same time, King also formed the Carrboro based psych-punk band Cold Cream with local vets of the music scene Ron Liberti and Clark Blomquist. This time, King was on bass, and they were eventually joined by Montgomery Morris on vocals.
Joining Superchunk
In January of 2023 while she was recovering from hand surgery, King got a call from Mac McCaughan. Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster had just left the band after 31 years, and McCaughan asked if she might be interested in filling in at an upcoming show.
"I was like, it's so funny you asked today because I just got the green light from the doctor," she said.
This would be the second time King replaced Wurster in a band, after she joined Grand National earlier in her career.
Her first show with Superchunk was a bit of an unusual one. On February 17, of that year they were scheduled to headline Carolina Hurricanes Fan Fest in downtown Raleigh.
"I said yes and they were like 'okay, we need you to learn these 17 songs in a month, and I was like 17 songs?!" she recalled. Now three years later, she's learned over 100 songs covering Superchunk's vast catalog.
"I've learned a lot of these songs and I love them. They're so fun to play," she said.
Later that year King joined the band on a European tour. After that they did a tour of Japan, and King says that one felt like a special bonding experience for her.
"Being with those guys so far away from home, it eventually started to feel like family," she recalls. "They're really good, genuine people. We laugh a lot. They've been a band for so long that they just want to have fun. That was a really magical trip for me."
Last year Superchunk released their thirteenth studio album, "Songs in the Key of Yikes." It's their first record with Laura King on drums.
