King Khan & BBQ Show Getting Famous the Old-Fashioned Way

When you have bona fide star power like the King Khan & BBQ Show, it's only a matter of time before the world succumbs to your incredible charms. After the whirlwind that was 2009 -- including a recent brush with the Kentucky law -- there's no question that the Canadian rabble rousers have crossed that threshold, moving from underground tricksters to reigning champs of the indie scene.

Racking up serious points with 'Invisible Girl' -- arguably the maraschino cherry to an impressive catalogue spanning half a decade -- Arish "King" Khan and Mark "BBQ" Sultan continue their assent into the ranks of today's red-hot hit-makers.

"We toured with Black Lips four or five years ago and there were ten people at every show if we were lucky," Sultan tells Spinner. "We all paid our dues and we all worked really hard and now both bands are doing really well -- Black Lips especially."
Shunning the career path favoured by their groomed-for-MTV contemporaries, the Montreal natives are doing their best to make it to the top the ol' fashioned way -- one outrageous and sweaty performance at a time.



"All the attention we receive and everything we get is done just on the merits of our beings and our music and not because we're being plugged and pushed and prodded and owned," Sultan says. "I think that's admirable." Besides, between jumping around on stage in far-out costumes and cooking up rambunctious doo wop-tinged garage rock, The King Khan & BBQ Show have their hands full without trying to tackle career strategy 101.

"I don't think we were ever working towards a goal," Sultan admits. "We never said, 'let's get big or make a lot of money,' that's just the way things are going right now and it's great."

As long as the diabolical duo can keep pumping out infectious tracks like the raunchy retro-leaning rompers heard on 'Invisible Girl,' they should have no problem holding onto the limelight. "I think we make good music and I think we have a good show and we're nice people so we kind of deserve a semblance of respect -- and it's happening."