Skyclad have been around for a quarter of a century now and during these long years, they “almost made it” big, but then suffered a variety of setbacks, severe lineup changes and despite having done more than a dozen albums of original music, never lived up to the promise they initially showed. Despite all that, the band is still around, having fun, enjoying life and the company of each other and writing music that’s comes straight from the heart. Half of the band (Graeme, Kevin and Steve) joined us to answer a variety of questions that we had about the past, the future and their brilliant latest album with the rather allegorical and poetic title “Forward Into the Past”.
Hello there – I’m glad to have you on Grande Rock…
K: Thank you for the interview and review.
G: Nice to be here, metaphorically.
It took the Claddies some 8 years to come up with some new stuff, while I think music was ready for a quite a bit... why?
S: Not really, we started stuff in 2011 but then it was just left on the back burner until last year (2016). When we decided to do a new album it actually only took us a few months. Various personal things among the members got in the way too.
G: Yes, the music on “FITP” has been around for a while now, but like a good wine it’s been mulled over and left to breath for a few years & tastes a lot better for it. I guess the best explanation is that life got in the way!!
14 studio albums, 18 members in all... the same but different? I felt this album in particular to be taking some cues from the mid-90s-early 00s... musically, but always keeping in tune with the post martin material... at the same time has Bean & Steve’s time in Satan contributed at all to that mini-musical throwback?
S: No, but maybe Dave coming back into the band influenced some of the music. We have the twin guitar going on again in parts.
G: As with all our previous albums there is never a “it should be like this’’ concept, they tend to evolve. I think the whole throwback thing is just what came out, may be subliminally the Satan stuff has dripped into the sound and the feel.
Dave Pugh is back after a number of years in the wilderness. How come? Is he probably the reason in part for the album having a bit of a 90s air?
S: We never lost touch with Dave and he left the band for personal reasons so there was never any bad feeling among us. It was actually at a festival in London, “Live Evil” that Satan were headlining that we got talking about him coming back into the band. He was the lead singer with a band called “Eliminator” who were on at the festival. It was weird watching him perform with no guitar!
G: We met up with Dave a few years back when he was playing with us at a Satan show and it just seemed like no time had passed at all and we’d kind of forgotten how well we all get on. So we got him back into the band to do a special show at Hellfest in France. When that just felt like the most natural thing ever we asked him to join on a permanent basis.
Speaking of which, I recently saw that there was a post of the former singer of the band, talking shit against Kev, why such animosity? After Dave’s comeback, I take it we shouldn’t hold breathe for Martin’s?!
G: As NMA said: “don’t ask any more stupid questions, you already know the answers”. It’s 17 years since Martin left the band, get over it… need I say anymore!!
Kevin, you were a little apprehensive to take over from Martin, but some 4 albums later, it seems that’s water under the bridge... since you were involved in the band from way before... how does it feel - the switch in roles?
K: To be honest, it was a fairly easy transition for me – easier than I expected – because I was already playing live with the band. Remember, I recorded “Vintage Whine” and “Folkemon” as a member of the band, so it was just a case of doing a bit more work.
You’ve been around for some 25 years and I sort of still remember it as yesterday celebrating the 10th anniversary with you... to what do you attribute the longevity of the band?
S: We were never afraid to dabble with a lot of different styles of music, including folk of course, so we didn’t get stuck in a rut trying to write new material. We’ve been quite experimental through the years. It kinda still keeps thing fresh and interesting for us and I think the fans of the band like that to.
G: Cause we’re fuckin great!
Kevin, you’ve written some of your most poignant, but deep lyrics I feel in songs like “Words Fail Me” and “The Measure” as well as “Borderline”... tackling difficult subjects, as the worldly state of things, self-worth/life being like a competition, refugees heck even Brexit (in “State of the Union”)… it’s obvious that you take inspiration from real life, but then you stick the odd bawdy drinking number or a song like Queen of the Moors… how do you pick the subjects?
K: Good question and there’s no easy answer. I guess I am just attracted to news items, articles I read, hearing what people say in the street, anything really that sparks my imagination. Sometimes I work from a title or a ‘theme’ or a song format, or all of these things at the same time. Some things are from real life and some are just made up.
