Tucson prog rock band plays rare hometown show

Little King is on the harder side of progressive rock, drawing inspiration from Yes, Rush and Genesis, bands from Rosoff's Seattle youth.

But there are also flashes of inspiration from heavier rockers; think Foo Fighters.

"It's rock and roll, and it's sometimes heavy, but it's never overly aggressive," he concluded about the trio he formed in El Paso, Texas, in 1996. "We don't really sound too much like anybody else. I think after all this time we sound like Little King."

The band, now based in Tucson, will perform a rare hometown concert on Sunday, July 12, at Brick Box Brewery, 220 E. Broadway, with the Tucson progressive/heavy rock band Zöld and the high-energy pop and rock band The Crown Syndicate.

This is the first time Little King will play songs from its months-old "Lente Viviente" (The Living Lens) seven-song EP recorded in Tucson and released last fall.

It's the band's eighth recording and the first made outside of El Paso.

The album is inspired by Rosoff's short-lived LivingLens Memoirs, a Tucson venture that recorded interviews with elderly people who wanted to pass along their stories to their children and grandchildren. 

"Some of the songs are like pass-through filters about addiction and homelessness, and what a different lens you're looking through," he said, recounting scenes from downtown Tucson streets and the main bus station.

The band tackles immigration in the soaring rocker "Who's illegal," which looks at the issue through the lens of a changing political and sociological landscape.

"This land has been changing hands for hundreds of years, and why all of a sudden now people are considered to be illegal or considered to be unwanted when literally their families have been here off and on for hundreds of years," he said of the song.

"All the different perspectives, all the different lenses and the filters through which we view the world and we rarely question our perspective and why we think of things and look at things the way we do. This album was kind of my effort to sort of crystallize perspective, and why we do things the way we do them."

The title song has a Queen-esque vibe as Rosoff sings about how it's easier to say you'll be OK than to admit things aren't all that rosy. Rosoff's voice goes from soft pop to edgy rock as the song ebbs and flows.

This is the first time Rosoff has recorded in Tucson, which he has called home since moving here from Delaware in 2020.

It was the second time Rosoff had uprooted for Tucson. Right after graduating from high school in 1990, he moved from his native, rainy Seattle to Tucson to attend the University of Arizona. 

"I came sight unseen in August, and it was 114 degrees," he recalled. "I was like, what have I done."

He stayed in Tucson for two years before dropping out of school and moving to El Paso with his girlfriend, who he married when he was 20. He remained in El Paso off and on through 2008.

"I was a musician, but not very serious, and so by the time the mid-'90s rolled around, I was playing in bands and writing songs," he said.

After two marriages, two kids and launching a successful California Bay Area consulting firm, TeamBuilding ROI, Rosoff returned to Tucson, where his mother also lives.

Rosoff said he sold his interest in the business to his partner, which allowed him to finally focus on music full-time.

"It allowed me some freedom to be able to pursue basically what I've wanted to pursue for the last 30 years as a full-time gig," he said.

Little King drummer Tony Bojorquez also lives part-time in Tucson, while bass player David Hamilton lives in El Paso, where he leads the music program for a charter school district.

When the trio takes the Brick Box stage Sunday, Rosoff said the audience can expect to see the band "pushing and pulling a lot of emotions, a lot of dynamics from the heaviest of the heavy to the most drawn down that we can."

"I think people can expect a good amount of musicianship, a good amount of arrangements that are more dynamic and less straightforward," he said. "Hopefully you're getting a full experience of music and entertainment that transcends just going to see a rock band."

Sunday's concert begins at 8 p.m., and admission is free.