Charlie Steffens at KNAC.com recently spoke with KING'S X frontman Dug Pinnick. The following is an excerpt from the interview:

KNAC.com: You’ve had two recent releases, Strum Sum Up, your solo album and the new King’s X album XV, which made the Billboard Top 200. It had been about ten years since you’ve had an album on the charts, right?

Pinnick: "I guess so. Back then I didn’t pay too much attention to what was going on. I really don’t know when the last time we were on the charts. I hate to say that (laughs). Shame on me."

KNAC.com: So you’ve never really kept track of sales and chart positions?

Pinnick: "In the early days, for the first couple records, yeah, we were really reading it and checking everything out. But when we realized that we weren’t going to be the next big thing, I just kind of stopped paying attention because it was more disappointing than encouraging."

KNAC.com: What pushes you when times are tough?

Pinnick: "Writing another song. It’s the truth. When I’m at my lowest, it’s usually when some words come flooding in or some chorus hits me. Then, all of a sudden, I start getting into it and making it a song. That’s what helps me more than anything, just writing tunes. I’ve been standing in front of people playing, singing or doing something since I can remember—my mom said three years old or something. It’s just something I do. A lot of people have it figured out and can sit down and tell you what they’re trying to accomplish. I just do what I’m feeling at the moment and later on realize what I did (laughs). I’m a pretty haphazard kind of guy."

KNAC.com: You never strain to put words on a page then.

Pinnick: "I strain more trying to confine what I’m trying to say, so people don’t get bored of me babbling about it, because I can talk about one little thing for three days and go on and on about it until you go crazy. So, for me, every song I write I go back over the lyrics and try to take out words to shorten it, just to get to the point and let the listener kind of get a glimpse of how I feel in the raw. Because everybody has a story and everybody’s got the little details of how things go, and I think we leave that for conversation with one another. Lyrics are always the last thing and the thing that takes the most time. Nobody wants to hear you complain about something in a way that doesn’t sound cool. You can sing anything you want to sing in a song if you just sing it cool and get the passion in it. So, I realize that words aren’t as important as the attitude I feel towards the words on records. I’ve condensed my words a lot in the last ten years, I’d say."

Go to this location for the complete interview.