FABRYKA INDUSTRIAL ROCK & METAL ENCYCLOPEDIA - Skumlove

2008-08-01 |

Katarzyna NINa Górnisiewicz and Marco Gariboldi |

e-mail interview

NINa: Seems like your fans are mostly young or very young people. What may attract them to your music? How do they identify with you?

SKUM:I think it's the honesty in our songs, the rebelliousness. I sing about things they want they love in the words of Iggy Pop; a lust for life.

Marco: Church Of The New Perversion is your official street team, you also credit your fans as the band members and it’s a great thing in my opinion, it shows how much you respect your fans. How much is it important to have a street team in 2008?

SKUM: For us a street team isn't just here "go promote the band so we make money" thing. It is a way of bringing our fans together as a unit. The one thing that is missing from today's music scene is unity everyone likes a band for a week then jumps to the next and there is no loyalty or unity. A street team does that and lets the fans control who hears us and where we go to play. As importance it is really important and hard thing to do.
The band Gorgeous Frankenstein just contacted us because we are trying to do some shows with them and they wanted me to help set them up with a street team because they know I used to run them for bands and I have a good team now behind SKUMLOVE.

Marco: You directed the Dysfunctional video and the result is a terrific video clip that shows the energy of your band playing live. What is your involvement to Deadpool Productions?

SKUM: I met Deadpool Prod. on line a few years ago and when we met and talked they were very excited about the music and my ideas and knew how to get them across.
They were a young company mainly two guys Brian and Pablo. They first did our I Am Your God video and then they did the My Machine video. But if you watch them all you can see how they have grown and we put a story line in Dysfunctional Doll that really drives the video.

NINa: Dysfunctional Doll. Does it say about any girlfriend of yours from the past? ;)

SKUM: It's about meeting my wife. We used to hate each other for years and then like 8 years went by and I forgot about it and one night at this club all us freaks would go to called the Pretty Ugly club (ran by my friend JD (who passed away) and Taime Downe of Faster Pussycat) we met again and she had a lil spunk to her an attitude but is was sexy. And then I realized this is that girl that I hated back in the day. So it was kinda Dysfunctional and she was dressed like an evil doll so I wrote about it. It wasn't a conscience decision it just came out and I had to figure out that's what it was about. So it's my first love song HAAHAA!

NINa: Godless Remix is the best thing on the album to me, mostly thanks to its layered structure and dynamics. What are your views on that remix CDs mass production coming out these days? Do the bands feel burnt out or do they feel like mentors to give a chance to those less known musicians to feature their works on the remix albums?

SKUM: Remixes have been on albums for a long time but mainly in the industrial genre and now a lot of regular bands in the commercial rock world have adopted it. But it is still the Industrial and Electro, EBM style bands that get the smaller programmers and DJs to remix their songs. Godless is a remix of the song I Am Your God and I wanted that to be remixed because when I began writing that song I was just playing around with some dance beats and stuff in a dark disco style and used to just play the electronic parts at house parties to get the girls to start dancing and my original guitarist Robyn Sin said I should put guitar on it so we did and then after we recorded it our former drummer Justin Bennett who went on to work for Skinny Puppy and Thrill Kill Kult met while he was playing in Professional Murder Music wanted to remix it so we let him and it turned into this hard electro industrial dance song that blew me away. He did it while playing in Skinny Puppy and think that's why it turned out like it did. They still play it at clubs all over.

Marco: Let's say "Seven Deadly Sins" speaks for your thoughts on every primal sin. How do you live with them? (Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride).

SKUM: Some mention the 7 deadly sins but I enjoy the 31 flavors of sins that I cannot talk about and only you can discover on your own lol! HaHAHAHA! Sins are only sins because some book made by some self righteous assholes that felt guilt about engaging in them said they were.
Lust: it leads to pleasure and it's the only bridge you can cross to get to love.
Gluttony: nothing like sitting down to a huge feast and eating till you pass out or do things in excess but it does take its toll so think of it as once in a blue moon sin because it looses its enjoyment if it's done all the time.
Greed: as some look to it as bad it does lead to determination and those that die with the most toys win HAHAHAH!
Sloth: this is the sin of America. We as a nation are lazy but the aforementioned Greed usually gets us out of this.
Wrath: like Revenge is a necessary evil and for the moment you feel Proud but usually ends in Guilt and Regret which to me are more deadly than anything else.
Envy: without it there is no competition. If someone has something you like and want go out and work to get your own and work harder to get a better one!
Pride: I see nothing wrong with pride, be proud of who you are and what you are, hold yourself in the most highest regard you can. Without you nothing exists.

