It’s been more than a decade since Jason Thomas Gordon climbed onto the roof of the iconic Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard and unfurled two 17-foot banners from both sides of the building. An urgent message from the band now facing the city streets:

SAVE YOUR RECORD STORES!

Since that day, even more record stores have been forced to close their doors. But Jason and his Kingsize bandmate Cary Beare are just as romantic and deviant as they’ve ever been. And that theme defines the sound of their new album, El Secundo.

Kingsize have always combined ramshackle rock ’n roll with a mixture of post-punk and new wave. But with their last two EP’s leaning more into the atmospheric, the band laid out strict rules for their return to rock:

No song could be more than three minutes.

The record had to speak directly to the times.

And it had to kick more ass than anything they’ve ever done.

The duo released The Good Fight EP in 2008 and  their debut album All These Machines in 2012, along with a string of brother/sister EPs over the years. They landed the theme song to the CBS sitcom Gary Unmarried, as well as placements in the video game Rockband 3, TV shows like Shameless on Showtime, and films such as Freelancers, with Robert DeNiro and 50 Cent.

At the end of 2023, Permuted Press/Simon and Schuster released The Singers Talk, a groundbreaking collection of interviews that Jason conducted with more than 70 of the greatest singers of our time, discussing the one thing they’re never asked about: their voices.

The book features conversations with, among others, Bruce Springsteen, Tony Bennett, Willie Nelson, Mavis Staples, Stevie Nicks, Roger Daltrey, Brittany Howard, Thom Yorke, Chrissie Hynde, Nick Cave, Lionel Richie, Chuck D, Michael Stipe, Karen O, Brian Johnson, Patty Griffin, and Robert Smith. All the writer’s royalties will benefit the kids and families at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which was founded by Jason’s grandfather, Danny Thomas, in 1962.

After his grandfather’s passing, Jason created Music Gives to St. Jude Kids, which reaches out to the music industry to join the hospital’s life-saving mission.

“The Singers Talk is a direct result of our origins as a band,” explains Jason. Adds Cary: “The music scene here sucked. I was ready to hang up my dreams and move back to the mountains in Idaho.” But before Beare hit the road, he got together with Jason to make some music. And the songs they wrote changed everything. “Jason immediately wanted to form a band, with him on drums, me on guitar. But I loved how his voice sounded with the stuff we were writing, so I said, ‘I’ll only do this if you sing your own lyrics.’”

Jason spent the next week sick to his stomach. “It felt like a life-or-death decision for me. I was serious about forming a band, but not as the singer! Still, I wanted to be in a band with Cary, so I sold out on day one.” After realizing there was no resource on how singers do their brutal job night after night, Jason did his own research and The Singers Talk was born.

Now a podcast as well, The Singers Talk is available on all streaming platforms, along with the band’s new album El Secundo. The album’s title isn’t just a nod to the fact that it’s their second full-length record, or that the band was conceived by the duo. Their mysterious and cinematic album cover shows two worlds that look just like ours, staring back at one another—which seems more like a hint about the current state of the nation right now.

“Yeah, it definitely feels like we’re on two different planets,” says Jason. “El Secundo sounds like we’re singing to both of them. With a black eye and a bloody lip.”

 Still romantic and defiant, it’s round two for Kingsize.