June 27, 2014

Devilskin: The Family That Plays Together… (Interview)

Metal fans around New Zealand have been aware of Hamilton’s Devilskin for several years now…the band has racked up hundreds of thousands of Youtube views for its three videos. Now, the band is finally releasing its debut album. We Rise will see the light of day on July 11th and the band will set out on a 19-date national tour beginning on the South Island on July 17th. Devilskin is fronted by Jennie Skulander, who possess a voice powerful enough to be heard above the guitars of The Nail, the rumbling bass of Paul Martin and the drumming of Nic Martin. Paul Martin is also known as the host of The Axe Attack, The Rock’s Metal show. Both Paul and Jennie stopped by The 13th Floor to have a chat with Marty Duda about the new album and the tour. As it turns out, Devilskin is quite the family affair…

Click here to listen to the Devilskin interview:

Or…read a transcription of the interview here:

MD: Welcome to The 13^th Floor guys. Good to have you here.

JS: Thank you.

MD: Now you’re about to explain to me the family dynamics involved in the band so I think that would be an excellent way to start things off.

PM: Okay thanks Marty. Well okay I’m Paul, I’m the bass player. My evil twin The Nail on guitar.

MD: Right.

JS: Looks the same.

PM: Yeah we kinda do look similar. Some people remarked on that and we do like to swap jackets every now and then and trick our wives and stuff. Yeah we’ve got my son Nic playing drums. In about a year and a bit after we started, 2 years after we started, we replaced the 50 year old drummer with a 15 year old drummer and um, basically Nic’s been with us ever since. So Rob our old drummer had a motorcycle accident and needed an operation and he’d been on the waiting list forever and they gave him like a couple weeks’ notice so I had a captive drummer at home, said ‘right you’re playing for us on this tour or you’re grounded’. Yeah we couldn’t go back to Rob could we Jen?

JS: Not after that.

PM: After that so. Yeah that’s cool and so and then of course Jen’s partner’s my wife’s little brother so.

MD: Of course.

PM: Which is my sister-in-law and Nic’s auntie. So yeah, like I said, The Partridge Family.

MD: Heavy metal Partridge Family. You have a bus?

PM: We do have a bus.

MD: Excellent. I used to work with a band back in the States, they were a hard rock band and they had a school bus that they travelled around in and it was the only way to go.

PM: Yeah we wouldn’t go anywhere without a bus, it’s awesome.

MD: So the album We Rise is about to come out. You’re going on this big tour and I get the feeling that the album is been a long time coming because the band has been doing stuff for several years now but finally the record is arrived after a few singles kind of trickling out. What’s been the reason for it taking so long?

PM: Um, just because we wanted it to sound awesome. We didn’t want to put out a half-right version of what we wanted to achieve. We all had the dream of the sound we wanted and everything we want to do justice to the songs. We had an offer from a label a while ago, we could have put the album out a year and a half ago but it wouldn’t have been how we wanted it. We’ve taken our time, had complete control over it and we’re happy and it’s worth the wait. I think people will sorta understand that once they hear it.

MD: I assume all the songs are originals and how was the song writing? Was that a long process as well or did relatively easy.

PM: Our song writing is a real easy process, ae Jen. We just sorta, as soon as we’re in a room together we’re creating stuff, we’ve got to put the brakes on sometimes, we get too many ideas coming out at once and it’s never been a problem. Writing songs just always, just comes really, really naturally to us all. Once we get together and start jamming someone’s riff or someone’s idea, bang. I think we wrote, we wrote like two songs in rehearsal or three songs in rehearsal for the first two or three rehearsals, didn’t we?

JS: Actually um, I think the first rehearsal I think we wrote Little Pills and we didn’t actually release that song for maybe two years. Yeah and all of a sudden it’s all over the radio and people going ‘oh, your new song Little Pills’ and it was like, that’s like one of our first songs, you know, its old to us.

MD: Right.

JS: Yeah so, and I guess, yeah with lyric writing as well. I mean, I try to write from experiences but try to disguise them a little bit, it you know what I mean.

MD: Yeah, it is a small country.

JS: Yeah, exactly.

MD: And vocally, I mean you have your vocal sound, your voice is a very distinctive part of the band obviously. It’s very powerful and how did you develop it? Did you know that you could do this all along or did you have people, other singers, that you’d look to for inspiration? How did it work?

