Interview
Interview
My Greatest Hits: Skin of Skunk Anansie
The Skunk Anansie vocalist picks her own career highlights, from singing lessons with Pavarotti to birthday celebrations with Nelson Mandela
Breaking onto the rock scene during a time when Britpop dominated the airwaves and lad culture reigned supreme, Skunk Anansie have spent the last three decades unapologetically going against the grain. With every swaggering riff, confrontational lyric and thunderous bass groove establishing their reputation as one of the most fearless bands in British rock history, no opportunity has come without a fight for the London four-piece.
Fronted by charismatic vocalist Skin, a Black, gay woman capable of effortlessly transitioning from a whisper-soft vulnerability to a searing, full-throated roar, every opportunity has been earned through collective restlessness and feverish ambition. Recently collaborating with renowned LA producer David Sitek on new music – including freshly released single ‘An Artist Is An Artist’ – that steadfast refusal to settle has become key to their success.
“We were uncomfortable during the whole making of this new record. That was a good place to be, because it makes you question everything,” Skin nods.
“We can’t just keep coming back with the same sound. If we want this band to have any legs, we’ve got to do something fresh and exciting. We stayed uncomfortable the whole time we were working with Dave, and that’s what pushed us to do better.”
With a new era set to be unveiled and a huge headline tour ripping through UK cities this spring, Skunk Anansie are ready to take on the world once more. Three decades into her career and still ticking things off the ever-growing bucket list, we sat down with Skin to talk through the highlights; from making music with her heroes to being the last band of the 20th century to headline Glastonbury.
Working with Nona Hendryx on Dream Machine
“It was such an amazing experience. Everyone else working on the project were well-known Americans, and I certainly wasn’t as well-known. However, I’ve known Nona since the beginning of my career, so she’s an old friend of mine. It was fantastic to have her pick me to be one of the icons in it, and the whole project was just so weird and fun. It took me a minute to understand how it was all going to work, but once I understood the VR concept of it, I was amazed. It was great to discover the world and to create this VR character, and I was able to spend so much time with Nona. She’s such an icon, and she’s got so many ridiculous stories. Honestly, that was one of my main reasons for doing it, getting to hang out with her properly.”
Meeting the Dalai Lama
“The Dalai Lama is one of those world-renowned characters, and it’s so awful what China has done to his country. Throughout that, he’s had to struggle to maintain, and to be the spiritual leader of a dispossessed people. I’m not a religious person, and I’m not the most spiritual person, but I’m more spiritual than religious. Meeting him, I felt something similar to what I felt when I met Nelson Mandela. He was an old soul, and that’s the only way I can really describe him. My friend knew I was going to meet him, so she gave me her ring. It used to belong to her brother who sadly died of AIDS, and the Dalai Lama blessed it for me. When I gave it back to her, she said that she felt this thing shooting up her arm… An energy from the ring.”
Having a vocal lesson with Pavarotti
“We went to Italy to perform with Pavarotti in support of the Dalai Lama’s charity for Tibet, and I arrived five days early. I went to stay with Pavarotti in Modena, and I still have this image of him sitting on this big stool by the cooker making spaghetti alle vongole. He was a genuine character, very sweet, and he taught me a couple of tricks vocally by the pool. It was funny though because they put me up in this hotel where I met George Michael and Annie Lenox for the first time… They were definitely too embarrassed to kick me out!”
Singing with Paul Weller
“He joined us onstage in London to perform ‘You Do Something To Me’, and I halfway lost it. I didn’t sing that well because I suddenly turned around and thought, ‘Oh my god, Paul Weller is next to me, and he’s singing with me’. I had a real fan moment, so it wasn’t the best version of the song I’d ever sung, but I didn’t care. As a songwriter, I’m in awe of him to this day, and I don’t think he’s as big as he should be as a world-renowned singer. I spend a lot of time in Brooklyn, and I listen to a radio station there called Radio Woodstock. They play Paul Weller all the time. He’s such a lovely man too, so cool, so stylish, and he just has an effervescence of class coming out of him. He’s one of my all-time heroes.”
How did he come to join you onstage in Brixton, then?
“Mark [Richardson, Skunk Anansie drummer] has dogs, and lives not that far from him. He kept bumping into him in the park whilst they were walking their dogs, and eventually he invited us to come and record in his studio. We haven’t actually got around to doing that yet, but I got his number and struck up a text relationship with him. We’re mutual fans of one another, he really likes Skunk, and it happened naturally from that.”