Skyclad is the band famous for “if we played this riff more punk...”; but I suppose this album in specific has a few more punky riffs here and there... so how’s that million seller coming along?
K: Does it? Well then maybe the million seller is finally here?
S: Ha ha! I like the fact that you’ve spotted that while listening to the album but I don’t think we’ll ever have a million seller!
G: We just love being poor, it helps to keep the whole thing real. Maybe that’s where the punk in us comes from. I guess if all the bands we have spawned donated a pound per record we’ve already had that million seller.
What does the album title “Forward Into the Past” declare?
K: I think that the “album, tour, album, tour”, type of model can feel a bit like a merry-go-round and at some point you feel like you just want to get off (as in “stop the world I want to get off”). For a while I think I felt like this and wasn’t sure about continuing with the music business but, in fact, once I was away from it I found that it was other parts of my life that I needed to change. So, for me, “Forward Into the Past” is a way of reconciling myself to all this stuff, so “let’s go round again”; as they say.
G: The forward path of history in the making always has to give a glancing nod to what has gone on in the past.
Listenable Recs... How did that came about? Happy with Satan, so why not bring over Clad?
S: That’s exactly what happened. Part of the reason we’ve taken a while to make a new record was the disappointment of the promotion of the last two studio albums. We signed to Listenable with Satan and they have done a great job, so it was an obvious move for us.
G: That just about say’s it all. Listenable have been a good company for Satan so why not for Skyclad?
From being considered the forerunners of folk metal, you seemingly “lost the train” even losing to capitalize when you joined the largest company around – failing to capitalize on that – and had a plethora of other bands surpass you in popularity. Are you happy in your niche, with what was achieved or thinking back and going maybe if something had been handling differently we could have done better? Were you even under “management”?
S: We had management in the early years. When we started out the press didn’t know what to make of this new style of metal. But fans and other musicians liked it and by the time we gained a little popularity we were also influencing the young musicians that would form a lot of new bands in the future. The fact that it became more popular is great for us; success at what you do doesn’t have to be about the money…
G: C’est la vie, as the saying goes, pointless trying to pick apart the “whys and wherefores”, life’s just too short. We’ve had a great time making the music we wanted to make and touring the world doing it. May be if we’d changed our name to Skytallicaclad things would have been different.
Having been in the biz since 1991, how do you view things these days? Will the various scenes survive the next to 0 income times??? Is it harder now than it was then, despite recording becoming more affordable?
K: The song “Forward Into the Past” is about the changing music business and the way we do things. The industry has obviously changed immensely since the early 90s through new technology, the internet and, more precisely, the www. Thanks to the downloading culture, the focus for making money has switched to playing live – but this was always a precarious business. So most bands now can’t make a living from music alone and the record companies aren’t there to advance them as much cash, so I’m not sure how many bands like Skyclad will get back to days of the early 1990s.
S: Most bands like ourselves have always played for the love of the music. Making any money is just a bonus. It is more difficult due to the lack of physical sales but the internet has also made the live scene more vibrant and opened up new worlds so it’s bad one way and good another.
G: I’ve actually been in the business since 1979, fuck that sounds like a long time ago and yes shit loads of things have changed. Musical tastes do come and go and they seem to work on a cycle, sort of what “Forward Into the Past” is about. I guess if you can stick around long enough you can just keep joining in on that repeating cycle.
What are the expectations from “Forward into the Past” and what are your long-term plans for Skyclad?
K: I think, as a band, we are really excited by the possibilities we have in terms of songwriting and instrumentation with Dave back in the band. I also think we have started on a new phase, or new chapter, of Skyclad and we’ve only touched on these possibilities on this album. As a six piece band we also have options for live work, in terms of vocals and instrumentation and I am really looking forward to playing this material live, hopefully to a much wider audience, and building on what we have done here on future albums.
G: We’ll have that million seller you referred to earlier. Got to stick around for another few years because I’ve already got my outfit for our 30th anniversary party.
Time for our “weird questions”!!!
How did you come up with the name Skyclad initially?
S: From the kind of books we were reading at the time; Terry Pratchett stuff among others.
G: We were dancing naked around our local Ringstone Round, taking one step forward and two steps back when someone suggested Skyclad to be a good name for what we were doing.