JS: Um, I guess for me I grew up on my dad’s music. My dad was, you know, right into heavy metal. So as a kid I was always hearing Judas Priest and Iron Maiden and Dio you know, that sort of thing. And on my mum’s side there’d be like Rod Stewart and Elvis and that but I used to sort of try and imitate the voices when I was younger.

MD: Right.

JS: Yeah and I guess, you know, I kind of fell into the whole music thing. I mean I loved music in high school but I was more into art. I joined a vocals group just so I can get out of science class.

MD: Smart move.

JS: Yeah but I had a music teacher sort of pick up on it and she’d like make me enter contests and competitions and all of a sudden, you know, I’ve won like the Rock Quest regionals and you know, got a new band and we’re doing well and yeah. It was quite crazy how it all kind of just happened. Yeah I mean I’ve never actually had vocal lessons.

MD: Really?

JS: I’ve just you know, the vocal group that I joined in high school to get out of class.

MD: Right.

JS: Yeah so to me it was all a bit of a learning experience in the last 14 years yeah.

MD: Now I assume when you’re performing live, when you’re singing like that it puts a strain on the voice sometimes. Do you have to do anything to kinda make sure you don’t blow it out or just kind of, there’s some pretty heavy stuff going on there.

JS: Yeah I, I just gotta learn to take it easy. I mean like I said it’s been a learning curve like over the years, what my voice can take and what my voice cannot take. But at the moment I’m sort of watching videos like to do proper warm ups because with the tour it’s gonna be 19 shows in a month and a half so it’s gonna be very, very hard on my voice but I think as well you know, with the tour there’s gonna be a lot of nights of finishing the shows and going straight to bed, not talking during the day, I’m gonna take a notepad down by the way. Maybe get a Magnadoodle or something.

MD: Is that a bad thing?

PM: It’s alright, the peace and quiet on the bus is good.

JS: Yeah just warming up. I also like find doing exercises like abdominal exercises really help. Yeah so it’s all gonna be about my voice. I’m not gonna be drinking at all, I’ve found that you know, I’ve always sort of turned to alcohol in the past cause it’s just like ‘oh I’m a rock star, and I can drink’ you know, I used to have a few shots of whisky on stage, once you know, going from screaming to singing, yeah it is really hard on my voice but in the end, you do sing better without alcohol in your system so.

MD: Sad but true.

JS: Not very rock star but hey. Especially when you go on, I go on stage now with a like a cup of ginger and lemon tea and a banana, so yup.

MD: Well actually it’s probably a good thing that you, cause people will have a conception or misconception that you know, you have to be this hard drinking, take everything you can when you’re out on tour and that’s how you become a rock star but the ones that actually survive are the ones who learn that that’s not necessarily the case.

JS: Yeah exactly.

PM: Actually Marty, you know like for my five cents worth, I’ve known Jennie since her very first band. She sang me a demo when she was 16 of Slipping Tongue. It was one of these demos where the, turns up with a scribble on the cover and a broken plastic and it all falls to bits as soon as you open the envelope and I thought ‘oh my god’. Someone had made a bit of a crude, sort of biro drawing, but soon as I heard Jennie’s voice, you know, I instantly knew that she had something special and back then when she was 16, she had the gift that she’s got now. I mean, just learning to appreciate it, the fact that it’s getting so much attention is really um, well its well-deserved I think. I think it was always coming, I’m just stoked to be a part of it, you know, all these years down the track but I always knew back then that Jennie had this amazing gift and it’s just a natural ability that she’s got and it’s gonna blow people away. Yeah the more we’ve got to realise how precious it is, we have to learn to obviously look after it and stuff so. I mean, we’re not that..the days of the hard drinking, you know, fishing at your hotel rooms and catching red snapper and whatever…

MD: Ah yes. The old Led Zeppelin trick.

PM: Too many, too many bands go through the hotels and stuff already before you, you know, so everyone’s got wary to it. You know, to us the music really comes first, the show is a hell of a lot of hard work.

MD: Yeah.

PM: We got a big crew and we put a lot into the live show and you know, that’s way important to us than getting on the booze you know.

MD: So you’ve got, what, 19 shows on this tour?

PM: Yes, yup 19.

MD: Have you ever done a tour of that magnitude before?

