Interview with Arya
For those who don't know who Skindred are, can you give us a brief introduction to the band and who you are? Well Skindred have been around for about 12 years now. We're about to release our fifth record which is called "Kill The Power", and I play drums in the band. When the band started the singer, Benji was in a band called Dub War in the 90's and when Dub War disbanded he put together a new project. I joined the band 12 years ago, just after the release of the first record Babylon. But you've got four very different people in the band that listen to completely different stuff, but we all like heavy music, so that’s sort of the common thread. But because we all have such different tastes we can draw from all different types of genre's. We're not a crossover band, we're essentially a rock band that take ideals from different places.
Union Black was received with very good reviews and an all round great reception, so what was this like for you? I wasn't expecting anything. The first three records we did in the states because our label and managers are there. We had a certain amount of success there, but with Union Black we wanted to record it in Britain and do something British because we're proud of where we're from. Benji was touching on some serious stuff too, he was really digging in deep and that was quite potent to the rest of us. But when it came out we didn’t know how it was going to do. Our records sort of became part of our tours, so it felt like we did albums to promote tours. But with Union Black we were just making an album. But yeah, it was nice.
What would you say sets Skindred apart from a lot of the heavy bands out there? I think sonically and musically we're pretty apart, no one sounds like us. We stand out on our own, we are by ourselves because we can do very different things. We don't discriminate against anyone and we invite anyone to come and listen to us. I think it's very good for people to find an entry point and to find a scene that they feel they belong in. It's like when you listen to something very different to what you normally do. It's like "I'm into this, but I shouldnt be".