Are “social media” a “compulsory part” of music biz these days or bands, artists & labels can do without them as well?
K: I think we could manage quite well without them, thank you.
G: Yes, I suppose they are now if you want to reach a worldwide audience. I’m still of the opinion that the more outlets we have to say things the less we say… words fail me!!
If you could “erase” one thing from modern music, what would it be?
K: The trend of going back to cassettes – they are not good or ‘cool’!
G: Justin Bieber!
What are those things that you do not like in the music industry nowadays?
K: Everybody expecting quality music for free…
G: One of the things I do like about making music today is that you can make an album for a few thousand pounds now and it sounds as good as a one that cost half a million pounds a few years ago, one of the wonders of digital technology.
Best 3 Folk/Punk Rock/Metal albums of all time?
K: “Fog on the Tyne” (Lindisfarne), “Never Mind the Bollocks” (Sex Pistols), “Dark Side of the Moon” (Pink Floyd).
G: Like I have time to listen to music!
Which is the record you wish you had written and why?
K: “Shepherd’s Dog” by Iron and Wine – attention to detail…
G: “Forward Into the Past”, cause I didn’t write anything on it.
Were you obliged to give just one album to extraterrestrials that would represent the whole human music, which album would it be and from which band/artist?
K: “The Planets”: Gustav Holst.
G: I’d probably just do a mix tape for ET, no one album can do justice to hundreds of years of music.
Fill in the phrase… “Heavy Metal music wouldn’t have evolved the way it did, if it hadn’t been for…”
K: Black Sabbath – obviously…
G: Guitars, beer, drugs and women!!
If you had the chance to travel in time… where would you choose to go? To the past or the future and why?
K: I would like to go to another planet we inhabit in the future, to see what Earth looks like from the outside and to see if we made a similar mess of other worlds.
G: The Wild West of America, cause there are about the same odds of been scalped as in the music business.
Which one of the Seven Deadly Sins you consider yourself to be?
K: “Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires”. Yep, that’s me right there.
G: I’m the eighth one, no one talks about.
Which character from the “Game of Thrones” would you have been – if you lived in the Seven Kingdoms?
K: Petyr Baelish…
G: Is that like musical chairs but for Kings and Queens?
That’s all for now. Thank you very much for talking to Grande Rock. Wish you the best for the future to come. Take care!
K: Take care and see you soon.
G: The pleasure is all mine, if you’re doing it the right way… as the actress said to the bishop.
K: Thank you for the interview and review.
G: Nice to be here, metaphorically.
It took the Claddies some 8 years to come up with some new stuff, while I think music was ready for a quite a bit... why?
S: Not really, we started stuff in 2011 but then it was just left on the back burner until last year (2016). When we decided to do a new album it actually only took us a few months. Various personal things among the members got in the way too.
G: Yes, the music on “FITP” has been around for a while now, but like a good wine it’s been mulled over and left to breath for a few years & tastes a lot better for it. I guess the best explanation is that life got in the way!!
14 studio albums, 18 members in all... the same but different? I felt this album in particular to be taking some cues from the mid-90s-early 00s... musically, but always keeping in tune with the post martin material... at the same time has Bean & Steve’s time in Satan contributed at all to that mini-musical throwback?
S: No, but maybe Dave coming back into the band influenced some of the music. We have the twin guitar going on again in parts.
G: As with all our previous albums there is never a “it should be like this’’ concept, they tend to evolve. I think the whole throwback thing is just what came out, may be subliminally the Satan stuff has dripped into the sound and the feel.
Dave Pugh is back after a number of years in the wilderness. How come? Is he probably the reason in part for the album having a bit of a 90s air?
S: We never lost touch with Dave and he left the band for personal reasons so there was never any bad feeling among us. It was actually at a festival in London, “Live Evil” that Satan were headlining that we got talking about him coming back into the band. He was the lead singer with a band called “Eliminator” who were on at the festival. It was weird watching him perform with no guitar!
G: We met up with Dave a few years back when he was playing with us at a Satan show and it just seemed like no time had passed at all and we’d kind of forgotten how well we all get on. So we got him back into the band to do a special show at Hellfest in France. When that just felt like the most natural thing ever we asked him to join on a permanent basis.
