This month, we had a chinwag with upcoming Irish singer/songwriter/producer Skinner. Check it out!

1) Hey Skinner, cheers for chatting with us today fella! First thing’s first – where are you at and where did it all start music-wise?

No problem at all. I’m currently sitting in bed sick with an Irish Tour looming over me in 2 days and I’m wandering how I’m going to get my voice in order haha. I’ve been doing some vocal warmups that Dara Kiely from Gilla Band showed me so hopefully they work.

I got into music through my older sister in a way. She got an acoustic guitar for Christmas one year when I was about 6 years old. She hounded my parents for it for ages and then when she finally got it she played it for like a day and then forgot about it. I just picked it up one day and started playing it and I liked it so I just kept doing it. After that I started playing in bands when I was 10 and writing songs and eventually started doing Skinner in 2016 initially as a recording project.

2) So you’re in Dublin… what’s the scene like there? Tell us a bit about what cracks off…

Yeah its pretty cool. I actually really like the scene at the moment. For a long time it was just lads in bad suits making “post-punk” music and it got to a point where I think everybody just got sick of it. It was extremely boring and grey sounding. Now you’ve got some awesome bands with a genuinely original sound coming up like Cruel Sister, Mhaol, Search Results, Pow-Pig, Crying Loser, Problem Patterns, Lifts and Girlfriend. It feels a lot more diverse and healthier now to me.

3) Talk to us about your writing process… how do you like to get creative? And do you self-produce?

Yeah I produce all my own stuff. I’ve never worked with a producer or a writer or anything like that. It seems like thats the way the industry is going these days though, half of the artists that are punk bands don’t even write their own songs. Just go through the credits on their albums and you’ll see what I mean.

For me writing has always been a solitary thing. It’s my escape and if I don’t do it everyday then I don’t feel well, I feel sick. I have no choice but to do it in a way haha. I don’t really have a set process. Set processes are used in factories and laboratories to make the same thing consistently over and over again. I never want to repeat myself so once I find something that works I try to forget it and move onto to something else to keep the writing process interesting for myself. I don’t like when music becomes formulaic.

Recently I bought a really nice 1966 Premier drum kit and some nice mics and I’ve been playing around with different drums loops in my studio and writing over them. I used to always program my drums from drum machines so this is something new for me and I enjoy working with real drum sounds.

I’ve also really gotten into The Fall so that might tell you a lot.

4) We’ve seen you getting some mega playlist support lately. What’s happened release-wise so far?

Yeah I bribed the algorithm hahaha. Only joking, I guess the playlist editors just like my stuff. So far I’ve released two EPs called ‘Gunge’ and ‘Commander Trainwreck’. I like the idea of incorporating different instruments and styles into my music as much as possible. It keeps it exciting for me rather than finding something that works and then sticking to it and those two EPs are examples of that. I’m in the middle of writing an album at the moment and so far the songs are really weird, in a good way. I got very into playing percussion the last two years so theres a lot of that on the new stuff. Congas, bongos, ect.

5) And what’s next? Any touring coming up that we can shout about?

Yeah we’ve got an Irish Tour starting on Feb 2nd and we’ll be playing in Dublin, Galway, Cork and Limerick. We’ll also be playing The Great Escape this year in May. It’ll be our first time playing in the UK so we’re looking forward to it!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skindizzle/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skekn

Twitter: https://twitter.com/skindizzle_

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2Se7imfs8bxem8G6oVNABJ

Bandcamp: https://skinner97.bandcamp.com/