Demoness Love: What are your thoughts on religion?

SKUM: Religion, a concept to spread fear among the weak and control the flock with promises of grandeur when you die.

NINa: What's your opinion about the rise and fall of Marilyn Manson? Do the public need such performers or do they feel fed up with when it turned out some other bands acted like Manson on the stage as well?

SKUM: Sticky subject as I personally found his music entertaining and what he was doing great and did have an imprint on what I do but as usual it turned out to be an act. He was just a norm with shaved eye brows and dressed like tranny for his ultimate goal, see drugs and rock and roll. Seeing him now and knowing people close to him the only thing scary about him is how much he cares more for drugs then his own music. Truly a tragic day when Manson died and Mr. Warner was reborn.
Glenn Danzig once told me early on in my career: "Skum, you reminded me of Marilyn Manson but real not an act."

Demoness Love: What jobs did you have before music became a big part of your life?

SKUM: Everything known to man but longest last job I had a piercing shop in Venice Beach Ca. and have been piercing for 14 years. Genitorturer did my first piercings on stage.

NINa: It bothers me a lot because we are on the same side of the scene so regarding your newly released album, does it make sense to promote and sell any new music these days if the internet allowed people to steal the artist's hard work?

SKUM: We all download music and do not pay for some. I do it, everyone does but some of us download it and like it so much we go buy it afterwards. I've been getting free promo CDs from labels for 20+ years & that costs the labels way more money than just letting an album leak onto the internet. Internet leaks are a marketing tool I know I worked for labels that asked me to leak an album so it stirs the marketing pot of the corporate world! To say the internet has destroyed the business of music is bullshit. What has destroyed it is the lack of quality music being released through the internet. There is no more rock stars or idols, everyone is a Myspace star.

Demoness Love: Do you get involve in politics?

SKUM: Only personal ones and I was never political. I in my 35 years of life have not seen one change in world politics. This is how I see it:
We as children of the U.S. complain to our parents (the Government) in the White House about the rules but like I tell my own children this is my house, my rules if you do not want to live in it - leave. And us as Americans are like rich latchkey kids we are told what the rules are but the parents are never home anyway and are out at public functions so we still do what we want. But the house next door in the Middle East, those kids are getting beat to hell by their governmental parents daily for looking them in the eyes. So STOP BITCHING ABOUT IT! We here in America basically live our lives the way we want. The local governments say we are gonna regulate this or that and we want to take this away. Even in music I listen to whatever I want I write the kind of music I want and it will never be any different. In the 80's and 90's it was the PMRC and that was the best marketing and press rebellious music ever got. I went out and bought every album with a sticker on it. No one asked my age because the people working at the record stores were teens themselves. So no, I have no opinion on politics. Hahaha.

NINa: Are you playing any gigs soon?

SKUM: Umm we are always playing gigs but we want to tour. We do not want to go out there blindly in a van and show up at clubs we never heard of and play to 4 or 5 people and come home broke miserable and hating life. We want a planned out mission that can be realistically accomplished and execute it. Touring for small bands suck right now with the economy and gas prices.

NINa: What are your favourite US clubs to perform at?

SKUM: Umm so many… Everyone has its own magic from the Roxy and the Whisky in Hollywood to Brick By Brick in San Diego and Chicago has some great clubs, Arizona is one of our favorite states to play. The other members liked the clubs in Canada that they played (I was turned away at the border but that's another story). House of Blues are always great to play in. I've been touring with bands for many years and have seen some great places and some shit holes but with Skumlove we still have not yet ventured too far.
We just played as a huge local club called the Ivar here in Hollywood which normally cater to the Paris Hiltons of the world but we played there on a special night called Club Hell and they had suspensions and bondage racks and erotic artwork for sale and we played in this 2nd story small room that was incased in glass so you can see the whole club and we had to bring our own P.A. and shit and kinda planned for a shit night and it turned out to be one hell of a show! So you never know what to expect and some bands talk shit about clubs and we've just never seen the stuff they hate but on the other hand we have been to clubs that people said were great and they were 'horrorible'.

Skumlove at Myspace | official website