Kings Return’s Vaughn Faison on the a cappella quartet’s wide-reaching fame ahead of Lied Center show

King Return. // facebook.com/KingsReturnMusic

If you’re a music fan who’s ever been scrolling online, you’ve likely come across a video or two of four men singing acapella in a stairwell and had your mind blown by their brilliant harmonies and arrangements. This is Kings Return, the “dynamic and soothing” Dallas-based vocal quartet of tenor Vaughn Faison, bass Gabe Kunda, tenor JE McKissic, and baritone Jamall Williams.

Whether you’ve been following them since their first video featuring “God Bless America,” seen them opening for Grammy winner Joyce DiDonato, or discovered them via their delightful covers of TV theme songs, you know these guys can sing.

Kings Return perform at the Lied Center on Tuesday, February 17, and we were beyond excited to hop on the phone with the group’s Vaughn Faison to discuss virality, arranging, and their incredible broad fanbase.

The Pitch: I’ve been a fan of Kings Return since that first viral video went viral, and I love that you all keep returning to the stairwell even after all your success. Is that important to you all?

Vaughn Faison: Yeah. It is important to return to our roots. And we love that stairwell. We jokingly say when we go on tour that’s our fifth member. Unfortunately, we can’t bring the stairwell with us. But yes, we love making music in there and hearing our voices reverberate, and then remembering the beginnings.

How has it been for you all as your star has risen? Because you start out with a video recorded in a stairwell, and then, less than a decade later, you’re touring with an internationally renowned opera singer.

Yeah, it is really wild to think about just everything that has happened. I joined the group personally in 2020. And even just from then to now to see–having a few viral videos to essentially traveling the world. We just did our first show outside of the country over the summer. It’s been an amazing journey so far and we’re excited to, to keep going.

Now that you have performed internationally, how have you found the audiences outside the US respond to Kings Return?

That show was really well-received and it seemed like the audience was really attentive. They came up to us afterwards and wanted to ask about specific arrangements and how we come up with certain things that we do, and where they can find more of our music. Yeah, it was a really impactful performance, I think.

Along those lines: in terms of arrangements, you’ve performed everything from Al Green to gospel to the theme song to Sister Sister. How do you choose what you’re going to arrange?

For us it always starts with songs that we’ll just throw around different ideas and certain things will stick. We had the idea for doing the TV themes, and then we’re just brainstorming on, “What are some of our favorite themes? What do we think? What themes do we think might connect with people?”

It’s a lot of that. It usually just starts with music that we love and sometimes that’s all we need. Sometimes we do take into account how we think things might be received, but yeah–that’s basically how we decide.

What’s your favorite song that you’ve brought in that you’ve gotten to perform?

This was just happened this past Christmas season, but “Somewhere in My Memory” from Home Alone. We have a version of that that is out on social media and yeah, I think that’s one of my favorites. I really love music that feels like a hug, really warm, and I feel like that song does that.

You’ve put out both secular and gospel music. Is it important that Kings Return has that balance in terms of what you do musically, or is that just part of the songs that you love?

I think it’s a little bit of both. We want to ultimately share everything that we love and we also want to share ourselves and who we are is both of those styles of music–and really, all styles of music, in a way. We all love a lot of the same things and also some different things, and we bring all of that together. We just want to show that, in some ways, music is music, and there’s something to connect to in any style.

King Return. // facebook.com/KingsReturnMusic

There’s nothing for you all to hide behind when you’re out there on stage. It’s just your voices. What practices do you follow to take care of yourselves and your vocal instruments, especially as we’re in the middle of cold and flu season?

For us, the top priority is getting as much sleep as we can. I feel like every time, throughout my studying voice, so many teachers have always said that’s the number one thing–being able to rest and get sleep.

But also, staying hydrated, of course. Some of us have personal steamers that we’ll use, as well, ’cause some places are very dry and very dry in the winter, so it’s helpful to have all of those things.

Then, just doing your warmups and, also just trying not to do too many shows in a row is a really important thing, too, ’cause if we’re doing, four or five shows a week, we probably wouldn’t make it much past that week.

Where did you study voice?

I studied undergrad at SUNY Fredonia in New York. It’s near Buffalo. And then for grad school, I came up to Texas and studied at the University of North Texas, in Denton.

How’d you come to join Kings Return?

I joined the group in 2020, as I mentioned. They had essentially been looking for a tenor one. Their tenor one said they wanted to do some other things and they had been looking around, at least that’s how the story goes, and one of the members, JE, reached out to a couple of the professors at UNT and he was like, “Hey, do you know anyone that can do like all of these things?” and they both recommended me.

After that recommendation, I went and auditioned and it must have gone pretty well because I’m in the group now. [laughs] But it was a little bit of a whirlwind. I think I initially just got a Facebook message and I was like, “I don’t even know who this group is” and “Is this spam or something?” But, yeah, it turned out to be a pretty life-changing Facebook message.

I love that something that can change your life shows up via social media. We’re at the very end of January here, we’re just starting the year. What does the rest of 2026 look like for Kings Return?

We’ve got quite a few more shows and are excited about being in so many different places and sharing music and getting to meet so many awesome fans. We have a few more shows coming up with Joyce, but they will be, unfortunately, out of the states. We will be doing that in Europe, which will be a lot of fun. We’re still recording some new music. Can’t really say exactly what it is yet, but we will have a new project probably out sometime this year.

I’m very curious as to what the audience looks like at a Kings Return show, because I feel like the appeal is so wide. Like, I am a dyed-in-the-wool punk rock/metal guy, but when I saw that first video, I was just like, “This is 100% my jam, as well,” so I’m just curious as to who in the audience and who talks to you afterwards?

I would say the cool thing is that it really is so diverse, from age range and musical interest. The amount that people have studied music–it’s really all across the board, which is awesome. I’m glad that we have so much love from people that both have studied music really deeply, and people who are just like, “Oh yeah, I just like listening to music,” or, “I just happened to see you on social media and then I drove a couple hours to come to your show.” It’s really all over the place, which I think is something that we really appreciate.

Kings Return perform at the Lied Center on Tuesday, February 17. Details on that show here.