‘Easy Easy’: The track King Krule wrote when he was 12
Given how established and recognised he is today, it’s easy to forget just how young Archy Marshall was when he first broke out into the spotlight. Having made an impression under his early pseudonym Zoo Kid with the 2011 single ‘Out Getting Ribs’, he’s now become a staple of the indie rock world as King Krule, releasing four albums under the name as well as one under his birth name.
At the time of writing, Marshall is still only 30 years old, yet the music he made in the years prior to turning this landmark age suggested a sense of maturity that some songwriters older than him are unable to find. His distinctive baritone vocals have been a mainstay of his music since the beginning of his career when it was almost shocking to hear a voice that is deep coming out of a face so fresh, but it was this characteristic that earned him hordes of fans from the word go.
Another of his early singles that caught many people’s attention was ‘Easy Easy’, the opening track from his debut album 6 Feet Beneath the Moon. The record itself was released on Marshall’s 19th birthday as a symbol of him drawing a line underneath the early part of his career, but what might come as a surprise to many is that the song’s origins date back to when the songwriter was the tender age of 12.
Of course, it isn’t a preteen King Krule that we hear growling on the recording, but it was written a whole seven years prior to featuring on the album which is a remarkable detail in itself. For someone so young to write a track with such an adult outlook on the mundanity of life is staggering, and the way he bellows the line “but they’ve got nothing on me” with such confidence and swagger is enviable to say the least.
It’s not just the lyrical content of scrapes with local police officers and patrolling the same streets with the same sights daily that seems profound coming from a child, but also the wealth of musical depth there is to the track, as Marshall weaves between post-punk and jazz influences with his fluid guitar playing. His debut album would also explore elements of dub and hip-hop as well, proving from a young age that he was something of a musical polymath and far more knowledgeable on his artistic forebearers than most people his age.
Speaking to MTV around the time of the album’s release, he said of ‘Easy Easy’ that it was an “immature and naive” song, referencing the fact that it was written in his early adolescence, but went on to say “that’s why I quite like it.” When discussing its inclusion on the record, his justification for including such an early foray into songwriting was that “the album is a very self-centred record, so I wanted to make it apparent that I’d been working on it throughout my life, and it had aspects from when I was really young.”
While he has gone on to create greater and even more dynamically varied works that tackle heavier subjects, this is a wonderful marker of where the young Archy Marshall began and developed into the King Krule that is beloved by many today.
