Bands About Town
Khruangbin (pronounced KRUNG-bin) gets its name from a Thai word that means airplane, its members are low-key and shun the spotlight, and its music is an atmospheric collage of global subgenres, including reggae dub, surf-rock, Southeast Asian funk and Middle Eastern soul. In an era of oversized pop gloss, where the music is loud and the characters are even louder, how did a band like Khruangbin break through the din?
Though Khruangbin got its start in 2010, its roots extend three years before that, when the three future bandmates had dinner every Tuesday night at Rudyard’s pub in Houston. Speer and the drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson played in the gospel band at St. John’s United Methodist Church in downtown Houston (the home church of Beyoncé, Solange and the rest of the Knowles family). Speer had met Lee through mutual friends, and the two struck up a bond over Middle Eastern music and architecture. Lee has said she encountered Speer watching a documentary on Afghan music, and “was like, ‘Who are you? Can we be friends, please?”
