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Daniel Riddle's first incarnation of his musical alter-ego was Black Acid and the Wombstar Orchestra. Featuring keyboardist Melinda DiCillo, guitarist Roger Campos, Bassist Nathan Jorg, the band quickly gained a large audience with their dreamy sound-- self dubbed "coma-core". After adding drummer Scott Adamo (ex Wipers) and percussionist Joseph Trump (ex Pig Face), the band recorded their debut album titled "Womb Star Session" (1995). The album was recorded live during a radio station broadcast, capturing the lush sound and epic delivery the band was becoming known for. Their sophomore release "Sunlit" was recorded in early 1996 and helped bring the band super-cult like status, as well as starting the group off on a career of sound track work. "Royal Subjects" was the bands next album, released in 1998; recorded as a soundtrack for an independent film. The group collaged a mix of songs and soundscapes, exploring new territory in arrangement and instrumentation.  For his next project Riddle put together a new band with a new batch of songs, calling it King Black Acid and the Starseed Transmission. With Scott Adamo (drums), Sarah Mayfield (guitars), Bobeck (bass), Pete Ficht (keyboards), and eventually Sean Farrell (keyboards) joined Riddle to form King Black Acid and the Starseed Transmission. It was this incarnation of KBA that would result in the full length album, "Loves a Long Song", released in October 2000.  The album was released to excellent reviews.  Finally, the industry and the fans had a record with a more distilled songwriting style that worked well with both radio, film and television, hard-core audiophiles and especialy the live audience. In 2002, Riddle introduced King Black Acid and the 144,000 Member Acid Army, consisting of Sarah Mayfield, Sean Farrell, Joe Trump, bassist Sean Tichner, and keyboardist Rich Landar. This particular line-up was assembled to perform on stage the songs Riddle penned for the motion picture soundtrack of The Mothman Prophecies.  During this time, Riddle also wrote songs, performed and recorded with James Angell's Private Player--featuring John Taylor of Duran Duran on bass, Tony Lash of Heatmiser/ Elliott Smith on drums, Sean T guitar  and Kevy Kozad ..s. All this momentum and experience has fueled a brand new exploration in songwriting and performance.  Riddle is currently collaborating with longtime friends and musical partners, Jeffery Trapp (ex Everclear) Joe Trump (Pigface/Elliot Sharp) Rich Landar and Eric Minmonster. Together they have formed a powerfull new line-up known as King Black Acid and The Sacred Heart. The Sacred Heart brings with it an explosive new sound and style. Shedding most of the atmospherics and languid arrangements of the past for a more anthemic and 'sexy' sound, "The Sacred Heart is heavy like a Chevy and has more hooks than a fucking pirate convention." King Black Acid's music can been heard on CSI Miami, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, MTV's Real World/Road Rules, Dream With Fishes, Highway, Witchblade, The Mothman Prophecies, UnderWorld 3 Rise Of The Lycans, The Maker CNN Sports Center, Do Me A Favor and many more tv shows and movies.

