The Kingsmen

The Kingsmen are an American garage rock band formed in Portland, Oregon, at the turn of the 1960s, remembered as one of the defining acts of the raw, riff-driven Pacific Northwest garage sound that predated and helped shape American rock and roll's response to the British Invasion. Their playing was loose, energetic and unpolished by design, favoring a driving beat and party-band feel over studio precision.

The band is inseparable from its 1963 recording of Richard Berry's «Louie Louie», a shambolic, endlessly covered garage-rock classic that climbed to No. 2 on the Billboard charts and became notorious for its slurred, hard-to-decipher vocals, which even prompted an FBI investigation into supposedly obscene lyrics. The song's raw simplicity turned it into a garage rock and frat-party standard covered by countless later acts. Beyond their signature hit, The Kingsmen recorded other frenetic rock and roll numbers such as «Haunted Castle» and «Night Train», staples of the same rowdy, instrumental-heavy style.

Though they never repeated the commercial impact of «Louie Louie», The Kingsmen's sound and attitude fed directly into the American garage rock template later revived by punk and lo-fi rock bands, and «Louie Louie» itself remains a touchstone of rock and roll history.