Originally, King began his musical career as a drummer (starting at the age of nine after his father bought him his first kit for £10) and learning guitar from the age of eleven.[1][2] In 1974, when he was fifteen, King met a rival Isle of Wight drummer - his future Level 42 bandmate Phil Gould, who remembers that the young King "came and sat in with the band that I formed, at one of the gigs we were doing. He brought his kit down and blew me off, blew me off the stage because he was so much faster than me." Gould also remembers the young King as being a budding multi-instrumentalist, a "really good guitarist" who would "play around with programming, synth stuff. He was one of those natural musicians."[2]