SKIN: THE VOICE OF A DIVA

Daniela Bonetto speaks to Skin following the release of a new album, sound and a renaissance of sorts.

By Hend Seif El Din

Being a fan of these sounds meant that when Skunk Anansie was out of the picture for a long nine years we didn’t know where to bang our heads anymore. Skin has always been very honest about why the band went into hiatus in the first place. “It was more to do with problems in the band. We were just exhausted by all the playing, but we had time to recover and sort ourselves out. I think we’re better than ever now.” Thankfully the return wasn’t hard. Skin describes it as being “really natural.” She believed that the band had reached a point where a time-out was necessary and it was the perfect occasion for them to re-think their past and look towards their future. “People are looking for emotion in their music and realness, and you can’t get that from contestants on X Factor. And you want to see live music, a live band like us; because I think we’re much more interesting.”

And we have been waiting. Their triumphant welcome-back album, Wonderlustre in 2010 made us realise how much we had missed them. And now another three years later and going at it solo they are back with another fabulous sound. “Black Traffic is our best ever,” she states. With genuine enthusiasm Skin declares that this album holds, “some of my favourite lyrics on it. It’s driving and modern.”

The band which still includes the four original members and fiery chemistry is still very much playing alternative rock and sleek melodies. And of course there is Skin, with her unmistakable diva vocals in the opener ‘I Will Break You’ and ‘Satisfied?’ where the classic punk-ish energy still distinguishes them from the masses. Skin reveals that she takes good care of herself although “my voice has changed though, as on this album I’ve sung everything a lot lower as an experiment, and also when you’re going on tour, it’s good not to keep hitting high notes. It’s a different matter when you’re in the studio, but I now do a lot of songs in mid-range.”

But some things never change. “We never made it on the radio then! We were a band that never made it onto the Radio 1 playlists or anywhere. We were always a kind of cult band, and now we’re an Internet band, a YouTube band, because we’ve never really invested in the mainstream and it never welcomed us.” She continues, “They’re missing out the fact that with the Internet, people are looking for bands that can touch their souls. I mean, there are lots of young people out there who are writing their own material but I think that what’s on the radio is really quite different from what’s going on live, and on the internet and YouTube”.

Social media has also taken a liking to Skunk Anansie and they have had a good response. “[Social media is] very, very good, to be honest. That’s where our market is these days, and most of our fans are on Twitter or Facebook. There’s a lot of word-of-mouth there.”

Times change and it’s incredible to see how this band is still at the forefront of their genre. “I think one of the things we do is make our artwork very beautiful and make it very attractive to people and do special things. The way we do it is go ok, you download the music for free then you’ve got to try and do something else for the band like spread the word, buy a ticket to a gig, or buy the artwork. And we’re internet monkeys so we do a lot of social networking all that kind of stuff…”