PM: No we’ve pretty much gigged constantly though but not so much distance in one short space of time. But yeah we’ve been gigging a lot. I mean, I think that’s, we’ve done the hard yards as far as getting up and down the islands you know, and getting out there and doing the shows but yeah I mean, a concentrated tour where we all have to take so much time off work and stuff like that, bang, that’s what we’ve all been bloomin’ praying for you know.

MD: I’m amazed, there’s 19 places to play. It’s what happens when you’re stuck in Auckland all the time.

PM: Well you know afterwards there might be only 18 or 17. We might come back with 23.

MD: Well what are some of the, I assume there must be fans out there in the hinterlands that are just dying for a good blast of hard rock.

PM: Definitely, yeah definitely. I’ve lived, I’ve grown up in small towns too so I know what it’s like when the cool shows don’t come within cooee of your hometown you know. So we’re hitting a few little places like Reporoa and Methven and you know, just few little spots, whole bunch of places we’ve never played before so.

JS: Going all the way down to Invercargill as well so.

MD: Whoa.

JS: Yeah.

PM: We get a lot of mail from down there. There’s a pretty staunch and vocal crowd down there so it’s important that we get, you know, we do our bit and go see them.

MD: Right, right and have you, you’ve already been to some of these places already so you’ve kinda got an established fan base down there.

PM & JS: Yeah.

PM: Um, was it last year we went to the South Island for the first time. Christchurch was absolutely freakin’ insane.

JS: Yes, yes.

PM: It was just so mad. We weren’t expecting, we’d never played there before and we were hoping to get a crowd but there was like queues outside before the doors opened and it was just madness. Jennie got mobbed.

MD: Wow that’s what you want. It’s great. Well I mean, you must be very in touch with the metal scene in the country because of the radio and all that. It is being served? Is there kind of a real hunger for this kind of music? Are there enough bands out there doing that?

PM: Oh definitely yeah, but you know, the bands and the metal stuff don’t, you know, a lot of the bands just don’t get a chance. You know, we’ve only got where we are today by some of the songs getting picked on the radio, obviously all our hard work as well but I mean, the radio plays have been a real big help for us and there’s so many great metal bands over here that will never get played on the radio because it’s either extreme metal or too heavy or you know. But we’ve definitely got the talent here, you know. New Zealand’s got its own Slayer, we’ve got our own Metallica, we’ve got our own whoever, you know. We’ve got some world class bands here but it’s just hard with the demographic, we just don’t have the right numbers to be able to get out and support them like they deserve to be, you know.

MD: Okay. Now We Rise is also coming out at the same time as the tour. So what can you tell us about the album? Most people haven’t heard it yet, they’ve heard a few of the songs, the videos have been out and around so.

PM: It’s like a roller-coaster ride.

JS: There you go.

PM: That’s actually a ghost train.

MD: Okay,

PM: So it’s got spooky bits.

MD: Yeah I noticed….

PM: Then it gets upside down, it’s got no seatbelts on.

MD: What was the spooky, oh there Is The Horror is actually the spooky bit, yeah there is a track called The Horror.

PM: Yeah a little spooky bit in there. Yeah no it runs the gamut of emotions I think you know, there’s some pretty tender stuff in there, there’s some pretty full on stuff I think. People that have heard Little Pills and Never See the Light and Start a Revolution, the singles, might freak out a little when they hear how angry Jennie gets on a couple of these songs.

MD: Violation is a pretty angry song isn’t it, yeah.

PM: Violation. Yeah, well with Jennie, she got her house robbed.

MD: Oh okay.

PM: So that’s all very real. All that stuff’s real.

JS: I was a very, very bitter person for a while there so I had to write it down.

MD: Well you got to use it right.

JS: Exactly.

MD: So when, yeah. So when you’re in the studio recording a track like that. How do you get yourself in a place where you can do that cause this can’t be easy.

JS: Well when I was actually doing that track yeah, I remember you know, we were going through all the takes, it was taking, it was a long process, the song because you know, with that song it is mainly screams and it is very hard on my voice and you know like I was doing them and Clint Murphy our producer, he was just ‘nah, nah you can do it better than that, come on you can get more angrier than that, what’s the song about’ and I told him and he’s like okay, he’s like ‘look, I’m one of the girls breaking into your house’ you know like trying to get me wrapped wrap but it worked and all of a sudden here I am. I’m just like screaming my lungs out and yeah it’s coming out the way it should so yeah.

MD: There are dynamics to the album, there’s strings, like you mentioned.

