it's a good day to be young.
THE SEATTLE ALT-ROCK/GRUNGE TORCH PASSES TO KING YOUNGBLOOD
​
“King Youngblood are skillful, socially conscious musicians with a ruthless stage presence.”
— Megan Perry, Music Connection
​
Seattle-based alt-rock band King Youngblood combines heavy guitars, unforgettable melodies, Afro-Punk attitude, and socially conscious songwriting into a live show built to hit hard and mean something. Led by founder, frontman, guitarist, and songwriter Cameron Lavi-Jones, the band has spent the last several years growing from a fixture of Seattle’s independent music scene into a nationally touring act, multimedia creative project, and driving force behind one of the Pacific Northwest’s most important celebrations of Black alternative music. Alternative Press dubbed King Youngblood “Seattle’s Alt-Rock Princes,” while AFROPUNK praised the band’s ability to turn small musical ideas into massive hooks. Their 2022 album BIG THANK was named one of The Seattle Times’ top albums of the year, helping establish the band as a new voice in Seattle’s long lineage of heavy alternative music. Today, Lavi-Jones, drummer Paul “Styqx” Stoot, cellist Chet Peterson, and bassist Sam Garcia are pushing that lineage forward rather than trying to recreate it.
​
A BAND BUILDING ITS OWN WORLD
In 2026, King Youngblood released AFROTHUNDA II, an 11-song album and multimedia project expanding the sci-fi Afro-Punk universe the band first created in 2022. Developed alongside Bahamian comic artist Maz Joachin, AFROTHUNDA combines music, graphic novels, storytelling, audiobook performances, and cinematic sound design into a creative world built entirely around the band’s music. The AFROTHUNDA II soundtrack features collaborations with artists including Cyril Neville of The Neville Brothers and The Meters, Omari Neville, and Justin Harden, while also paying tribute to the artists who helped shape King Youngblood’s musical identity. The project includes interpretations of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” and Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name,” alongside music honoring Tina Bell of Bam Bam, widely recognized as the godmother of Seattle grunge. Produced by Lavi-Jones and mixed and mastered by Justin Armstrong and Eric Lilavois, whose credits include Queens of the Stone Age, Dave Matthews, and Soundgarden, AFROTHUNDA II captures King Youngblood at their most cinematic, melodic, and heavy. The band is also developing its next studio project, OUTRUN YOUR SHADOW, with producer Eric Lilavois of London Bridge Studio.
BLACK & LOUD FEST
King Youngblood’s mission has always extended beyond the band itself. In 2022, Cameron Lavi-Jones and Down North’s Anthony Briscoe co-founded Black & Loud Fest to create more space, visibility, and opportunity for Black-fronted bands and alternative artists. The idea was simple: give Black artists their flowers while they are here to receive them, and invite everyone to the celebration. Black & Loud has since grown from a DIY Seattle festival into a major Pacific Northwest celebration of Black music, spanning rock, punk, alternative, funk, hip-hop, R&B, soul, metal, and more. In August 2026, Black & Loud celebrated its fifth anniversary, taking over Neumos, Barboza, and The Runaway in Seattle before continuing to Portland after co-headlining with Black rock pioneers Living Colour in 2025. The Seattle festival was headlined by Iniko, alongside King Youngblood, Cyril Neville featuring Omari Neville & The Fuel, Making Movies, Down North, and a wide-ranging lineup of Black artists, DJs, and performers.
The anniversary festival earned praise for its genre diversity, community atmosphere, multi-stage production, and performances, with King Youngblood highlighted as one of the weekend’s standout acts. Through Black & Loud, King Youngblood has become not only a band building its own career, but a group actively creating opportunities for the artists coming up alongside them.
CAMERON LAVI-JONES
At the center of King Youngblood is Cameron Lavi-Jones, a University of Washington communications graduate whose work spans music, producing, public speaking, theatre, activism, and arts advocacy. In spring 2026, Lavi-Jones made his professional theatrical debut as Judas in The 5th Avenue Theatre’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar, bringing his rock vocal style and stage presence into one of musical theatre’s most iconic roles. That summer, he traveled to Nashville for programming with the National Museum of African American Music, performing an intimate King Youngblood concert and leading a songwriting workshop centered around Black music history, creativity, and the next generation of artists. Lavi-Jones has also become a prominent artist voice at civic demonstrations throughout Seattle. He and King Youngblood have spoken and performed at Hands Off, No Kings, and ICE Out rallies and protests, using live music alongside speeches encouraging civic participation and community involvement. King Youngblood helped kick off Seattle’s 2025 Hands Off rally, Lavi-Jones addressed the crowd at Seattle’s June 2025 No Kings demonstration, and in 2026 he continued speaking and performing at ICE Out and No Kings gatherings across the city. Lavi-Jones’ work as an artist has always existed alongside his work as an organizer and public speaker. Whether producing Black & Loud, performing with King Youngblood, speaking to crowds, or mentoring younger artists, his focus remains on using music as a tool for connection, participation, and cultural change.
