ALL THESE GREAT ANSWERS - Skies Turn Black
What’re your highlights of the year so far?
Danny Woodhead (Bass) – The highlight has gotta be the UK tour we had in April in the build up to releasing Broken Hearts & Bad Habits. We had a blast on those shows, sold more merch than we ever thought we would and met some absolute legends in Andromedous. Seeing those guys smash it 9 days in a row was killer.
What are your goals for the rest of the year?
DW – The aim is always to be playing bigger rooms, we think that suits us and gives us more of an opportunity to present ourselves how we want to be presented. Its always a brilliant challenge playing to a room full of people who don’t know us and seeing people get more and more onside with us.
Which new bands/artists are you into right now?
DW – The mix of bands on rotation have been pretty varied for me. Adore Sleep Token’s latest. Spiritbox have released a cracker of an album this year. The Andromedous EP slaps. I think the most listened to album could be the most recent Poppy release. It could be close to being like my perfect album, with the range of genre it covers, heavy and pop elements it has. Although, I discovered Kim Dracula at Download this year and that is mental. Love it.
What was the band or artist that got you into music or inspired you to be a musician?
DW - Rush will always be the reason I initially got excited with music. 20 years I reckon I have been listening to Rush and the ‘favourite’ album changes every year with that discography. As I discovered more music and grew up with an alternative scene, other bands really inspired the kind of ‘live musician’ I wanted to be. Bands like Four Year Strong, A Day To Remember, Avenged, Bullet. Every time I saw them it was a rowdy show and an epic performance.
AI has become a bone of contention among creators. What’s your view of it?
DW - AI in music is a really interesting, bizarre experiment. It can’t really create a product that you can really thoroughly enjoy because its soulless. Music is such a human thing because its not perfect and it’s the imperfections that people really love. It cannot ever really truly be perfect. And when AI improves and strives to create something that is perfection in musical form, it will just seem odd. The human aspect can’t be emulated.
Speak to us about your guitar tone; which records inspired it and how did you achieve it?
George Turner (Guitar) - Well initially I was going for a sevenfold nightmare kinda thing but what turned out is nothing like that. But I guess the idea is there, tight with as little gain as you can get away with. We used our Quad Cortex to record the guitars and the Dingwall and Darkglass technology to get the bass tones.
Vocally, who inspired the band?
Jamie Jordan (Vocals) - I'd say my favourite vocalists are singers like M Shadows and Russell Allen, guys who can get high with a lot of grit. Xander and I both spent a lot of time listening to Seb Bach from Skid Row, we both borrow a lot of techniques from him. We both like a lot of layered vocal harmonies, old school bands like Queen and The Eagles inspired lots of our vocal heavy sections.