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Formed: 1998
iSound Site: www.isound.com/skindred
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| Rock music must evolve, or risk becoming dull and trite. When the fusion of styles yields innovative and contagious new music, it is an explosive event. The band creating this explosion is Skindred, a four-piece heavy rock n’ reggae outfit hailing from the UK. Skindred’s upc |
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Rock music must evolve, or risk becoming dull and trite. When the fusion of styles yields innovative and contagious new music, it is an explosive event. The band creating this explosion is Skindred, a four-piece heavy rock n’ reggae outfit hailing from the UK. Skindred’s upcoming Lava Records debut, scheduled for release in the summer of 2004, is entitled Babylon, and it will undoubtedly be considered one of the most impressive rock releases this year.
Hailing from South Wales, Skindred is the project of eclectic, energetic vocalist Benji Webbe and fellow bassist-programmer, Daniel Pugsley. The two joined musical forces following the demise of Benji’s first band, Dub War. Skindred’s lineup also features axe-man Mikey Dee and drummer Dirty Arya who joined the band in December 2002 and have been blowing the roof off ever since. “Skindred is dancehall; it’s punk; it’s metal, it’s who we are,” Pugsley proclaims. Call it what you want, but it’s that cohesive nether-region where Bounty Killa meets The Police — where 311 and System of a Down collide.
RAGGA PUNK METAL! Skindred is quite simply unlike anything you’ve heard. Elements of Metal, Dancehall, Punk, and Drum & Bass, all swirling into a concoction of lethal addictiveness. Their debut CD Babylon was produced by Howard (POD) Benson, mixed by Rick (INCUBUS) Will and has to be one of the most important and impressive releases in heavy rock in years. In an era of fakes, frauds and imitators, Skindred delivers.
Skindred has already been winning over crowds in Europe with their intense RAGGA METAL sound. This band makes Metalheads, Punks and Dreadheads rock out to the same song. this is the true meaning of unity sound. After spending 2 years demoing over 40 songs and building up a powerful live set, the band toured supporting the likes of Soulfly, One Minute Silence and Fishbone to name a few. The album was only released in a few territories in Europe but was met with great critical acclaim. Skindred went onto support Soil / Adema and P.O.D / Ill Nino on two major European tours, and played a storming set at the Ozzfest UK 2002.
With songs like Nobody, Set It Off, Babylon and Selector this band is so far apart from the pack that any attempt to describe or categorize them is an exercise in futility. Where Bad Brains meets The Deftones, where Bounty Killa meets The Police, where 311 meets System Of A Down, this is the sonic landscape Skindred calls home US based label Bieler Bros/ MCA had been huge fans very early on and the label lunged at the chance to sign Skindred. They offered them a new record deal for the world, which also involved pushing their debut album BABYLON. We firmly believe this band could change the face of rock music. Once in a very, very long while a band like Skindred comes along with a record this imaginative, fresh and cutting edge, said label President Jason Bieler.
Mikey Dee and Dirty Arya joined the band in December 2002 and have been performing live shows and writing fresh material with Dan and Benji ever since. For us its all about the Music Education Entertainment 100% vibes. We deliver our live set more like a reggae sound system than a metal band but the punches power and hard heavy weight guitars hit just as nasty. All we try to do is bounce up the building, set the pit off making the place buzz with X-sightment Dread heads rock metal heads skank and when we finish with the stage, YOU DONE KNOW that SKINDRED RULE the Original Ragga-Metal style.
“I grew up near the water in the docks area of South Wales, which had a large Arabian population,” Benji recollects. “There were a lot of black people from the West Indies, people from the west coast of Africa, a lot of Irish and Italian immigrants. It was a very multicultural area. I remember a saying, growing up which said, ‘It’s not about black or white — it’s about being wrong or right.’ A kid can come from my town and being black, didn’t mean he’s in a gang, you know? Growing up with different cultures around you is a beautiful thing and that made me the person I am today. If I grew up in a straight black area, I might be a totally different person. Instead, I had all these Irish kids around me, singing their songs and doing their jigs. The Africans had their music, the Jamaicans and the Islanders; even the Arabians had their music you know?”
By today’s standards, Skindred is completely unique in their musical approach. “There’s no scene for what we’re playing,” says Benji. “There are few bands that like and play the same kind of music as we do. We didn’t set out to start a reggae/rock scene; we were just playing one or the other. If I had to play just one type of music, I’d be bored as hell.” Benji continues, “The amalgamation of the styles in our songs keeps me happy, which is important—it pushes us forward. Maybe one day the world will catch up with us and if it doesn’t work out, you’ll find me back here, at home, singing rock and reggae.”
With Dirty Arya and Mikey Dee in tow, Skindred intends to transport fans to a higher level of consciousness. Babylon’s first single "Nobody" is a genre-bending, high-octane hybrid of dancehall and metal. It’s a sucker-punch to the ribs musically. Babylon’s entire tone is unsettling. From the drum-and-bass album opener "Set It Off" to the metal-ized toasting on the title track "Babylon," Skindred is bringing their reggae-fied metal, dreadhead-dub to the masses. Whatever you call it, Skindred is making rock music exciting again.
“Benj and I both loved the Pistols and Queen. The way Freddie Mercury delivered his vocals, so strong and soulful, it just rocked,” Daniel confesses. “We absorbed as many different musical styles as we could. The first real rock record I had was Appetite For Destruction but I didn’t buy another rock record until Follow The Leader ‘cuz I was so into dancehall and reggae and drum and bass. We were into everything, and we wanted to play everything.” Benji also had diverse influences, which ultimately affected the recording of Babylon. “Growing up around all these Rasta men, the reggae playing, dreads swinging; each time we heard 'Another One Bites the Dust,' my foot would be tapping. I was deep into dancehall for so long but the thing that might have brought me back to heavy music may have been the Judgment Night soundtrack. It had all these rap and hard rock bands side by side. Helmet and House Of Pain, it was so amazing because you had bands from different worlds making music together.”
“When we write a tune,” Benji comments, "it goes something like this. We try to imagine artists like Helmet and Sean Paul in the studio together and see where it goes from there. Then we’ll say, what if Bob Marley sang with Queen and go for it again. On 'The Fear,' Danny and I decided to do a few different songs and work on the influences. We did 'Ramble On,' by Led Zep; we did some stuff by a guy called Tenor Saw and we did some Clash. For me it’s just about bullying. People have been bullied for thousands of years. I had this friend who was going through a lot at the time, and I felt it was a partial message to him to get strong and stay through it, you know? And that’s what I was aiming for lyrically. For me, a band like The Clash is incredible. And I was fortunate enough to meet Joe Strummer and tell him that I was doing a song of his. He was such a gentleman and said, ‘Oh, that’s very nice. Very nice.’ I’ll always be grateful for having had the chance to meet him and share that with him.”
Daniel sums it up best, “Now we’re just trying to take it all forward. We want to do this as a band ‘cuz we believe there’s people like us who want to hear more than just the same thing from the same bands again and again. Just like Benj and I, we like a lot of the same things, but we like different things as well. And that’s how we play our music.”
Source: http://www.skindred.com/ |
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