Darren King was born on June 25th, 1982 to Vivian and Bill King of Marshfield, Missouri.
He was raised on West Bedford street near Massey Park where he lived along with his two older siblings Kristi and Clint.
While in 5th grade at Marshfield Elementary, Darren joined Lori Herring’s “Academic Resource Classroom” for gifted students. Her attentive and encouraging teaching style combined with a newfound friendship in Jonathon Altman (another of Mrs. Herring’s students) helped him feel valued and confident at a time when he struggled to fit in. In jr. high and through high school Darren’s “resource room” education was continued by Richard Ingalls whose lessons, like Mrs. Herring’s, inspired and challenged Darren.
Around the age of 12 Darren’s interests began to shift from visual art to music. He joined the elementary school band percussion section along with Jonathon (whose father was the band director at the time) and spent countless evenings drumming on everything in his home; pillows, basketballs, the box spring of his bed, even the walls. No surface was safe from the incessant tapping of his only pair of drum sticks. His mother was very patient, reminding herself that the constant noise was proof that Darren was not getting in trouble. It was also around this time that Darren discovered his dad’s wonderful cassette collection and a whole world of music from the past opened up to him. Artists like Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, the Beach Boys, The Ventures, and especially Benny Goodman (with Gene Krupa on drums) found in his father’s collection sparked his permanent obsession with music and record collecting.
Around age 14 Darren was invited to play percussion (congas. tambourine, etc.) in the Cornerstone Church (Springfield, MO) worship band where he began to develop his exuberant, frenetic style of performance, playing as hard and loud as possible to compensate for the fact that he did not have a microphone. Eventually Darren was allowed to play the drum kit in the church band. It was around this time that Darren met Paul Meany a musician from New Orleans who performed at Cornerstone church.
In June of 2000, upon graduation, Darren joined Paul’s band “Earthsuit” as an auxiliary percussionist in time for the release of their first full length record. He toured with them for two months but was very disappointed when they decided to send him home after only 2 months of touring. He moved to Nashville and worked for Reba Rambo and Donny McGuire’s church “The River at Music City”. During this time he worked at restaurants, practiced drums often in very lengthy sessions, and began creating his own instrumental songs with whatever melodic instruments and recording tools he could borrow from friends. He sent some of his recordings to Paul who was impressed with them and they began to collaborate by sending CDs of song ideas in the mail.
A year later Darren moved to New Orleans to rejoin Paul’s group this time as drummer. Shortly thereafter Earthsuit disbanded though Paul and Darren remained together and formed a new group which they called “Math”. Initially only a two member outfit, they were joined by Greg Hill on guitar and Roy Mitchell-Cardenas on bass and changed their name to Mutemath.
Mutemath signed to Warner Brothers records and released their first full length record in 2006. Moving from New Orleans to Nashville after hurricane Katrina, the band toured almost constantly for nearly two years in support of that record.
In the fall of 2007 MUTEMATH was joined by a band of siblings from Texas named Eisley for a 2 month tour. Darren fell in love Stacy Dupree, Eisley’s lead singer and songwriter, though they did not begin dating until nearly a year after that tour (and after much persistence on Darren’s part). Darren moved to Tyler, Texas in hopes that their love would grow. They married in July of 2010 and Stacy gave birth to their first baby girl, Scarlett, on October 24th 2012, by far the best moment of Darren’s life. Four years later, on October 15th 2016 their 2nd daughter Solenne was born, doubling their joy.
Over the last decade, Darren has co-produced 5 full length albums with Mutemath, directed many of their music videos, toured the world, appeared on late night and daytime television many times, and produced and written songs with some of the most successful artists of all time, though none of those things compare to the joy and love he has found in Stacy, Scarlett and Solenne.
