On Saturday, Louis XIV will take the stage at the North Park Festival of Beers, the annual sampling of 80-plus craft beers held in front of the historic Lafayette Hotel. It’s a fittingly
unpretentious setting for a band that has spent its entire career being widely
misunderstood.
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.
Critics called them too sharp, too rehearsed. Some heard an accent and concluded they
must be British — perhaps even David Bowie. Others believed they were manufactured,
with a powerful label behind them carefully shaping every move.
None of it was true.
“We 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,” said lead
singer and multi-instrumentalist Jason Hill.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
From Convoy to Louis XIV
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’t find their record anywhere.
“I called the record company and they were like, ‘We can get more records there in a
few weeks.’ It was disheartening,” Hill said. “This is what it’s like to be signed by a
record label. It doesn’t mean that there’s competence.”
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.
“We had written the song Louis XIV, I think Brian came up with the title, and the concept
grew out from there,” Hill said, explaining how the group’s name came to be. “That 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.”
The band’s 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.
That same ethos carried into their sophomore breakout The Best Little Secrets Are
Kept. Two standout cuts from that album, the colorful “Paper Doll” and “Illegal Tender,”
were almost entirely improvised.
Recalling the recording session for “Paper Doll,” Hill said, “It 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’t going to be overthought. It was a sandbox to play in.”
The success of Secrets — bolstered by their Top 30 Billboard hit “Finding Out True Love
Is Blind” — put Louis XIV on the map and fueled more confusion and controversy.
A ban in Birmingham
Their early reputation for sexually provocative lyrics, suggestive album covers and racy
videos didn’t always land well. While touring in 2005, Birmingham, Alabama’s 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.
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’s BLACK BALL, an AIDS in Africa charity
event.
“I always wondered — did [Bowie] think we were British, too?” Hill quipped in reference
to his nuanced vocal delivery, which he chalks up to deliberate enunciation.
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.
“He gave me a backhanded compliment, saying I’d obviously studied Jimmy Page so
well that all my solos were note-for-note perfect,” Hill shared. “Funny thing about me: I
don’t 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.”
Louis XIV released just one more full-length album, 2008’s “Slick Dogs and Ponies,”
before breaking up the following year. At the time, Karscig said the band “started to feel
more like a business.” Hill referred to the split as a “long liaison” and said things went
south when their songcraft became “more labored.”
Together again
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,
“Statues,” which they’ll play at the Festival of Beers. It wasn’t written in response to the
current war in Iran, though it might sound that way.
“It certainly pertains to what’s going on, but to me it’s more of a song about resilience,
pushing forward and seizing the moment,” Hill explained.
“Statues” actually dates back to 2008, unearthed from a trove of unreleased material the
band recently rediscovered.
“There’s so many great tracks that we haven’t released,” Hill added. “Now it’s like, we
have to get this stuff out there.”
Since 2014, Hill has become better known as a composer of film and TV scores, from
the Netflix series “Mindhunter” to Apple’s “Dark Matter.” He’s 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.
First up, however, is their North Park set. Hill said some friends may join them onstage
and “it’s gonna be a really fun show,” but they’re not planning to overly prepare. They’re
just going to do what they’ve always done, mostly wing it, and be what they’ve always
been.
“Our whole big motto back in the day, and I still live by this, is just try to be your own
favorite band,” he said. “If you like it, then people can like it or leave it.”
Donovan Roche is a longtime music writer and regular contributor to Times of San
Diego.
