The Rodney Kings talk Athens’ Star Bar invasion

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Athens may be our close neighbor to the east, but most Atlanta bands set their sights on Brooklyn, Philly, Birmingham - anywhere but Athens. The same can be said for a lot of Athens bands, as well. It doesn’t help that most Atlanta bands have endless horror stories about playing Athens: No door guy, no sound guy, no actual show for them to play when they get there. Tonight (Thursday, Feb. 21), the Star Bar plays host to an almost all-Athens bands freakout, and one band on the bill, house party punks the Rodney Kings, sat down to talk with us all about Athens, food, and increasing the traffic between Athens and Atlanta.

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Who, what, and how are the Rodney Kings?
Max Wang: The Rodney Kings are me (drummer), Cameron Evers (bass), and Reeth Dasgupta (vocals/guitar), a rock ‘n’ roll band from Athens, Ga., but originally from the Atlanta ‘burbs. All of us went to Athens for our undergrad diplomas with varying degrees of success. I met Reeth not long after I moved to Athens when I was 19 or something, Cameron a little after that. But we all hung out at a small housing commune called Addieville off Barber. Bubbly Mommy Gun actually started in Addieville, as well as countless other bands including Sad Dads, Dip, Ghost Coke, King/Cobb, and the Derek Chipman Experience. Me and Reeth learned some shitty Link Wray covers to play at Go Bar every once in a while and opened for some other Addieville-born bands sporadically, until we got our shit together and actually wrote our own songs. Cam came on soon after that, and here we are one year and two eviction notices later. The Rodney Kings are a product of what me and Reeth and Cam stumbled into when we first discovered Addieville.