SKINLAB Frontman Talks About Upcoming Album

Tony Belcher of Tartarean Desire recently conducted an interview with vocalist/bassist Steev Esquivel of San Francisco Bay Area metal veterans SKINLAB. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Tartarean Desire: At one point I recall SKINLAB was reported as finished, done, over.... What caused the Houdini act?

Steev: It's been a while, but I feel the break was needed. Things were getting hectic in our personal lives, and at the time we were touring 15 months per album cycle if not more. But we are back now and still heavy as fuck. I'm sure you'll be just as stoked as we are about the new album!

Tartarean Desire: How has it been since SKINLAB regrouped?

Steev: Great! We're still the same goofballls we always were; just a little more revived and beat up. Everyone is really ready to get out there and fuck some shit up!

Tartarean Desire: Has the songwriting process changed since the "reunion"/resurrection and how was it for the upcoming record?

Steev: Not really. It's pretty much the same as we always would [write]... someone will write something and bring it in for changes and comments and we'll take it from there. We'll usually run with the idea of whoever is writing it, just to keep the same spirit and emotion they are trying to get. Then we'll bash it out at rehearsals and twist and turn shit ‘til it makes sense to us. I will say that this is the most diverse record we have ever written.... ...Not so much verse/chorus/verse. We just went for it and wrote what felt best to us.

Tartarean Desire: Are there any surprises in terms of sound this time around?

Steev: The whole album is just gonna blow everyone away! We are super proud of everything and now that's it actually being recorded with "real" tones and album quality sounds are coming out, we're all starting to freak out and get excited about the music we've created this time around. It's not n¸ metal, metalcore, black metal, comb-over metal.... We've kinda adapted our own tag — "stoner metal"...that works best.

Tartarean Desire: So what is your greatest inspiration for writing music? Aside from a band perhaps influencing you, what inspires you?

Steev: I always keep my eyes rolling and my mind racing trying to think of stupid shit to write about. The music I contributed to the new album was all about energy and emotion. Lyrically I'm still in the mode for the last few weeks here, and things are coming out more life against life situations and just looking at things from behind the smoke and mirrors and making up my own way of communications.

Tartarean Desire: What do you think of METALLICA's latest record, "Death Magnetic", and their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? This band still causes lots of reaction and emotions in fans and former fans alike.

Steev: Ummm, I dig the record, actually, and I even bought two copies of "St. Anger". ...I'm not a hater. I learn off of other peoples' strengths and artistic adventures. If you don't you'll always stay boxed in. I see James [Hetfield] is singing heavy again live... that's killer!! And just the fact that they opened the doors for bands like LAMB OF GOD and MACHINE HEAD to inspire a whole new generation to heavy music and they helped to keep the ball rolling.

Tartarean Desire: Robb Flynn went from VIO-LENCE to MACHINE HEAD and you had a similar "career path" from DEFIANCE to SKINLAB (i.e., from Bay Area thrash to a more aggressive, PANTERA-influenced sound). And now you've got both DEFIANCE and SKINLAB at once. How's your "other band" going and how do you balance the two, musically and in terms of writing? How do you keep the musical and lyrical ideas separate?

Steev: Well, first off, DEFIANCE and SKINLAB are two completely different monsters. It was really easy to separate the two just because they're so different. [SKINLAB guitarist] Snake helped record the vocals for the DEFIANCE album, which was cool because he'd always let me know if I crossed over into SKINLAB mode.

Tartarean Desire: Back to the new record, do you have any information you want to share — songtitles, name of the album, etc.? When can we expect to see it?

Steev: The name of the album is "The Scars Between Us". A few titles include "Scream At The World", "Karma Burns", "Papertrails", "In For The Kill", "No More Heroes" and "Wolves' Blood". It should be released this [fall] sometime. ...It's a sick ugly bastard of an album. There's nothing pretty about it. We're back in full guttural mode.... Fans should expect this to be the best SKINLAB album yet.

Read the entire interview from Tartarean Desire.

Capital Chaos has uploaded video footage (see below) of SKINLAB performing on April 17, 2009 at The Kennel Club in Sacramento, California. Also on the bill were STEPCHILD, DROP SEVEN and MUCUS MEMBRANE. The show was a benefit concert for DEFTONES bassist Chi Cheng.