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Mar 24, 2021 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Chase Fade

Seattle has a long and storied alt rock tradition. King Youngblood is aiming to be part of the next step in that story, packaging thunderous alt rock for a new generation in a marriage of fresh style and longtime rock standbys. For their first single of 2021, “Too Late Too Soon,” in keeping with the band’s Seattle roots, they brought on Matt Chamberlain (former drummer with Pearl Jam) along with production from Adam Kasper (Foo Fighters, Soundgarden, Nirvana). The band have now returned with the video for the single, premiering with Under the Radar.

“Too Late Too Soon” is one of the band’s more reflective cuts, exploring through regret and shifting lifepaths over an introspective instrumental. Pulling back a bit works to the bands favor here though, allowing the more earnest and emotive tones of frontman Cameron Lavi-Jones to ring out before the band rips into the stadium-ready alt rock they’re known for. When the band hits their stride though, they ascend to unstoppable heights, backed by electric performances all around.

With the accompanying video, the band matches the reflective tone with a surreal anxious trip through the costs of success and the different roads life can take. Featuring cameos from American Idol runner-up Blake Lewis and Super Bowl running back champ Robert Turbin, the video takes Lavi-Jones through a psychedelic tour of his potential alternate lives. As Lavi-Jones explains, “Like all of us, I am many things with the potential to go down many different roads. We made this video because all of us stand at a crossroads at one time or another in our lives. We can let fear dictate our decisions or as musical artists, we can take the leap and let our art be our true path.

“We made this video about asking the question “I’ve changed but into who?” Do we sit in fear and risk a life of regret or do we take the leap even if it is a harder road? Though some of the images in our video might be construed as hilariously extreme – they all represent different parts of my worst fears and my greatest hopes. My worst fear is giving up and everything becomes “too late too soon.” My biggest hopes are to return to rock on the live stage to give me and my bandmates a chance to get back to what we love – live performance and the truest versions of ourselves.”

“We went over a lot of concepts, but in light of a year of Covid uncertainty, it felt most exciting to create a ‘Cameronverse’ where Cam keeps leaving this biggest showcase of his career out of anxiety and ending up on dramatically different life paths – like winning the lottery and becoming a corporate tycoon or getting married and becoming a suburban dad in a Pleasantville-style nightmare, explains director Danny Denial. “It’s our own rock and roll spin on the parallel universe story, and I loved seeing Cam wear so many different hats - I mean, wigs! As a director, I was blown away by all the extremes that Cam emotionally went to in each storyline. At times, we couldn’t stop laughing on-set.” “A lot of wigs were involved,” laughs producer Lara Lavi, “Stuffing Cameron’s signature afro into the Suburban Dad wig was one of the funniest moments of the entire production but it was worth it.” Check out the song and video below.