AceKing is the solo and long-suffering project of Wednesbury son Peter Hill, also known as Peg. Having always had an interest in music from a young age, during both primary and secondary school years, Peter learned to play both the Violin - which he himself confesses he was useless at - and the Trombone, where he played in the Sandwell Youth Orchestra and school bands. However, he was never one who liked being taught a certain way to play and felt these experiences stifled his creativity. After many years of learning very little, he eventually picked up the bass guitar and started to play. He taught himself by listening to his favourite songs, which ranged from pop-punk sensibilities like Blink-182 through to Sugarcult and even some mainstream indie like the White Stripes and Oasis. Soon, he was looking for a band. It wasn’t long before he found one through Guitarist and best friend Luke Blackham, now mostly known throughout the West Midlands scene for being part of Broken By Design. They called themselves Non Applicable or N/A for short and started off, in true punk tradition by watching and learning to get the best out of each other. Pete has since stated “I had the ability to follow almost seamlessly completely distorted power chords and adding a rhythm, and dare I say, a melody to the mad guitar/bass attack." N/A played punk that harped back to the Misfits, and Circle Jerks, but used their personalities to interact with crowds at gigs, telling jokes, getting drunk on stage, all sorts of banter along those lines. Along with drummer Pete Rudge, they had a 3-piece punk band, with a four on the floor set-up. Peg and Luke split vocals and offered very different ranges. "My songs were either a melodic rant at pop culture in songs like 'Social Commentary’, or the introspective slow beat of 'Two Turns of My Calender.'" The latter of which was wrote 2 months before departing to University. Luke's songs had an incredible energy and drive to them such as 'Jack's Place’ or the barnstorming closer 'Back From Whence We Came' which culminated in both Peg and Luke screaming almost in tongues to highly whipped up crowds. However, September 2005 rolled along, and despite an offer from a close friend of cutting an EP (which fell over both Peg and Peter Rudge’s exam schedule), they eventually chose to sit our exams and go to Uni. The band folded, but the memoirs of an incredible summer of gigs, parties, and even more gigs remain. With their final gig a week before Pete left for college, N/A bowed out in front of 500 people. Pete decided to take a bit of a break from music. However, with Uni came offers to join bands, which were always politely turned down. But with new scenery and new friends, there was one band that he wanted to get involved with. Indeed, Pete saw it as the only thing he wanted to be a part of and that was Dempsey. Thom James, Will Searle, Dan McCaffrey, and later with Xen Onisiforou. Peter had attended a university summer course with Will and Dan and remembers seeing them play a few covers at their leaving ball, and whether they knew it or not, inspired him to get involved in music again, and maybe be able to play along side them one day. Eventually this was to become a reality in 2006 when Pete, Will and Dan formed Marshall Plan, as Will took leave of absence from the Dempsey fray. After both Dempsey and Emergency One had been laid to rest, the four boys reconvened in Aberystwyth in 2007, eventually becoming Marshal Plan (with one 'L") when Thom James got involved. Peg replaced Xen on bass duties and the band set about writing new material, recalling Pete being an absolute wizard, playing bass on a right-handed acoustic guitar, and being able to compensate brilliantly for the fact that he was left-handed and everything on the fretboard was backwards. However, Dan eventually left Aberystwyth to return to Milford Haven, and practices became harder to come by. Undetered by this, Marshal Plan remains in a state of flux, but is never talked about in the past tense. So, over the summer of 2007, brimming with ideas, Pete formed his own project which he decided in his mind, he would pick up, as and when he wanted. He names the band "AceKing" due to his great love and equally great vice, Poker. Soon, he wrote his first song as AceKing, 'Kaliedoscope" which was soon followed up with the unrecorded 'Across the World.' Until recently, the project was to be aimed around simple melodic keyboard pieces, which were quite lo-fi. Peg says of his project recently "I've always had a varied taste in music. I hope my new direction, which is much more electro and big beat influenced is an excellent departure from my lo-fi and punk musical upbringing." So, both Peter and Hand & Face hope you enjoy the first new material AceKing has made in twelve months, and hopefully Pete will be busy making much more over the summer. AceKing's new track is called "Lord of the Flies." Look out for more on Hand & Face soon.