king comes from a family well known in the wine business under the king estate name. king attended o'hara catholic school from the first grade through the eighth grade. he later attended marist high school before attending south eugene high school. he dropped out of high school as a sophomore and entered the san francisco art institute to study painting. he began playing drums and guitar around age 14 and wrote and performed songs with his current bassist, drew dresman. king began to focus on acoustic guitar at age 19, and in 1999 he released his self-titled album, followed by "opening" in 2000. in 2001, after traveling through europe, ireland and great britain, king recorded "le bleu"—an instrumental acoustic guitar record which featured long-time friends and james west on percussion, troy sicotte on bass and linh renken on violins. le bleu was recorded at peter gabriel's "real world studios" just outside bath, england.