Recreating the successes of the past is a strange – if sometimes lucrative – business.
After all, when was the last time you spared even a passing thought for something you did over two decades ago, let alone completely restaged it? It’s surprising, then, that Skunkhour’s rapper-cum-creative force Del Larkin isn’t feeling nervous about his band’s upcoming gig at the Metro, one that will see the group play their 1993 self-titled debut from beginning to end. In fact, he’s positively looking forward to it.
“The Metro holds so many great memories for us as a band,” Larkin says. “We’ve had so many great shows there over the years, but we’ve never done a show like this before … We have never played the first album track-for-track, [and] that’s what makes it so special. There are tracks like ‘A Cow And A Pig’ and ‘Free Man’ that we wouldn’t have played for over 20 years. So it’s time to dust ’em off and give ’em a good shake.”
Performing the album from beginning to end was a very natural choice for Skunkhour – almost a love letter to the past and their former selves. “We’ve played the odd reunion-style gig over the last few years and the sets have always been a kind of ‘greatest hits’ mix of all four albums. But this time we decided it would be fun to showcase the album that started it all, and the best way to do [that] would be to play the album track-for-track.”
Of course, by its very nature such a gig will fire up the old nostalgia senses, not only for the audience but for the performers themselves. “From memory I think [Skunkhour] took about two weeks to record,” Larkin says. “There are lots of animal references, which originate from the working titles the band gave to the jams in rehearsals. Lyrically, Aya [Larkin, Del’s brother and Skunkhour’s singer] and I sometimes used those animals as a starting point to build the content around.
“We had had offers to sign [a record deal] but we wanted autonomy as a group, so we paid for it ourselves,” Del adds. “This meant we didn’t have a whole lot of studio time or that much experience really, so it was just a case of getting in there, trusting our instincts and going for it. I think you can hear that vitality in the sound … I think it’s an incredible album for its time and genre. No-one sounded like that and [they] still don’t. We wanted to sound different from the start.”
It’s worth noting, however, that Larkin doesn’t regard the album entirely with rose-tinted glasses, and has the familiar mixed feelings about Skunkhour that so many musicians have about their work. “I struggle listening to my performance on it,” he admits. “I had only been rhyming [properly] for about six months and you can hear that in my delivery and the American drawl I have on most tracks.”
Larkin’s reservations are inevitable – 23 years is a long time, after all. A lot has changed, not only for the rapper and his voice, but for the music industry at large, and Larkin tips his hat to anyone who can make a career out of writing songs these days.
“Any band or artist anywhere that can manage to have a career is a legend,” he says. “The only way you can [do it] is to tour and tour and tour. There is no money in recording due to the ease of illegal downloads.”
So what’s the answer to keeping the industry healthy? Larkin says it’s simple. “Buy the albums of the artists you love, people!”
Skunkhour return toMetro Theatre on Saturday April 30.
