King 810 May Not Actually be from Flint, Michigan
King 810 badly want you to know that they’re from Flint, Michigan, which is a rough town, to put it mildly.
Unfortunately, this may not be the case.
The band was founded as just “King” in 2007 by Jason Hale, then-guitarist for the decidedly non-metal band Chiodos; they were signed to Chiodos’ label, Equal Vision Records, in 2008, and then unceremoniously dropped from that label in 2009. Hale, like the other members of Chiodos, is originally from, and went to high school in, Davison, Michigan, which is near Flint (they’re both part of Genesee County), but is considerably less hardcore: according to neighborhoodscout.com, the chances of becoming the victim of a violent crime in Flint is 1 in 36, while the chances of becoming the victim of a violent crime in Davison is 1 in 855. In fact, Davison has a lower crime rate than the neighborhood in Brooklyn where Vince lives with his wife, MetalGF. And MetalGF is pretty dainty, so. Yeah.
Obviously, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the other members of King 810 are from Davison, though, right? I mean, just this year, vocalist David Gunn told Noisey that the band’s music is “trying to be a true representation of where we came… It has parallels to what we experienced growing up here in Flint.” He then elaborates on what it was like to to grow up in Flint, explaining how he came to own his first instrument:
“I think we were so young that we stole them. We wanted them, and we didn’t know how things work. So as a small kid, if you wanted something, you just ran in the store and took it and ran out. That’s how I got my first instrument. We grew up with poor families. There was no way in hell I was going to ask my parents for a guitar. It doesn’t matter how much it cost—one hundred? Two hundred? Doesn’t matter. Too much. That’s how it’s always been. This was always the plan; there was no college degree, or plan B. We crossed that bridge and burned it behind us. If this is what you’re going to do with your life, and this is what you’re going to be, why would you have a problem running into a store for five minutes and stealing something? Where we’re at the odds aren’t against you—they’re just not there. Nobody leaves Flint.”
Unfortunately, that’s not quite accurate, either. See, Gunn was born David Keith Swan — a fact he omitted when posting his own arrest report this past June — and while I’m not sure whether or not he has a college degree, he did attend Community College of RI Providence Career & Technical. Which, incidentally, is a long way from Flint — y’know, the place “nobody leaves.” The school does offer “distance learning courses” in which “80-100% of the class instruction is delivered online,” but the only program from the Career & Technical division that appears to be offered online is Alcohol Service Awareness Training.
He also worked for 50 Cent’s G-Unit Records, which is located in one of the safest parts of Manhattan, not too far from the Empire State Building. Again, maybe he worked for the street team in Flint, but it seems wholly plausible that he was living in the Big Apple.
Meanwhile, if you look at the Google Street View image for the home address provided on the aforementioned arrest record, while Gunn/Swan/whoever does seem to live in Flint now, he does not seem to live someplace impoverished or scary (click to enlarge):
One last note: there is a Swan Family Chiropractic Center in Davison, MI. As of this writing, calls I’ve placed to investigate whether or not the owners are related to David “Gunn” Swan have not been returned… but the chiropractor there, Stuart Swan, is the only Swan the Yellow Pages lists in that area, so it’s not an entirely implausible leap to assume there is a connection. If the dude from King 810 turns out to be related to suburban chiropractors, I may never stop laughing.
Extra special thanks to the reader calling herself “Betty Bumblecunt,” who brought all these details to our attention.
