Louisville’s seven-piece “Denim Psyche” outfit has two drummers, a shared kick drum, and a very big gong.
Every so often a band comes along that doesn’t sound like anybody else, even when the name-dropping starts. Fans of the Oh Sees, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, or Nolan Potter will feel right at home with DOOM GONG. But make no mistake, this Louisville, KY seven-piece is carving out something all its own. They call it “Denim Psyche.”
Three albums in, the sound has gone from psych and kraut to jazz and classical, and now into prog and heavy metal. The music lives right on the line between tightly scripted compositions and freeform jams. And did I mention they have two drummers? They share a kick drum on stage. Simply put, you have to see this band live.
I can vouch for that firsthand. I caught DOOM GONG at Subterranean in Chicago back in April, and they were everything I expected and more.
I caught up with frontman and primary composer John Anderson, and it was as much a friendly chat about music as a formal interview. He called in from a hotel room in Knoxville, where he was about to play double bass in an orchestra performing Bernstein’s West Side Story. Not your typical rock star day job.
From Cello to Guitar to Gongs
John’s musical story starts in second grade with the cello in his school orchestra. Then the Beatles got hold of him. “I wanna pick up a guitar,” he remembers thinking. His dad worried the guitar would push out the cello, so John was told to stick with the cello for a while first. His response? He went outside, found some scrap wood, and tried to build his own guitar.
“I didn’t get very far,” he laughs, “but I think my dad saw that and was like, okay, this guy wants a guitar.” He got the guitar. He also kept the orchestra, eventually switching from cello to double bass, which he still plays today. That classical training is baked right into the band’s DNA.
Two Drummers, and a Name Before the Gongs
DOOM GONG came together around 2022 from Louisville’s close-knit music community. Many of the members are childhood friends, and all of them studied music, whether classical or jazz. John and drummer Kenny had played together for more than a decade in an indie rock trio, and John was ready for something bigger. “I was having to work so hard to fill up as much space as possible,” he says.
He had long admired bands with two drummers, like the Mothers of Invention and King Gizzard. So they invited a second drummer to rehearsal. “Oh wow,” John recalls thinking, “this is so raucous and huge sounding.” Mission accomplished.
The funny part is that the name came before the gongs. It took a while to track down the gong setup, but once they had the name, they knew the gongs had to be part of the show. Then something happened as John started writing. “The subject of gongs shows up all the time,” he says. It became a theme, then a concept, then the backbone of the band.
Their first show was at the Expansion Lexington festival in 2022. They only had a small gong that night, but it was enough. “It kind of solidified the identity of the band,” John says. “This is a band with a gong and a lot of music about gongs.” You can see it for yourself in the video of that first show.
The Albums
Their self-titled debut was an experiment in hypnotic psych and kraut rock. Dream Behemoth brought in jazz and classical flavors, a nod to the members’ backgrounds. The latest, MEGAGONG, heads into prog and metal territory, and it’s their most cohesive work to date, even as the sound keeps widening.
That cohesion is no accident. John is meticulous about what makes the cut. “Not all ideas, even if they’re good ideas, are good ideas for that band,” he says. “It’s taken a lot of figuring out kind of like what is and what isn’t DOOM GONG.” In the early days, a cool idea would come up, and the answer was often, “That is a cool idea, but maybe not for this band.”
What’s Next
The first three albums form an interconnected set, and John says the band is now at the start of a new batch of larger work. He admits he wishes he had a clearer answer. “It’s going in a lot of different directions currently.”
Knowing DOOM GONG, that’s not a warning. That’s a promise.
The band is out on its Fall ’26 US/Canada tour right now, so there may be a show near you. The poster below has the full run. Grab tickets while you can, and if you haven’t heard MEGAGONG yet, fix that immediately.
Here is a link to the DOOM GONG website
