Skindred
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After a lengthy period in between albums, reggae-metal hybrid Skindred has returned once again to push the musical boundaries of heavy music. The group's recently released sophomore effort, Roots Rock Riot, is a versatile exploration of metal, pop, punk and reggae that elevates the band to a level all their own. While most bands are trying to write the perfect hardcore breakdown, Skindred has come up with something unique and truly original in an age of bland music recycling
Skindred frontman Benji Webbe sat down with Blistering.com to discuss the process of creating a Roots Rock Riot, why it’s been a few years in between Skindred albums, his previous beef with Earache Records and his side-project Mass Mental with Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo.
Blistering.com: To some long time fans we’ve been waiting on this album for almost 5 years since the original release of Babylon?
Benji: Don’t say it like that! (Laughs) We toured our asses off on Babylon for over 2 years and then we wrote and recorded for about another 2, but it was nothing to do with the band’s writing ability. Some people have asked, “Did you have problems writing this record?” The attitude that Skindred has towards writing music has always been great, because we’ve actually written about 120 songs throughout our different line-ups. It had nothing to do with us not having the songs to record and just label bullshit as usual. We had about 60 songs written when we did Babylon and then about another 44 when we did Roots Rock Riot, but it was always some bullshit with the label like they weren’t ready for us yet or this asshole has left; just constant bullshit.
Blistering.com: Were you surprised at the way Babyloncaught on and sold a quarter of a million units after MCA basically threw in the towel on it?
Benji: I’m a firm believer that if anyone gets behind anything, even if it’s a lump of shit with a flag in it then it’ll go. The good thing about that album was that while it was written a long time ago, because of the style of music we play it doesn’t sound old even to this day.
Blistering.com: What happened with LAVA Records that you are now 100% independent again with Bieler Bros Records? It’s hard to believe they would want to see you leave after impressive sales of the last album.
Benji: Well Lava just never had the balls and didn’t believe in us. And now that label is no more so thank god we left. The Bieler Bros. have the record now and we’ll have to see how everything goes down.
Blistering.com: The album is titled after the track “Roots Rock Riot”, can you explain why that was chosen for the title?
Benji: We just wanted something that hit people hard like a hammer when it came on and that song is kind of like the ultimate Skindred dancehall sort of song. That song has got the madness of my vocal gymnastics and the riffs are hard as fuck. We just wanted to hit people as hard as possible with the first song and we did that. The title comes from when we were younger there used to be this thing called “Roots Rock Reggae” that Bob Marley brought out and all the other Jamaican artists were championing it. I think we took the elements of that Jamaican sound and put our own little metal slant on it. It’s kind of like the West and the Jamaican sound coming together.
Blistering.com: In the past Skindred has always utilized a variety of musical styles, but this album is truly a musical melting pot with elements of punk, reggae and there are even pop elements thrown in there…
Benji: I believe that the album developed over time and we do this reggae-punk rock thing, which sonically I think we came into our own this time. We’re always pushing things forward, because we don’t want to get pigeonholed and have people say “Oh that’s all they can do.” We’ve already started talking about writing a new album.
Blistering.com: This record doesn’t really sound like anything else out there in music today, do you feel like you have any musical contemporaries?
Benji: No there’s not. Some people have called it nu-metal, but I don’t know what they’re talking about. For me personally, when we set out to write songs we don’t try and set out to do something drastically different, we’re just doing what’s in our hearts. We all listen to a lot of different styles of music like Helmet and Botch, then I’m listening to Denis Brown or if you take off Arya’s headphones he’s listening to some flippin’ obscure Swedish metal band. We’re inspired by a wide range of music, but we’re not trying to be different. We don’t want to be the weird kids in school; we just want to make music that we love. We just wanted the album to sound like Skindred and I think everybody that puts on the album will say it sounds like us.
Blistering.com: The only band I can think of that is moving in the same musical direction as Skindred, is the band (Hed)P.E. with their new album.
Benji: I was actually asked to sing on the last (Hed)P.E. album, but I try not to do too many guest appearances and I was already doing something with the band Bullet For My Valentine’s new album. With Bullet For My Valentine it was cool because they just came to me and Matt said, “I want something melodic and heavy” and I told them that is my middle name (Chuckles). It’ll be cool to tour with them because we’ll be playing for a more metal audience. We’ve been blessed to tour with bands like Reel Big Fish and then Soulfly and we won over fans with both because we have that ability to touch different audiences.
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