SKIN

INTERVIEW BY:

Kate Fitzpatrick

It’s been six years since alt-angst rockers Skunk Anansie went their separate ways and whilst we’ve heard very little from the male contingent (well the drummer’s in Feeder) leading lady Skin is already on her second solo album. Currently half way through a European tour in support of sophomore effort Fake Chemical State, Thunder Chunky caught a few words with the lady Brit Rock forgot…

 Skin, we hope you’re feeling comfortable…being mid way through the tour, how’s it all going?

 Well 6 dates down and 7 more to go and it’s been going really really well. 

So no Spinal Tap moments…?

 Oh no we’re always spinal tap I think we invented that movie…

 No particular moments that spring to mind?

 Nah.. they’re all too embarrassing to recount, I mean noone can sing today except me, I’m the only one that can…so I suppose we’re not that spinal tap more spinal crap!

 Although you do essentially have a band around you, it’s just you on tour. Do you miss being part of an ‘actual’ band?

Well it does feel like a band experience, I think that’s what I’ve created. I’ve created what I’m used to and what feels good and what sounds the best.

 As a European resident is it nice being back on British shores now you live in France?

Yeah, I'm actually goimg to be here more this year as I have been away for 6 years. I need to find a house here as I’m going to be round a bit more and it’ll be nice to be around my family again. I like being in the UK for short periods of time, enough to get  topped up with all the arts and then to go off and sit in the sun again!

So was that a reason for the change – the weather?

To be honest when I was in Skunk Anansie out of those 7 years of touring the average amount of time we spent in the UK was a month every year and I suppose I just got used to the fact that I was never home. We were always on tour, we’d follow the sun being in Australia in winter and Europe in summer. Also I think I’ve had a lot more success in Europe so that’s why that tended to happen.

Do you prefer the way which the European music industry works in that when you release an album it’s allowed to grow?

Yeah, it’s much healthier. I think there is so much inference on the first week of release in the UK. A lot of my favourite records took a good few months to get going I mean Radiohead’s The Bends is one of my favourite records but it wasn’t until they’d done loads of touring that about a year later everybody started picking up on it. Also somebody like James Blunt, nobody was bothered with him at all when his album was first released it’s like that with a lot of good stuff not that I put James Blunt in with good stuff, it’s not that instant. Nowadays a lot of music gets hyped and it does very well very quickly then those bands just get slagged and none’s interested after 6 months which is a bit of a shame.

I feel sorry for the Arctic Monkeys they’re really good and they’re released a great album but already there is a backlash against that band. They’ve done really well really quickly and because they’ve done it themselves people are so jealous of that band.

 Following on from the monkeys, do you think it’s healthy people are using the internet and pushing their music digitally?

Yeah, it’s very healthy and very encouraging. I think downloading is definitely the future and I think that a lot of artists are really scared about it. They find it difficult.

 Do you download yourself?

I do and I also pay for my downloads I’ve never ever downloaded anything illegally. I believe downloading is easy and it’s fun. I do get bored of it sometimes and I feel like if I like a record I have to go and physically buy it to get the sleeve and I think the quality is a bit better.

I made my first single download only as I wanted to train people to come to my website because I believe in the internet and I think it gives the artist back a lot of control that for the first time in a long time we can get back some of the control we lost when greedy business men started ripping off talented people who knew nothing about the music business.

 The new record, Fake Chemical State has been 3 years in the making what are the main differences musically and in the production between this and your debut Fleshwounds?

They’re completely different, chalk and cheese. Fleshwounds was very introverted, Fake Chemical State is very overt. Fleshwounds was basically written in one room in my house in France and people came to visit me and I wrote with people. It was all about quality songwriting and producing this classic album. I wasn’t really worried about the music side of things it was all about the quality of the songwriting and the lyrics. It also took a while because I didn’t want to be out there, then writing recording and touring that record made me get back out there and made me a part of everything and then that’s when I started writing Fake Chemical State. FCS is more outrageous, much more lively it’s much about the music as well as the songwriting. Productionwise it was made in a completely different way, I did say a weeks songwriting then 2 months off then a weeks songwriting two months. All this going to a recording studio performance just really turns me off, I’ve done it for 4 albums now. What really works for me is the live experience and that’s what I want to capture on the record and I’ve never captured that before so that’s what I did I had a live mentality to my recording.

Mansun’s Paul Draper worked with you on the record how did that collaboration come about?

Somebody from my previous record company EMI suggested it. It was something that kinda worked so I kept on doing it even after I left the label. He’s great, he’s really ingenious and fun to work with. He was a nice guy as well, really really talented and he taught me a lot about music.

You we part of the Brit Rock scene…

 No! We weren’t we always got left out!

Well party to it at least, now that rock seems to be reinventing itself with the glut of guitar based bands who is grabbing your attention?

I discover new bands every week. I was listening to a band called Fields last night who are absolutely brilliant. I’m a massive Greenhorns fan, and I also like Bloc Party, Gang of Four, Young People, Clor, Sigur Ros, The Editors….There’s lots of really good stuff around at the moment.

 Do you have any burning desire to work with any of these young upstarts?

No, I think people should do their own thing. The Americans are so obsessed with collaborations and English people aren’t really like that we prefer doing stuff on our own I mean at least for your first and second album you need to develop your own shit. Unless it’s for some one off charity or something. I like to sit and watch but don’t feel like doing any collaborations.

So where does the rest of the year see you?

 It’s going to be festival heaven for me I’m playing a lot of the European ones this year and English ones are confirmed but I’m not sure which ones yet! So you’ll definitely see me rocking out somewhere.

RELATED LINKS:

www.skinmusic.net