Speaking of which, I recently saw that there was a post of the former singer of the band, talking shit against Kev, why such animosity? After Dave’s comeback, I take it we shouldn’t hold breathe for Martin’s?!
G: As NMA said: “don’t ask any more stupid questions, you already know the answers”. It’s 17 years since Martin left the band, get over it… need I say anymore!!
Kevin, you were a little apprehensive to take over from Martin, but some 4 albums later, it seems that’s water under the bridge... since you were involved in the band from way before... how does it feel - the switch in roles?
K: To be honest, it was a fairly easy transition for me – easier than I expected – because I was already playing live with the band. Remember, I recorded “Vintage Whine” and “Folkemon” as a member of the band, so it was just a case of doing a bit more work.
You’ve been around for some 25 years and I sort of still remember it as yesterday celebrating the 10th anniversary with you... to what do you attribute the longevity of the band?
S: We were never afraid to dabble with a lot of different styles of music, including folk of course, so we didn’t get stuck in a rut trying to write new material. We’ve been quite experimental through the years. It kinda still keeps thing fresh and interesting for us and I think the fans of the band like that to.
G: Cause we’re fuckin great!
Kevin, you’ve written some of your most poignant, but deep lyrics I feel in songs like “Words Fail Me” and “The Measure” as well as “Borderline”... tackling difficult subjects, as the worldly state of things, self-worth/life being like a competition, refugees heck even Brexit (in “State of the Union”)… it’s obvious that you take inspiration from real life, but then you stick the odd bawdy drinking number or a song like Queen of the Moors… how do you pick the subjects?
K: Good question and there’s no easy answer. I guess I am just attracted to news items, articles I read, hearing what people say in the street, anything really that sparks my imagination. Sometimes I work from a title or a ‘theme’ or a song format, or all of these things at the same time. Some things are from real life and some are just made up.
Skyclad is the band famous for “if we played this riff more punk...”; but I suppose this album in specific has a few more punky riffs here and there... so how’s that million seller coming along?
K: Does it? Well then maybe the million seller is finally here?
S: Ha ha! I like the fact that you’ve spotted that while listening to the album but I don’t think we’ll ever have a million seller!
G: We just love being poor, it helps to keep the whole thing real. Maybe that’s where the punk in us comes from. I guess if all the bands we have spawned donated a pound per record we’ve already had that million seller.
What does the album title “Forward Into the Past” declare?
K: I think that the “album, tour, album, tour”, type of model can feel a bit like a merry-go-round and at some point you feel like you just want to get off (as in “stop the world I want to get off”). For a while I think I felt like this and wasn’t sure about continuing with the music business but, in fact, once I was away from it I found that it was other parts of my life that I needed to change. So, for me, “Forward Into the Past” is a way of reconciling myself to all this stuff, so “let’s go round again”; as they say.
G: The forward path of history in the making always has to give a glancing nod to what has gone on in the past.
Listenable Recs... How did that came about? Happy with Satan, so why not bring over Clad?
S: That’s exactly what happened. Part of the reason we’ve taken a while to make a new record was the disappointment of the promotion of the last two studio albums. We signed to Listenable with Satan and they have done a great job, so it was an obvious move for us.
G: That just about say’s it all. Listenable have been a good company for Satan so why not for Skyclad?
From being considered the forerunners of folk metal, you seemingly “lost the train” even losing to capitalize when you joined the largest company around – failing to capitalize on that – and had a plethora of other bands surpass you in popularity. Are you happy in your niche, with what was achieved or thinking back and going maybe if something had been handling differently we could have done better? Were you even under “management”?
S: We had management in the early years. When we started out the press didn’t know what to make of this new style of metal. But fans and other musicians liked it and by the time we gained a little popularity we were also influencing the young musicians that would form a lot of new bands in the future. The fact that it became more popular is great for us; success at what you do doesn’t have to be about the money…
G: C’est la vie, as the saying goes, pointless trying to pick apart the “whys and wherefores”, life’s just too short. We’ve had a great time making the music we wanted to make and touring the world doing it. May be if we’d changed our name to Skytallicaclad things would have been different.
Having been in the biz since 1991, how do you view things these days? Will the various scenes survive the next to 0 income times??? Is it harder now than it was then, despite recording becoming more affordable?
