With their inventive mélange of raucous riffs and big bawdy beats, San Diego-based LOUIS XIV have already drawn acclaim on both sides of the pond. Now, with the forthcoming release of their as-yet-untitled Atlantic Records debut, their renown is certain to ring out even louder. Such tracks as the word-of-mouth radio smash, “Finding Out True Love Is Blind,” and “God Killed The Queen” display a band whose rapier wit and gift for killer hooks ensure their place in the hierarchy of modern rock ‘n’ roll.

At the 2004 San Diego Music Awards in September, Louis XIV walked away with the Album of the Year and Best Rock Album trophies for their self-released/self-titled debut album. Fresh from that well-deserved recognition, the band spent last fall putting the final touches on their first Atlantic set, slated for release in the spring of 2005. In the meantime, January 2005 sees the release of an EP entitled “ILLEGAL TENDER,” on the band’s own Pineapple Recording Group label.

The core trio behind Louis XIV – musician/producer Jason Hill, guitarist Brian Karscig, and drummer Mark Maigaard – had previously worked together in other San Diego rock outfits, but after years in the trenches, they decided to attempt something altogether new.

One Wednesday in April 2003, Hill woke up with an idea to create an album that flowed like a movie, a loose story about “a guy that begins to think he’s Louis XIV, with themes of murder, decadence, and betrayal all intertwined. “It was to have a very specific and unique sound. It didn’t matter if anybody else dug it. All that mattered was making music that we wanted to make,” Hill explains.

Instead of recording in a local studio, they opted to head to Paris, appropriately, where a friend had recently taken occupancy of a flat above an unused magazine warehouse. Incidentally, the flat housed a late-60’s model, 16-track tape recorder – identical to the one the band had back in San Diego.

The sessions were loose and spontaneous, with the band determined to capture an honest, free-spirited sonic groove by recording as few takes as possible. Such songs as “Louis XIV,” “God Killed The Queen,” and “It’s The Girl That Makes Him Happy” saw the band nailing their target sonic goal – a lo-fi, high-energy maximum R&B inspired by such heroes as T-Rex and the Rolling Stones. “We wanted to strip the whole process down,” Hill says. “We wanted a sound that was totally new, but also classic and raw, in the same spirit as Exile on Main Street.”

Two weeks later, the band returned to San Diego. They put a few finishing touches on the unrefined tracks, and that was that, LOUIS XIV was complete. With the project concluded, Hill began cutting some new home demos. While he initially saw it as a solo effort, he soon realized that he was instinctively leaving spaces in the music that would best be filled by Karscig and Maigaard.

“I realized, ‘Why make a solo record? I can work with my best friends and make this a band,’” Hill says. “But now there was a new sense of where we could take it. There was a natural progression from the first record. It was still going to be scaled down, but the music was going to be more beat-oriented, with more expansive instrumentations.”

Meanwhile, local radio began playing “God Killed The Queen” and much to the band’s surprise, their personal project had struck a populist chord. “Somehow people got it,” Hill says. “It was a strange phenomenon. We didn’t expect anyone to want to listen to it, but suddenly, people were grabbing hold of what we were doing.”

The band bought a cheap CD burner and started their own label – the Pineapple Recording Group – selling over 500 copies of LOUIS XIV in the first month. The word soon spread across the Atlantic and next thing the band knew, they were heading to London to party at the annual NME Awards. Tracks from the album were all over BBC Radio 1. “It was truly amazing,” Hill says, “because everything was happening though word of mouth.”

Upon their return to the U.S., Louis XIV – now including bassist Jimmy Armbrust – built on their buzz with a roof-raising gig at the annual South By Southwest extravaganza. A month later, they also made their European live debut, played to a packed house at London’s infamous drag bar-slash-rock venue, Madam Jo Jo’s.

While Louis XIV was busy in Blighty, their fanbase was blowing up here at home. Somehow, San Diego’s 91X had gotten their hands on an MP3 rough mix of one of Louis XIV’s new recordings, a ditty called “Finding Out True Love Is Blind.” Sales of the album took off – despite the fact that the song wasn’t even included. The band decided to release a pair of EPs – dubbed “THE PINK EP” and “THE BLUE EP” – featuring a few faves from LOUIS XIV, along with a handful of their latest recordings.

With tracks now lighting up switchboards at a number of California radio stations, Louis XIV set out on their first national tours, sharing stages with the Von Bondies and the Killers. As they traveled America, sales of the album and EPs exploded, with more than 10,000 CDs going out around the world.

In August 2004, Louis XIV decided to sign with Atlantic Records. The band’s label debut culls songs from the original album and the two EPs, adding a fistful of new material recorded in November/December 2004 at the band’s San Diego studio, built specifically for the recordings in a refurbished urban church.

“We see this band as a new wave of music,” Hill says. “We really do. We think we’re completely a different style of thing and that we’re really going to change the way people approach recordings, the way people approach sound. That might sound extremely egotistical, but we firmly believe that it will happen.”