By: Alex Steininger (In Music We Trust)Portland, Oregon's King Black Acid has been around for quite some time, releasing a handful of records on well-respected indie Cavity Search Records (home of Elliott Smith's debut, Roman Candle). Over the years the band has garnered a hard-fought measure of success and recognition; most recently, eight KBA songs appear on the soundtrack of a big-budget Hollywood movie, the Richard Gere-vehicle The Mothman Prophecies. "Lakeshore Records approached us about making a demo for the movie. We wrote a song for a specific scene. They liked the song but were not sure it fit the scene. After a few tries we hit it," says King Black Acid front man Daniel Riddle. "Then we had all these extra songs that fit the vibe of the movie, so we tossed in a few more and made it an eight-song deal. The whole thing happened so fast and so last-minute. To understand Daniel Riddle (or to try to do so) is to understand King Black Acid, a band that is known for its long, drawn out space-jam songs, a band that also writes spacey-pop songs clocking in at a short (for them) five minutes. The groups songs are slow, methodical, and intricate, able to break away and jam, yet snap back into focus and structure smoothly. They are a group of musicians who know each other and the music inside and out. But for all the intricacy and space-oriented sonic creations the band builds upon, the focal point of King Black Acid, Daniel Riddle, can be a mystery himself. A mad genius in every sense of the word, Riddle has a great sense of humor and can joke like nobody else. When talking with him, however, you wonder if he's joking around with you or being serious, as he seems to be nothing but serious when it comes to playing music, but talking about his music is a different story. Despite being as funny as he is talented, Riddle knows his music and when pressed to talk about it, will freely and openly discuss his opinions and observations to anyone who asks. "Most of our time was spent negotiating, discussing, debating, arguing, and waiting... lots of waiting," Riddle comments on the negotiations with Lakeshore Records. "We really started our focus on the music at the last possible second. The masters left our hand into an overnight delivery truck while we pulled our hair out and ranted about how we wish we could have fixed that vocal or finish that piano part or re-track the scratch guitars or take the time to mix the damn thing properly! It was crazy. Yes, we did feel like the music was getting pushed aside... it was. Mixing emotionally based art and financially based business together is a very dangerous prospect. It will drive people out of their fucking minds and often times right out of their bodies." With a soundtrack under their belts, what else can we expect from King Black Acid? "I'm busy trying to figure out how I'm gonna pay the electric bill and get my teeth fixed," says Riddle, not even close to joking. "The band is busy working on our live show, gearing up for a bunch of small tours, and trying to keep our eyes on the prize. I plan on making many more full length records." The conversation quickly turns to making records and the cost inherent in recording them. "I make them as I can afford them," replies Riddle. Loves a Long Song (KBAs last full-length, on Cavity Search Records) took me a year and a half to make because I made it mostly at home paying for it with my day job and a few bucks from playing shows. I'm often crippled with frustration at the lack of funding and support in the record industry. The Nirvana backlash has really taken a toll on the musical artists who do not project a bubble gum boy band, diet soda, adolescent pornographic image like fake breasts on teenage Mouseketeers on which the listener can float to safety in a sea of new cars, fast computers, red white and blue eatable Olympic underwear signed by Catholic priests immune from aids and prosecution, murder on the news every fucking day and so many products to try... um... what was the question?" Has Riddle ever pondered the idea of doing a solo record? "I'm not sure I could stand to be alone with myself long enough to make a solo album," Riddle quickly replies. "Not to mention the fact that I have surrounded myself with musicians who have so much to offer my songs that it would be a crime against humanity to not use them. They are at times just as much 'King Black Acid' as I am. I ask Riddle where he sees King Black Acid in five years. Incorporating humor with his vision, he gives me a witty reply, even taking a stab at local press for ignoring King Black Acid, a band that can draw more people to its local shows than any other band in Portland. "Touring, making records, scoring film, playing shows on the space station, drinking all the pop, playing all the rock, feeling the love...and maybe even getting an article written about us in the local press!"

Portland-based guitarist Daniel Riddle, a founding member of industrial combo Hitting Birth Family Circus, originally launched King Black Acid as a solo side project, but eventually it became a real band (King Black Acid And The Womb Star Orchestra) with keyboardist Melinda Dicillo, guitarist Roger Campos, bassist Nathan Jorg, drummer Scott Adamo (ex Wipers), percussionist Joe Trump (ex Pigface). The single Caterpillar Blood (Ruckus, 1995) and the posthumous EP Into The Sun (Starseed, 1999) capture their early, raw sound. Their performances were soon legendary.
The real deal, though, was the albumd Womb Star Sessions (Cavity Search, 1995), that contains four lengthy jams: the 10-minute The Wave (with samples of chanting monks), the 18-minute Aloha, the 15-minute Alone On Mars (with a poppy refrain that leads to a demonic freak-out) and the 10-minute Autumn. It was blues-based space-rock, something different from the mighty Oregon school of garage-rock, something that mixed and disfigured Red Crayola, Pink Floyd, Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix, Grateful Dead, Doors, Mercury Rev, My Bloody Valentine, etc.