JS & PM: Yes.

MD: So do you think people are, how are you gonna pull that off live, those tracks?

PM: Um, we’re gonna have, we’re gonna have a few drum samples that we can use.

MD: Right.

PM: Um in a few spots. Basically I mean, we’re covering a lot of that sound ourselves anyway. Um the strings, yup, maybe when we get a slightly bigger budget, we can take the NZSO on tour with us cause we’ve got all the music…

MD: There you go, you never know.

PM: Yeah, we’ll be doing bits and pieces. Nic, our drummer, has a sample pad with some awesome sounds on it and stuff and we’re just embracing technology a wee bit more.

MD: Alright.

PM: We’re not going over the top with keyboards or with things like that but just embracing what we’ve used because we want the album,…people to be able to hear the album when they come see us.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yQgbYL4bIE]
MD: Right. Now you mentioned Nic, who you said is your son. What is it like being on the road, I mean I would love to have his point of view but we don’t have him here so you’ll get yours.

PM: It’s a lot of fun. He’s, well he’s a lot of fun, he’s a real crackup. It’s the coolest thing in the world for me to play in a cool band with my son and you know, night after night turn around and think ‘man, the drums sound good’ and turn around, that’s my boy, you know. I’ve had drummer issue in bands my whole life, I’ve been in bands you know, since I was a kid. You know, the best way around it is just grow your own.

MD: Right.

PM: Nah, he’s brilliant. The dynamic’s great, he’s a real crackup. He’s full of personality and he’s also a typical teenager so he’s quite happy to put his hoodie on and shrink down into his headphones and not talk to anyone for a couple of days sort of thing. You know, comes out to eat and then make a noise and make a mess and then you know.

MD: Was there any danger of him being kind of indie rocker, kind of sensitive, you know, folky or was he always, was he just like inundated with metal from the time that he popped out.

PM: He was pretty much inundated with, I should say, just good music you know.

MD: Yeah.

PM: Just good music. He grew up with you know, got a pretty broad taste but he likes a bit of everything and yeah he likes some pretty strange stuff, I have to say as well some pretty extreme metal and all sorts but um, I’m just really proud that he’s got such an open mind and he just appreciates good music. He’s done really well at school, he was head boy in his high school last year and he’s um, got Uni this year. He’s doing Uni this year and has got a couple of scholarships. So he works real hard.

MD: Right and does it have to take off from school to go on to tour?

PM: Yeah, yeah.

MD: We don’t wanna talk about that.

PM: I can write a note for him see!

MD: I’m sure he’s gonna get an education no matter what.

PM: Oh yeah. He’s already had one you know, he’s been in the band since he was 15 and he’s 18 now so you know, he’s grown up around it, he’s grown up a lot.

MD: Yeah.

PM: He’s turned into a really awesome person and a great band mate, as well as a son. I couldn’t be prouder of.

MD: Cool. Well it’s gonna, I’ve seen the signs all over the place. It looks like the tour is ready to take off. It starts at the beginning of July, is that right?

JS: The 17^th July.

MD: 17^thof July

JS: Yup.

MD: Okay. Very good.

JS: So our first show will be in Blenheim, in the South Island

MD: Gotta start somewhere.

JS: Yeah, we’ll spend pretty much two weeks in the South Island, going around there so. Yeah so Blenheim, Nelson, Timaru, Methven, Christchurch, Dunedin, Invercargill, Wanaka, Queenstown, I think that’s it.

PM: You’re good!

JS: Yeah I know.

MD: Man oh man.

JS: Then it’s um, you know, we’ve got a few days off then we start the North Island part of it. Our first in the north island will be Napier, we play Auckland on the 16^th of August.

MD: That’s good cause I’m gonna be out of the country for a couple of weeks at the end of July.

JS: Oh nice.

MD: So I’ll be back in time.

PM: You’ll be back for that. Just down the road.

JS: Yeah just down the road. Powerstation.

MD: Yeah The Powerstation this time, you were at The Kings Arms before right?

JS: Yes.

MD: Yeah, Powerstation is a big deal.

JS: It is a big deal. We’ve played there before. We had played there before, we opened for American band Coheed And Cambria last year.

MD: Oh yeah.

JS: And I actually, my old band opened for them when they came in 2008 so this would be my third time playing at The Powerstation.

MD: Now you got to fill it yourself.