Heavy Weighs the King is Carmen Keigans and Brian Whitman — two childhood friends from South Carolina who met at six years old.

In 2004 they started I Nine in Columbia, SC. Cameron Crowe asked them to perform a Nancy Wilson penned song "Same in Any Language" for the closing credits of his film Elizabethtown, Clive Davis signed them to J Records/RCA, and Rick Beato produced most of the album, titled Heavy Weighs the King. By 2008 it was over. Rick later told the whole story in his video "Almost Famous: Cruelty of the Music Industry."

In 2019 they took the name back and started again on their own terms. Their first release as Heavy Weighs the King, A Star in the Sky, came out in 2020. The full-length Avidyā followed in July 2026 — ten songs, self-produced, and released only on Ollo, the artist-owned music platform Brian built. The band is based in Atlanta and South Carolina.