​
MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD LOUD & VOTE
In October 2026, King Youngblood will launch a national edition of its Make Your Voice Heard Loud & Vote Tour, bringing acoustic performances and nonpartisan civic-engagement programming to college campuses and communities across the United States ahead of the November election.
The tour expands on a project first launched in 2018, when King Youngblood partnered with organizations including the NAACP, League of Women Voters, and Washington Bus while visiting schools and colleges across Washington. That original campaign helped generate more than 3,200 voter registrations. The 2026 tour brings that mission nationwide, using music to connect young people with voter registration, civic education, and opportunities to participate in their communities. For King Youngblood, music and community work have never been separate ideas.
​
WHAT COMES NEXT
King Youngblood continues to tour, record, produce Black & Loud Fest, develop AFROTHUNDA, and document the realities of building an independent career through their ongoing film project Breaking The Rules: Getting To A Million Of Something. Their work connects Seattle’s history of heavy alternative music with a future that is more diverse, more independent, and more willing to challenge who gets recognized as part of rock history. King Youngblood is building that future through records, live shows, festivals, storytelling, activism, and the community growing around them.
​
BLACK ART IS RESISTANCE.
Cameron Miles Lavi-Jones
Cameron Lavi-Jones, 27, is an award-winning musician, producer, sound engineer, and bandleader of the alt-rock band King Youngblood. He is also the cofounder of Black & Loud Music Festival, a platform amplifying Black voices in alternative music, and the President of Hold Your Crown, a nonprofit project under the Allied Artist Foundation focused on youth mental wellness. A recent honors graduate from the University of Washington, Cameron focused on supporting marginalized communities, BIPOC social justice, and democratizing media. Dedicated to uplifting the next generation, Cameron strives to provide the same mentorship and support he received in his career both through King Youngblood and within his work as a producer and engineer in studio. He has organized BIPOC musical teach-ins across the Pacific Northwest and works as the youngest senior sound engineer and producer at two premier Seattle-area studios, Studio Sage and Robert Lang Studios. Cameron is also a partner in Dreaming In Color Entertainment LLC and its subsidiary DICE LAB, continuing his mission to merge art, activism, and youth empowerment.
SAMY GARCIA
Samy Garcia is a multi-instrumentalist and a testament to the power of youthful determination and undaunted talent. When King Youngblood needed a new bass player, they called on Samy who plays guitar, keyboards and drums prolifically but had never played bass in a band or in the studio. Determined to join King Youngblood. Samy focused intensely on practicing a borrowed bass for two weeks and then brilliantly played his first gig with King Youngblood to critical acclaim. As a second generation Latino young man, Samy is bi-Lingual Spanish and English, whose father is from is El Salvador and his mother is from Puerto Rico. Both are Pastors in the Church they founded. Samy has been playing music since he can remember. As a multi-instrumentalist, when Samy is not on tour with King Youngblood, he plays keyboards for his parent’s church and even from the road he is the Musical Director at his parents' church, a role that gives him great spiritual connection and makes him feel good to support his parents as pastors.
CHET PETERSON
Music, cooking, working on cars, fishing, are all things that Chet Petersons love. Chet likes to think the things we love most say a lot about who we are. Chet has played the cello for over 15 years, all while growing up in a hyper-musical, and supportive family. His father, Phillip Peterson being a multi-platinum producer, string arranger, record label owner, bassist and cellist, has made it so that music has become a huge part of Chet’s young life. He spends most of his own time creating musical projects with his father, his band King Youngblood and other artists in the community. A lot of people ask Chet for string arrangements and background compositions for their songs, and it’s probably what he is best at besides production and being an amazing live performer on cello. Chet has written and arranged strings most recently for Halsey, Acid Tongue, TezaTalks, Brian McKnight, Poison Jams, Ari Joshua, Medeski Martin and Wood, ALITA, and Devin Townsend. But in the past he has also sung backups on records for Portugal The Man, Nada Surf, and Kay Kay’s Weathered Underground. In the recent past Chet toured Europe three times as the principal cellist in The North Stars Chamber Orchestra.
Paul “Styqx” Stoot
Paul Stoot is a multi-instrumentalist and the son of a preacher man – Reverend Paul Stoot Senior. Years of musically directing his father’s musical ministry have helped him dive into the emotion and sheer performance intensity that makes him one of the greatest rock drummers hailing from the Pacific Northwest with a take no prisoners let’s bring it to church wild abandon the works well in both gospel and rock music. A skilled keyboardist and band leader in his own right, Paul makes his living solely from hitting sticks on drums. As the newest edition to King Youngblood’s musical army, Paul’s dynamic live performance has undeniably leveled up King Youngblood’s live show as he can barely stay seated on his drum throne as he lets the music elevate him while he elevates the band to epic proportions. His performance is otherworldly, catapulting the band’s sound to a much higher state of national and world competitiveness as they eye winning over commercial rock radio and bigger stages beyond the Pacific Northwest.