An 1000-man dinner with Nelson Mandela
“Being able to say that you sung for Nelson Mandela as part of his 80th birthday celebration is one thing, but to do it alongside Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and Nina Simone?!
“The first record that I ever bought was by Nina Simone, and Songs In The Key Of Life was the album that taught me how to sing harmony because I couldn’t sing in Stevie Wonder’s key. Being able to be close to those people… Hopefully artists never lose their wonderment of other artists. We meet a lot of people, but it’s nice to be able to meet your heroes and for them to be as amazing as you hoped they would be. Like with the Dalai Lama, Mandela was an old soul. If you believe in those things, you can feel that they’ve had many lives. There’s a feeling that came off him that felt centuries old, very polite, sweet, and just a good person.”
Hanging out with Nina Simone
“Everybody knows that she can be spicy. I believe that her bipolar was diagnosed in her lifetime, but people didn’t really understand what that meant. She was in fantastic form that day though, super happy. She had these two horrible handlers who were desperate to leave me with her, so I was like, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after her’. I bought her drinks, and we sat there drinking some kind of dark rum or whiskey, getting absolutely slaughtered. She was telling me all these stories about things that she’d been through, and I remember telling her about the first record I ever bought – which was one of hers. It was a four track 10” EP from 1952, but I didn’t get to play it because the gramophone was in the front room, and we weren’t allowed in there. One time my mum forgot to lock it, so I sneaked in there and played it. When I told her Nina the story she just laughed and said, ‘Black people in their front rooms, thinking the Queen’s coming round to tea’.”
Singing with Chaka Khan
“This was also at Nelson Mandela’s birthday event. Skunk’s gig didn’t go down well, because we’re Black people playing rock. In South Africa, they just want to see Black people playing R‘n’B , so the only people jumping up and down were white people. The whole event was running super late though, and Chaka Khan was backstage having a party, keeping the mood positive and making it fun for everybody. During her set, she dragged me onstage to join her for ‘Ain’t Nobody’. Of course I know the song. We all grew up with it, but I couldn’t hear myself because I had in-ears in. I just had to hope that I was in key, but I didn’t really care, it was more about enjoying the moment.”
Skunk Anansie’s first American tour
“We really enjoyed ourselves on that tour, but it was mad. We drank too much tequila, and I haven’t touched it since… It very nearly didn’t happen though. We started off in Northern America, went up to Toronto, then came back before going up to Montreal. Within our crew, we had a rule that you could smoke weed, but you couldn’t take it across any borders. One of our crew thought it would be clever to put his in an envelope with his name on though, and he put it in the roller at the back of the van. They came with dogs, the dogs smelt it, and they discovered it. They nearly sent us and all our crew and gear back, but luckily, we went in a separate van. We said that we knew nothing about it, so just our crew got sent back. We had to find a new crew, but at least they let us keep the gear!
“The whole tour was just a litany of craziness though. We lost the venue for one of the gigs, and it went from a 200-capacity venue to a 2000-capacity one. The original venue had been harassed by people who had heard that our band had a skinhead singer, we had a pro-Nazi song called ‘Little Baby Swastika’, and our name was ‘Skunk Anazi‘. There was this huge campaign to have us banned from the venue, and I remember getting off the tour bus and going straight into a radio station. We had no knowledge of any of this, but as we walked into the studio everybody went quiet. They asked if we’d heard about the controversy, and they explained that it was because I was a skinhead. I said, ‘I’m Black… How can I be a skinhead?!’”
Touring with Lenny Kravitz
“That guy knows how to put on a show, and he has a fantastic band as well. They were all so nice, and they were just awesome to watch. I played his guitar and watching him perform every night was so inspiring. He’s got Nova Twins supporting him on the next tour, and that is absolutely awesome. He’s managed to keep his career through all of the tribulations, and he looks better than he’s ever looked. Have you seen the picture of him working out in leather pants?!”
Headlining Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage in 1999
“Headlining Glastonbury is a huge thing. It’s an even bigger deal now because you’re playing to around 250,000 people, but back then it was still around 120,000. It’s a big deal; it’s like going on Top Of The Pops. We dealt with a lot of negativity beforehand because a lot of people didn’t think that we were rock enough to headline, but we proved them wrong. It went absolutely ballistic, and it was one of the greatest gigs we’ve ever done. It’s not the biggest show we’ve ever played – we once played a gig in Poland to a million people – but it’s probably the most well-known gig we’ve ever done.”
Photo by Roberto Finizio/Getty Images