K: The song “Forward Into the Past” is about the changing music business and the way we do things. The industry has obviously changed immensely since the early 90s through new technology, the internet and, more precisely, the www. Thanks to the downloading culture, the focus for making money has switched to playing live – but this was always a precarious business. So most bands now can’t make a living from music alone and the record companies aren’t there to advance them as much cash, so I’m not sure how many bands like Skyclad will get back to days of the early 1990s.
S: Most bands like ourselves have always played for the love of the music. Making any money is just a bonus. It is more difficult due to the lack of physical sales but the internet has also made the live scene more vibrant and opened up new worlds so it’s bad one way and good another.
G: I’ve actually been in the business since 1979, fuck that sounds like a long time ago and yes shit loads of things have changed. Musical tastes do come and go and they seem to work on a cycle, sort of what “Forward Into the Past” is about. I guess if you can stick around long enough you can just keep joining in on that repeating cycle.
What are the expectations from “Forward into the Past” and what are your long-term plans for Skyclad?
K: I think, as a band, we are really excited by the possibilities we have in terms of songwriting and instrumentation with Dave back in the band. I also think we have started on a new phase, or new chapter, of Skyclad and we’ve only touched on these possibilities on this album. As a six piece band we also have options for live work, in terms of vocals and instrumentation and I am really looking forward to playing this material live, hopefully to a much wider audience, and building on what we have done here on future albums.
G: We’ll have that million seller you referred to earlier. Got to stick around for another few years because I’ve already got my outfit for our 30th anniversary party.
Time for our “weird questions”!!!
How did you come up with the name Skyclad initially?
S: From the kind of books we were reading at the time; Terry Pratchett stuff among others.
G: We were dancing naked around our local Ringstone Round, taking one step forward and two steps back when someone suggested Skyclad to be a good name for what we were doing.
Are “social media” a “compulsory part” of music biz these days or bands, artists & labels can do without them as well?
K: I think we could manage quite well without them, thank you.
G: Yes, I suppose they are now if you want to reach a worldwide audience. I’m still of the opinion that the more outlets we have to say things the less we say… words fail me!!
If you could “erase” one thing from modern music, what would it be?
K: The trend of going back to cassettes – they are not good or ‘cool’!
G: Justin Bieber!
What are those things that you do not like in the music industry nowadays?
K: Everybody expecting quality music for free…
G: One of the things I do like about making music today is that you can make an album for a few thousand pounds now and it sounds as good as a one that cost half a million pounds a few years ago, one of the wonders of digital technology.
Best 3 Folk/Punk Rock/Metal albums of all time?
K: “Fog on the Tyne” (Lindisfarne), “Never Mind the Bollocks” (Sex Pistols), “Dark Side of the Moon” (Pink Floyd).
G: Like I have time to listen to music!
Which is the record you wish you had written and why?
K: “Shepherd’s Dog” by Iron and Wine – attention to detail…
G: “Forward Into the Past”, cause I didn’t write anything on it.
Were you obliged to give just one album to extraterrestrials that would represent the whole human music, which album would it be and from which band/artist?
K: “The Planets”: Gustav Holst.
G: I’d probably just do a mix tape for ET, no one album can do justice to hundreds of years of music.
Fill in the phrase… “Heavy Metal music wouldn’t have evolved the way it did, if it hadn’t been for…”
K: Black Sabbath – obviously…
G: Guitars, beer, drugs and women!!
If you had the chance to travel in time… where would you choose to go? To the past or the future and why?
K: I would like to go to another planet we inhabit in the future, to see what Earth looks like from the outside and to see if we made a similar mess of other worlds.
G: The Wild West of America, cause there are about the same odds of been scalped as in the music business.
Which one of the Seven Deadly Sins you consider yourself to be?
K: “Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires”. Yep, that’s me right there.
G: I’m the eighth one, no one talks about.
Which character from the “Game of Thrones” would you have been – if you lived in the Seven Kingdoms?
K: Petyr Baelish…
G: Is that like musical chairs but for Kings and Queens?
That’s all for now. Thank you very much for talking to Grande Rock. Wish you the best for the future to come. Take care!
K: Take care and see you soon.
G: The pleasure is all mine, if you’re doing it the right way… as the actress said to the bishop.