PEL Presents NEM#247: John S. Hall (King Missile): Daily Poet

What It Covers

Mark Linsenmayer interviews John S. Hall, poet and frontman of King Missile, across 81 minutes covering Hall's daily poetry practice, the reunion with original collaborator Dog Bowl, the mechanics of setting spoken-word poetry to music, and the creative philosophy behind four decades of absurdist, conversational verse.

Key Questions Answered

• •Daily creative output via constraint: Hall writes five poems per day on weekdays, posting them to Facebook and Instagram. Each day's poems chain thematically — one title triggers the next. A single word like "Poppycock" spawns three more poems about related snack brand names. This chained-association method eliminates writer's block by removing the pressure of finding a single perfect subject each session.
• •Spoken-word and music collaboration model: Hall delivers lyrics and leaves music entirely to collaborators. He rarely suggests chords or melodies, occasionally recommending tempo adjustments. For the new King Missile album with Dog Bowl, Hall wrote words and music for two to three tracks independently, while Dog Bowl wrote two tracks exclusively. This division of labor has remained consistent across four decades of recording.
• •Vocal mix placement in rock contexts: Hall kept vocals in the mix rather than above it, treating records as musical objects rather than poetry readings with backing. The one exception — Detachable Penis — was remixed at Atlantic Records' request to raise the vocal level, which Hall acknowledges was the correct call. Burying vocals in loud live settings caused ongoing audience comprehension problems that were never fully solved.
• •Poetry as heightened conversation: Hall credits Richard Hell's definition — poetry is heightened talk — as a liberating framework. The practical application is subtracting filler words from conversational ideas to reach their essence, without obscuring meaning. Hall deliberately avoids the performance cadence common in slam poetry because it feels artificial, prioritizing immediate comprehension over layered ambiguity, citing Langston Hughes and Amiri Baraka as models.
• •BMI registration for spoken-word recordings: Hall registers all spoken-word tracks with BMI as songs, never flagging them as spoken word. BMI does not verify the distinction and pays royalties accordingly. The only structural requirement that arose was a producer's note that tracks under two minutes received reduced payment, prompting Hall to write a coda for one song to push it past the two-minute threshold.
• •Absurdist premise as structural engine: Hall's poems typically begin with a title that poses an absurd logical scenario, then follow the internal logic to a conclusion. Eating People asks whether a vegan would object to unknowingly consuming processed human remains. Her Cock is True riffs on Coca-Cola's "the real thing" slogan to argue a strap-on is functionally superior to a biological penis. The method is: establish premise, apply consistent logic, reach a defensible conclusion.