An Amsterdam Field Trip With King Tuff, the Master of Glow-in-the-Dark Rock'n'Roll

Photo by Andrew Friscano

King Tuff likes things that glow in the dark: The band's newest record, Black Moon Spell, came in a special swirly neon-and-black limited edition. The album, fourteen songs of long-haired, wild-eyed power-pop, seems like the kind of thing that could only spring from a mind that's spent hours day-dreaming in a blacklight-soaked room. As frontman Kyle Thomas describes it, that's exactly the case.

In the middle of King Tuff's latest European tour, I met Thomas, bassist Magic Jake, and drummer Gary at Amsterdam's Electric Ladyland, a place that bills itself as the First Museum of Fluorescent Art. In the basement, owner Nick Padalino gives guided tours of his collection of blacklight and short-wave reactive rocks, psychedelic art pieces and historical artifacts, melding the Museum of Natural History with 1960s Haight-Ashbury. The spot, which you can visit if you're so inclined, is packed with trippy fluorescent paint and normal-looking minerals that glow to reveal weird hidden colors. Many of those stones come from Padalino's (and Kyle's) home state of New Jersey, and the shopkeeper talks with pride about scavenging pieces in the early morning in backyards around the Garden State. Imagine a bearded Amsterdam shopkeeper trawling your lawn looking for neon green geodes at 2AM ("People really bug out," he says). That's the kind of dedication we're talking about here.

Looking over the museum's display cases, Kyle's eyes grew wider at each item: It's pretty clear the pair are in some sense kindred spirits, approaching their chosen disciplines with an obsessive devotion. Afterwards I chatted with Kyle (with a brief interjection from Gary) about his love for things that glow, things that spin on turntables and New Jersey.

Noisey: What was your favorite thing in that place?
Kyle: The dude.
Gary: He was like a faster-talking Mickey Rourke playing Bukowski.
Kyle: He had a little bit of Cheech too.
Gary: He's the biggest gem in there.
Kyle: I could only think about my dad when I was in there. My dad is also from New Jersey and obsessed with black light stuff.

Kyle, how long has your dad had a black light room in his house?
Kyle: He would do blacklight paintings when he was teenager. Ever since me and my brother were kids, he has had stuff around the house, and when we moved into our newest house in the late '90s that's when we started painting in the room. All different kinds of people have painted in there. My friends would come by, and we just had people add to it.

Nice. I wanted to ask you about the color of the albums. The self-titled is this really cool bright orange.
It all comes from that. The '80s were a very fluorescent decade. Growing up in the '80s, me and my brother were inspired by all that art work. The Toxic Avenger. There's something about New Jersey. I think that's what it's all coming back to—we lived in New Jersey as kids too. There's something about New Jersey that just makes people wild about fluorescent rocks.

How about the new ones's purple cover?
Yeah, that one's actually not fluorescent.

But you've had a glowing 7-inch already.
There's all kinds of shit glowing everywhere. The Black Moon Spell vinyl actually was actually glow-in-the-dark though.

Photo by Andrew Friscano

Are you guys working on the next one yet? I feel like this one came not that long after the previous album.
No, we're just doing the tour. I am trying to get ideas for what I might want to do next, but when it comes time to actually do it, I'm sure it'll be something completely different. But I don't really record and tour at the same time. For some reason, it's like a switch that I can't just flip on and off. It's either one or the other usually. Something will happen. Something might happen.

You're making art all the time though?
Yeah, just fuckin' scratchin'. I like to draw on Gary in his sleep. I've given Gary a thousand blacklight tattoos that he doesn't even know about. That was the most amazing thing, the museum owner had a blacklight tattoo. He'd tell us, "Me and my sister sat around the house giving myself blacklight tattoos for three weeks." I just imagine that guy spelunking through the woods of New Jersey with his black light at three in the morning. With a gnome hat on. You live in L.A. now, right? Is L.A. as weird as New Jersey?
Yeah. I moved there there years ago. It's weird in a totally different way.

In what way?
It's L.A. It's an alien landscape to me. Just cause it's the opposite of where I'm from. It's having a Renaissance it seems. Everyone's moving there, which is cool, because it's a really cool place and it has such a bad reputation. You're taught that stereotype growing up, but it's just like anywhere if you meet the right people. There's a lot of secrets. I like it because it's all about secrets. It's very weird. The first time I went there I was like "This is terrible." There was no trees. I miss the trees though.

Do palm trees count?
It's different.

Thanks for meeting me here.
Thank you for taking us. This was the highlight of the tour so far. Well. The weed may have helped.

Black Moon Spell is out now via Sub Pop.