Local Band’s Anthem Hyping Up NBA’s Kings, Long-Suffering Fans
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WHEELING - The hype is real in Northern California, where after a 16-year playoff drought, the Sacramento Kings are back in the NBA postseason - and an even more unlikely juggernaut of a hype song has somehow made its way from the Ohio Valley to the playoff arena on the West Coast.
During the Sacramento Kings’ first home playoff appearance in 17 years last weekend, a pre-game video pumped up the crowd at the Golden 1 Center, and that hype footage was made for a new song that was penned specifically for the team’s long-awaited return to the playoffs. That song, "Light the Beam," was written, performed and recorded by the local Ohio Valley band Zane Run.
"We were enthralled with the story that the team had not made the playoffs in 17 years, and they were the longest running North American sports franchise to not make their respective playoffs," said Dean Connors, drummer for Zane Run. "That’s among all major sports - hockey, baseball, basketball, football - and that was the case for them for almost two decades."
Emerging from the ashes as a long-time lovable-but-losing franchise into an championship hopeful with a cool new swagger, the Kings have drawn new fans and some far-reaching attention for their hot hand this season.
Another attention-grabbing component to the Kings’ successful season has been its new hype ritual of lighting a huge cluster of laser beams that shoot out of the top of the arena and into the sky. "Light the Beam!" has become the crowd chant, and when victory is captured, the practice of hitting a big purple button to "light the beam" is now a big part of the fun. The light can be seen for miles, signaling to the entire community around Sacramento, Calif., that the celebration is on.
Connors said he knows someone who works for the Sacramento Kings, but he’s never been a huge basketball fan. However, the fascinating Cinderella story that unfolded throughout the season led him to root for Sacramento - all the way through to the end of the regular season when it became clear that they were actually going to make it to the first round of the playoffs.
"We decided, just for fun, to write a hype song - just a ‘rah-rah’ song," Connors said, noting that he got together with Zane Run singer Doug Richardson to hammer out the short, 1-minute, 41-second anthem before bringing the rest of the band into their practice space/home-base recording studio to lay it down. "We recorded it over two nights, right on Chapline Street in downtown Wheeling, and we sent it to the Kings."
Much to their surprise, the brass in the team’s production office liked it. They were working to put together hype videos to show on the big screens in the arena at home during the team’s long-awaited playoff run. It seemed that some other proposals that were presented focused a lot on showing up the team’s doubters and proving them wrong, whereas the video that happened to feature Zane Run’s song "Light the Beam" was more positive, upbeat and all about the triumphant new attitude of the team and its loyal fans. They just happened to select it over some of the other submissions from the staff.
"It was the right time and the right place," Connors said. "They edited it together along with video footage of highlights from their year, and they started playing it in the arena right before the National Anthem. It’s their hype song. It’s crazy, but that’s how it happened."
Because of the short length of the song, Richardson jokingly called it a "jingle," while Connors insists that it’s a "hype song."
"In a short song, you only have so many rhymes that you can make," Connors said, noting that the song drops the names of some of the team’s stars - like Domantas Sabonis and De’Aaron Fox.
"Dean had the idea for the song, and he gave me a couple of lyrics that he wanted to put in there," Richardson said. "So I went home and basically finished out the song that night on an acoustic guitar, and then we showed up to our practice, and everyone else added their pieces to it. Within an hour, we had a song ... that’s now being played in Sacramento. It’s crazy."
The team played the song last Saturday during their pre-game home playoff debut. The fans were hit with Zane Run’s "Light the Beam," a Metallica song and then the National Anthem.
Currently, Kings lead the first-round playoff series 2-1 over the Golden State Warriors. Game 4 is scheduled to take place Sunday afternoon at the Chase Center in San Francisco before the series comes back home to Sacramento on Wednesday night.
The guys from Zane Run said they’ve been told to expect another "Light the Beam" hype video as the playoffs return to the Golden 1 Center.
"This song has made us and all of our friends Sacramento Kings fans," Richardson said.
"We got an email from a producer at ‘Good Morning, Sacramento’ asking us if we’d like to play it on the show," Connors said. "I don’t think that they know we’re on the other side of the country!
"We don’t know where this is going, but Doug really wants to go to Sacramento," Connors jabbed. "We’ve spent a lot of time laughing about all of this. Who could guess that five hilljacks from Wheeling, W.Va., wrote the hype song for the Sacramento Kings?"
Video clips of the "Light the Beam" theme song being played in the arena can be seen on Zane Run’s official Facebook page and on YouTube. The song itself is now available for streaming on all major online and social media platforms.
Zane Run’s next Ohio Valley gig is May 5 at Shube’s Paradise in the Hills in Rayland. The band is also performing as part of Oglebay’s Backyard BBQ Festival weekend on Friday, May 26, Memorial Day weekend, when Collective Soul and The Clarks headline the festivities on Saturday, May 27.