Sunlit (Cavity Search, 1996) offers a gentler, dreamier, dilated sound. The tracks are even longer: twenty minutes for Somethings Must Be Believed To Be seen and eighteen for Headfull. But the third and last track, Think Away makes up for the languor with a 22-minute devastating freak-out.

Royal Subjects (Cavity Search, 1997), the soundtrack for a film that apparently never materialized, refined their atmospheric experiments. While not as wildly original and spontaneous as the previous albums, it achieved a classical sound of sort. The main tracks were structured and well-planned like progressive-rock suites, rather than chaotic free-form improvistations. Except for The 144,000 Member Acid Army (with didjeridoo) and Royal Subjects (both a quarter of an hour), the songs were also shorter. 60 Cycles Numb and Only Wine Will Tell seemed attempts at focusing rather than expanding the mind and recall Brian Eno at his most abstract (but not yet ambient).

King Black Acid broke up in 1997 and the following year they transformed into Starseed Transmission. But then somehow the band reconstituted and released a new album, the sprawling Loves A Long Song (Cavity Search, 2000). The songs (eight of them, each about 10-minute long) continue the metamorphosis towards a more traditional structure and performance, although they maintain Riddle’s penchant for hypnotic codas and for contrasting gently-morphing phases with hard-hitting phases, implosions with explosions, introversion with extroversion. Not only School Blood recalls late-period Pink Floyd and Colorado rediscovers the format of the orchestral ballad, but standout tracks Into the Sun and Butterfly Bomb are fundamentally catchy progressive-rock. The album even gains spiritual depth from the celestial psalm, Gentle Collapse, that closes it.

In 1997, King Black Acid parted ways with the Wombstar Orchestra. In their short co-existence, the pairing had released a trio of inspired albums—Royal Subjects, Wombstar Sessions, and the brilliant Sunlit. Flirting with—and sometimes surpassing—the 20-minute mark, these songs were adventures in spontaneity; swirling, spaced-out epics that hatched in the studio and, as such, floated with an uncommon purity. These were not radio hits in easy-to-digest tablets.

Flash to 2001, and King Black Acid has, as is their wont, changed gears considerably. Gone is the Wombstar Orchestra. Enter the Starseed Transmission and the latest album, Loves A Love Song. Gone is the sprawl. Gone are the three-song or four-song full-length albums. Instead of reaping songs from an inspired jam session, these songs were written prior to coming into the studio. The result is an inevitable sacrifice in spontaneity, but also a tighter, more accessible album in which the songs intertwine but are also allowed to function independently of one another.
There are even hints of pop on the album, although no song even comes close to being predictably "poppy." The occasional pop chorus or infectious pop melody is quickly blurred and obscured by pillars of sonic distraction. "Butterfly Bomber" features addictive melodies and an unabashedly poppy chorus, but also stretches its wings out to nearly 11 minutes. "I’ve Heard You’re Still Alive" begins as a solid, traditional track that sounds like it could be pulled off the playlist of most any alternative radio station. Five minutes later, you’re faintly aware that you’re listening to the same track.

"Born To Sleep" is a lovely instrumental lullaby; an American and perhaps more drugged-out version of Sigur Ros. The song sounds much as its title suggests, rolling with a sensitive guitar melody layered with transcendent keyboard/string combinations, and the requisite peculiar blips and bleeps finding their home in the background.

"Gentle Collapse (Feels Good)" keeps the meditative mood intact and ends the album on a soothing note. And, at 12 minutes, it returns to the glory of Sunlit in more ways than one. King Black Acid continues to evolve, but also doesn’t abandon their trademark sound. The 20 minute songs may be gone, but have no fear: Loves A Love Song will still take you by the hand and lead you down the black-lit paths of your hallucinations.