[4] The band's current lineup has remained intact for more than four decades, consisting of vocalist and bassist Doug Pinnick, drummer Jerry Gaskill and guitarist Ty Tabor.

Their music combines progressive metal, funk and soul with vocal arrangements influenced by gospel, blues, and British Invasion rock groups.

[9] The group traces its beginnings to 1979 in Springfield, Missouri, when bassist Doug Pinnick and drummer Jerry Gaskill were brought together to take part in a musical project coordinated by Greg X. Volz of the Christian rock band Petra.

Gaskill landed a job doing demo work for the Tracy Zinn Band that happened to include Ty Tabor on guitar.

The group performed extensively on the Springfield bar and club circuit specializing in classic rock and Top 40 covers at the time.

By 1985, the group had made connections at Star Song Records based in Houston, Texas and were encouraged to move the band there.

King's X promoted Out of the Silent Planet with its first major tour, playing with the likes of Cheap Trick, Blue Öyster Cult, Robert Plant and Hurricane,[12][13] as well as Megaforce labelmates Anthrax, Testament, M.O.D., and Overkill.

The band played with a wide variety of acts while touring in support of it, including Anthrax, Suicidal Tendencies, M.O.D., Living Colour, Billy Squier and Blue Murder.

Lewis reference, this time to a scene in the book That Hideous Strength, third and final installment of the "science-fiction" trilogy begun by Out of the Silent Planet.

The song "Pleiades" is credited by Ty Tabor as being the genesis of the King's X sound when he presented the demo to the other band members a few years earlier.

Another track, the funk-rock "We Were Born to Be Loved", enjoyed a long life on Late Show with David Letterman as a commercial bumper instrumental favorite of Paul Shaffer's CBS Orchestra.

[17] Still, with major mainstream success continuously eluding them, King's X began questioning Sam Taylor's management vision for the group.

[20] The band was moved up to Megaforce's parent label Atlantic Records for the release of their fourth album, King's X, in early 1992.

However, rising tensions with Taylor led the band to eschew the upbeat approach of previous albums and turn out a darker, more introspective effort.

Taylor would admit in 1996 that his company Wilde Silas MusicWorks was growing and, as a result, he was no longer giving King's X, whom he considered "the top dogs," the attention they deserved.

The band members followed other, non-musical pursuits; most notably, guitarist Ty Tabor took up semi-professional motocross motorcycle racing.

The resulting album, 1994's Dogman, showcased a much more muscular and heavy sound from the group, with Pinnick now handling all lead vocals and the lyrics becoming less abstract and spiritual.

They also toured with bands such as the Scorpions,[23] Pearl Jam,[24] Mötley Crüe[25] and Type O Negative,[26] but despite a return to the Top 100 for King's X, the album failed to sell as well as Atlantic had hoped, and the label's support for the group quickly faded.

They also elected not to hire an outside producer and recorded the album at Pinnick's Hound Pound and Tabor's Alien Beans Studios, thus cutting production costs.

Molken Music, an independent label started by Wally Farkas (ex- Galactic Cowboys) in 2005, has released several titles by King's X and its members.

[29] On February 26, 2012, the 55-year-old Jerry Gaskill suffered a major heart attack, temporarily stopping the band's touring schedule.

The band went back to touring until Gaskill suffered another heart attack while recovering from a "scheduled minor procedure" on September 12, 2014, requiring him to undergo double-bypass surgery.

The band's influence has been described as wide and diverse given "the impossible-to-categorize" nature of the genres and subgenres explored within King X's material, with the American popular culture publication D Magazine remarking in 2013 that "[t]heir fan base today is a mixture of prog-rock nerds and headbangers" while labeling the group itself as both "[f]ringe" and "[l]egends".

For instance, the performer Jeff Ament of groups such as Pearl Jam openly declared King's X as the true inventor of "grunge", as was mentioned above.

"[48][49] Other bands who have cited King's X as an inspiration or influence include Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, The Smashing Pumpkins, Dream Theater, Skillet, Devin Townsend and Soil.

[50][51][52][53][54] During multiple decades of touring, King's X has performed with a number of prominent hard rock and heavy metal artists.

Examples include past live efforts with opening slots for Sammy Hagar as well as a full touring bill with Krokus.

[49] They have also opened for bands like Cheap Trick,[55] Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Scorpions, Pearl Jam and Mötley Crüe, and performed the first date of the Woodstock '94 festival.

Tabor has released seven solo albums to date: Naomi's Solar Pumpkin (1997), Moonflower Lane (1998), Safety (2002), Rock Garden (2006), Balance (2008), Something's Coming (2010), Trip Magnet EP (2010), Nobody Wins When Nobody Plays (2013), Alien Beans (2018), Angry Monk (2020), and Shades (2022).

[58] While many of their early lyrics have a clear spiritual influence, this came from the individual faith of the members rather than an explicit attempt to tap into the contemporary Christian music market in the way groups such as Petra did.