Planet Loud recently had a chance to sit down and chop it up with Benji, vocalist for the mighty Skindred…
Planet Loud – How do the songs come together?
Skindred – When the band decides it wants to start writing new material we get together in our rehearsel space in South Wales UK, at St. Joseph’s Boxing club. There’s a couple of things we do, sometimes I write poems, and I get titles of songs from those. The guys in the band could be knocking about a tune, just jamming something and I feel this particular music would fit a lyric that I’d written out. So we’ll get in a room and knock the shit out of it for a few hours or a few days, or maybe months, then when something really hits in the pocket like the verse chorus and intro it’ll be right like ya know? Sometimes it’ll be like Frankenstein parts initially…
Planet Loud – What do you mean?
Skindred – It’s not really a set routine, bits and peices make up the songs, the most important thing is we go in a room lock the door and make as much noise as possible, ya know making noise until it starts to sound like something.
Planet Loud – What inspires you lyrically?
Skindred – Life mate, just walking into Wal Mart, standing on the bus stop, drinking beer in a pub, everything. I write about murder, divorce, love and hate, I try not to restrict myself to boundaries. It’s not like because I’m in a hard rock band I’ve got to write about specific things, I write about any topic that moves me.
Planet Loud – How did you hook up with Jason Bieler?
Skindred – Me and my mate were on RCA records in the UK and they were pissing us about giving us shit, yes we want you, no we don’t, no you can’t do this, yes you can do that. Anyway, they put us in the studio and spent half a million quid on the first album and then decided that they didn’t really want it. We did a few tours of Europe, and our manager at the time was shopping us around. He went to NY and played the album for a few people and Bieler was interested in signing us to his label. So we had the option to sign with Bieler or MCA and we made the rookie mistake and signed with the major. MCA released the album even though they didn’t really understand it, *game show voice* “It seems reggae, it’s rock, it’s punk, it’s dancehall, it’s fucking weird”. They didn’t want it.
Planet Loud – They didn’t know how to market it.
Skindred – Right exactly, so Bieler was standing there in the wings waiving his hands going me sir I’ll do it. That was it, he saw an opportunity and really dug the band, the album was finished and we were looking for someone to pick it up and release it.
Planet Loud – Different artwork for the Stateside release correct?
Skindred – Yea right, so Lava and Atlantic are involved with Jason, they released the record and the rest is history.
Planet Loud – Do you think videos at this point are obsolete?
Skindred – We do make videos, but I just don’t think you need to spend so much money on them. I mean if a band has a great idea you can make that work on a very tight budget. Our last video for Rat Race was recorded in our rehearsel space, just us playing the song, jumping around and recording it with our iPhone. We felt the only reason it didn’t go any further then myspace, youtube and iTunes was because the quality was shit. When I say bad I mean if you take the video from youtube and try and play it on a 52 inch HDTV it was unwatchable. Then we did a video for Trouble and spent 4 grand and it’s a good video. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to get a quality video that can be played anywhere. The days of spending truck loads of money on videos is obsolete.
Planet Loud – I agree.
Skindred – Bands should focus more on making DVD’s of live footage and including backstage antics, that’s way more interesting and fans really dig that.
Planet Loud – How did the Eddy Grant cover of Electric Avenue come about?
Skindred – I wasn’t a big fan of Eddy Grant. I’m a real reggae fan and I never considered Eddy Grant to be reggae. It was a bit of a piss take, a bit of a tongue and cheek thing, that’s why we did it. A lot of people come up to me and say I love your ska stuff. I’m looking around going ska? We don’t play ska. So anyway, we went in the studio and Bieler said guys “You should cover that Eddy Grant tune Electric Avenue”. We all looked at him when he suggested it like, “Are you stoned or what?” So Mikey started playing the riff, but really heavy and we started joking and laughing and got out our way through the tune. Then Bieler came back and said hey check it out you’ll love it. We thought nothing of it, then an engineer chopped it up and made it sound great, he rang me up and said do you want to come down and do a real vocal. I said what do you mean do a real vocal? I was just pissing around. He said well do a real one for me, so I went down and and sung it this time, serious. He had one computer trying to pull up lyrics from lyrics.com while I was singing the track, my lyrics were totally different from the original song, because I had no idea what the guy was saying. We had a great laugh doing that tune loads of fun.
Planet Loud – You killed it.
Skindred – Ya know when I hear that song now, it’s really enjoyable, it rocks, it sounds like a rock song. We made it sound uplifting, and that’s what it was. We added that Skindred flavor.
Planet Loud – What are your plans for the future, are you going to be working on a new album soon?
Skindred – We think it’s going to take a little while to finish the new album. So what we would like to do is a 4 track ep. Add some really cool art work and get it out to everybody. We want to leave the Electric Ave. song as an exclusive on iTunes, so that won’t be inlcuded on the ep. We’d like to do a killer song on the ep, that the dj’s want to spin and knock out a punk rock video for it. Maybe do a few summer festivals in Europe then make our way back to the states.
Planet Loud – You dig playing the States?
Skindred – I love America, I love everywhere. I love playing with the guys in my band, getting on stage and rocking out. I don’t care how big the club is, I just like getting up onstage and playing. I just wrote some lyrics and melodies and I was talking to the guys about one of them, it’s called gluttons for punishment. That sums up our career, *laughing* all musicians are gluttons for punishment.
Planet Loud – What inspired you when you were a younger cat?
Skindred – Being a ham in class I think. Hamming it up every fucking day, I was the one in the corner by the black board with my hands on my head. Being in school that’s your first audience. You start to get your shit together around 12 or 13, you get turned on to music. My first actual album that I paid for my grandmother gave me 10 pounds and I had never had 10 pounds in my life, I went into the pub and bought an album called Looney Tunes by the Bad Manners. The 2nd wave of ska that the British kids did was the music of my youth, and I remember jumping around the flat listening to it, my father said to me I know that song. I have that original record. I looked at him like he was daft, what do ya’ mean the original I said? He pulled out the original tunes that The Specials and Madness were doing on my records and blew me away. Those original albums that moved my father were equally as moving to me. I also loved punk rock as a kid, The Clash and the Sex Pistols.
Planet Loud – Did they come to Wales?
Skindred – Yea all of them bands came to Wales, we had a small club, it was called a Students Union. I used to go there and ask “Give us a fag mate?” I was like 11 years of age. That annoying little kid, but I was drawn to all of this reggae and punk rock coming out of the students union. Being a black kid and listening to punk was a little weird, but the connection with the rastas and the punk rockers was pretty similar. Ya know, it was like you’ve got these kids in London screaming about equal rights and injustices, police giving em’ shit, and these kids in the streets of Jamaica screaming about the same thing. There was a common bond between these rasta and punk rockers. Music was something that drove me all my life, anytime I got a regular job I was fired from it, I would always get fired for singing my heart out while sweeping up at some store. Like I said if no one was intersted and we never left England I’d still be doing music with this passion. I’d still be doing this punk rock reggae thing ya know.
Interview by Scott Stewart
