Something that’s a constant in NYC is experiencing the rise of a band. It happens more often then not, but it’s always something that’s insanely captivating and this is currently happening with Skaters, a punk band that aims to play songs that are both layered and catchy as hell. 2013 has proven to be a great year for them and with the release of their debut album, Manhattan, right around the corner (February 2014), the only way for them is clearly up. QRO got a chance to sit down with frontman Michael Cummings about how life in NYC has changed them, their live shows, and what the futures hold for Skaters.
QRO: It’s great getting the chance to talk to you. I saw you guys open up for The Cribs (QRO live review) last year at Music Hall [of Williamsburg] (QRO venue review) and it’s been an amazing thing seeing Skaters grow as a band.
Michael Ian Cummings: Thank you, that’s really awesome that you were there. That Cribs show was actually one of our first ever shows. I think it was our third or fourth show actually.
QRO: When I was reading up on you guys I’ve noticed that people in Britain have taken to you guys quite a bit, and I think a contributing factor to that could be how your influences come across in your sound. When I’ve listened to you guys in the past I’ve heard traces of British indie in there, is that a genre of music you guys admire?
MIC: Totally, it just happened to fall into that, though. If you’re a fan of punk music you’re going to love British music no matter what. Josh [Hubbard] is English and I think maybe that subconsciously the influence might have came from there. Also our EP first got talked about in the U.K., so that might have also sparked our admiration towards British music, or at least pushed it more forward. We all love almost any and all British bands that you could think of.
QRO: I noticed a bit of a Smiths vibe when you guys were playing live. Are they a band you guys admire as well?
MIC: It’s funny you bring that up because I actually toured with The Cribs with my last band (The Dead Trees) when Johnny Marr was with them (QRO live review), and I got to meet Johnny during that time. It was amazing and that experience got me to sort of re-discover The Smiths.
I’ve never been a super hardcore fan of their music or a hater of them; I’ve always been right in the middle. But listening to them after meeting Johnny kind of made me see them in a different light.
QRO: When you guys met was it a natural thing to make music with one another?
MIC: It happened so quick that we really didn’t have a chance to evaluate it in that way. We started the band in one night and we had about three shows booked the next day. I had all these songs and it just felt right, so I guess it was kind of natural. We kind of started the band by force, which sometimes can work and other times can’t work at all. It’s funny because I hadn’t played with Josh or most of the others before but the discussions we had before starting the band lead us to doing this together.
It was a unique formation but even so I’ve never been in a band that had a lot of pre-discussions about ‘what kind of band’ we’d be or ‘how will we do it?’ It’s always been more of an ‘okay let’s do this’ type of approach.
QRO: Do you think what contributed to that formation was the level of dedication you guys had towards having a career and life in music?
MIC: Definitely. We knew that touring and being in a band is what we wanted to do. Something that was really helpful is that we all have experiences being in other bands and what’s helpful with that is that you can sort of gauge through who will be serious about the band early on, especially since it can happen so unexpectedly and organically that I think it was helpful that we all mutually understood how serious each person was about being in Skaters.
There’s so many things that get in the way of being in a band, like jobs and relationships, and what was great about starting this band is that we all had a similar feeling of ‘we can’t just go and have jobs’ like we all knew that type of life wasn’t for us. It was really this or nothing else.
QRO: It’s funny how that’s not the norm, people going after what they want.
MIC: There is definitely things you sacrifice when doing something like this. Most people need a level of stability that this life (of being a musician) just doesn’t provide unfortunately. To be in a band you have to be willing to deal with that.
QRO: What was it like getting to record your debut album at Electric Lady Studios? That’s an incredible space.
MIC: It was interesting. It wasn’t a pre-destined thing or even a thing we looked at with glossy eyes; it was very much a logistics thing. We wanted to record in a small space with lights on the top floor [laughs], and it was kind of the reasoning for going there. There were a lot of studios in the mix and that was the one that was the most fitting for what we wanted to do.
It quickly became one of my favorite places to be though.
QRO: What was it like working with a producer on an album?
MIC: It was definitely different because our previous recordings were made in my bedroom so we did it all ourselves. For the record we had it produced by a guy named John Hill, and John is awesome. He’s like a big fun dude and helped guide us through the process of making the album.
QRO: Do you think the experience of recording an album was different then what you originally thought that it would have been like?
MIC: Totally. We had loads of ideas on how we wanted to make the album and how we wanted it to sound. We wanted a lot of hip-hop bass and production on it and a lot of that changed in the studio because we started to recognize how certain things wouldn’t serve the song and it really make us re-think/re-examine our music quite a bit. It’s important to listen for what actually works as opposed to bringing in your idealistic thoughts into it.
QRO: How has it been being in a band in NYC? It seems as though every band has a different viewpoint on it. Was there anything about being a band based here that surprised you?
MIC: Yeah, the most surprising thing was how much you can get done here as opposed to other places in the U.S. Like the speed and amount of productivity you can happen here. In my last band we were based in L.A. and I think the slower pace of life definitely hindered us in a lot of ways.
QRO: I guess it’s as though the pace of life here in New York gets ingrained into everything you do.
MIC: It definitely does. It completely does.
QRO: When it comes to the debut album what do you think will surprise your listeners?
MIC: I think people will be expecting a different record. I think most people are expecting like a straight forward record and we really wanted to make something that was a lot more diverse then that and that’s ultimately what we did. We really wanted to manipulate our sound and presenting it in ways that were new to us.
