Review by William Simpson

For the members of Sekond Skyn, the phrase “music is a source of life” is words to live by.  The quartet from New Jerseyplays a very appealing brand of melodic metal.  StageShottz Magazine talked to bassist George Pond on their tour with Cycle of Pain and thei newly release CD “Addicted to Chaos.

StageShottz Magazine: Sekond Skyn is from New Jersey and been together for about four years. Tell me about your influences and how Sekond Skyn formed.

George Pond: Four of us are pretty much lifetime friends.  We started playing together young.  We had a couple of bands together with different vocalists.  We split up for a little while and then we got back together.  We were just going to do like a little garage thing and if something happened, that was great.  We really didn’t expect much of it.  We just kind of wanted to do it for fun, and that’s what you do music for in the beginning.  You have try to keep that aspect throughout playing, keeping it fun.  So, that’s really our whole reason for doing it.  It was just to have fun and then we stumbled upon our singer actually in the urinal at The Stone Pony, which is a legendary club in Jersey.  That’s where Bruce (Springsteen) made it.  So anyway, we stumbled upon him and then we just took it off from there.  As far as our influence is concerned, it really just depends on which individual you talk to, you know, what our influences are.  Everybody has different influences, everything from jazz to country to Toby Keith, to Slayer.  Me personally, on this tour right here, we’re playing with a couple of legendary players that I looked up to as a kid, Doug Wimbish and Vernon Reid (of Living Colour).  Besides the Cycle of Pain Tour, we’re also doing the eight days with Living Colour. Me being a base player, I’ve looked up to J.D. (DeServio of Black Lable Society and Cycle of Pain) when he started playing with Zakk Wylde.  I was always a huge Ozzy fan and actually, Zakk Wylde is from my hometown.

SSM: You have performed with many larger acts over the years.  How does that help you grow as a band?

GP: It helps tremendously.  When you take a look at anybody on a professional level and you want to be on that professional level, you just take what they do, all aspects as far as stage performance and crowd control and the way that people act and play and how professional they are on stage.  I think you have to take that as learning experiences every time.  I’m talking about specifically watching them and asking questions and just being inquisitive and wanting to learn.  As far as building a fan base, I mean, playing in different cities with big bands like Godsmack, Mudvayne, Korn, we’ve played with a lot of big acts like that.  It just definitely helps build the name and let things grow.  It’s like watering the flowers.

SSM: Speaking of Korn, it must have been very exciting to win the Opening Act Band Search and join the Family Values Tour.  How was that experience?

GP: Simply incredible, all the people that we met and the bands that we met, and the audiences were just incredible.  I would say the only thing that stinks about something like that is that after it’s over, you’re so sad that it’s over, and you’re looking for the next big ‘high’, there’s no better drug than that, playing for that many people and experience those feelings.  It’s a fast-paced, high energy feeling that I’ll never forget.  And I don’t think anybody in the band would ever forget.

SSM: I’ve heard you all have a crazy live show and you’ve got a very loyal fan base.  How would you describe your live show?

GP: It’s just extremely high energy.  I mean, everybody’s sweating from head to toe.  By the time we get off stage, we’re all that.  We feed off the crowd and the crowd definitely feeds off of us.  We kind of have the philosophy that if we’re high energy, the crowd will be high energy.  If you go see a band that has high energy, you’re going to have the energy that they have.  That’s kind of our philosophy that if we show the energy, the crowd will show the energy.  And by the end of the show, everybody is feeling it.

SSM: You just released your latest CD, Addicted to Chaos.  Tell me about your it.

GP: It was done by Ed Reed who is the producer from Lighthouse Studios in Staten Island.  He just won a Grammy this year for Vanguard band, but it was also engineered by Eric Kvortek who did “A Life Once Lost.”  He did “In This Moment,” “God Forbid,” a couple more metal bands.  With the collaboration between the two, I think we came out with a great record.  I would think if somebody popped it in from beginning to end, you’re going to hear some wide array of influence as well as variety.  It’s not one of those records that you pop in and the first song sounds like the last song.  It’s got quite a bit of variety on it for different audiences.  We also did the cover “Land Down Under” on there from Men at Work, which was pretty neat and pretty cool to watch it all come together.  But the record probably took us a total of five months to make it.  We did some of it in Jersey and we did some of it in Staten Island.  It was just a great experience working with Ed and then really excited that he won a Grammy this year, too.  It gives a lot more validity to the recording.

SSM: So does the whole band participate in writing the songs and the music?

GP: Absolutely, 100%.  You might have one of us that has a complete song but 9 times out of 10, it’s usually a verse or a pre-chorus or a chorus and then somebody else has another part.  So, the writing process for us usually is a multiple collaboration.

SSM: Listening to the CD, you’ve got a very unique sound with the dual guitars, the very powerful vocals.  It’s hard and aggressive, but it’s very melodic at the same time.  How has the response been to the CD since it has come out?

GP: From industry people, it’s been amazing, from the crowd it’s been amazing.  I mean everybody has actually got a very high feeling on the CD.  Even radio has taken it under their wing.  I would say nothing but positive.  We’re all stoked about it.

SSM: You did a cover of a song that I would have never thought of as a metal song, Men at Work’s “Down Under”, and I would say better than the original.  How did you all decide on that song for a cover?

GP: You know, that’s a question they’ve asked a lot and to be honest with you, I don’t know.  I mean our singer had mentioned it or our guitar player mentioned it.  I think it was maybe on a Sunday and by Thursday, the guitar player, Eddie basically came with his own version of it and played it for us.  And an hour later, we’re playing the song and he actually printed out the lyrics for Jon and said, “Sing this.”  And then an hour later, we’re all playing it, looking at each other like, “Who thought that could actually be cool?”  We all thought it was good when we did it, but I had no idea going in nor did anybody in the band that it was actually going to be cool.  We had probably 20 other cover songs that we’ve thrown out at each other and everybody was like, “Nah, nah, nah, nah.”  This one, Eddie (Heedles, giutar) just took it on his own and just ran with it.  He just learned it and came to practice.  We all played it and I was looking at him like, “What, are you out of your mind?”  With ‘Land Down Under’, if you listen to it, there’s a lot of island drums going on there and there are flutes in the background, and then Mark (Monjoy, guitar) transposes the flute section into a lead guitar part.  It’s just incredible and everything just came together like that.

SSM: Tell me about your new tour with the Cycle of Pain, is the band excited?

GP: We’re super stoked.  We all just can’t wait to get out of here.  The first three dates are in your area, we’re starting out in Indianapolis on the 14^th, 15^th we’re in Louisville, Kentucky, and then the 16^th we’re in Nashville.  Everybody is super happy and super stoked.  The way that kind of came about was that we played a show with Cycle of Pain and J.D. (DeServio of Black Lable Society and Cycle of Pain), and they really took a liking to us and their manager really took a really liking to us.  So we played a second show and they really wanted to tour with us and we were more than happy to say yes to that.  Kind of the same thing happened with Living Colour, too.  Corey Glover, the lead singer heard the CD and then the rest of the guys heard it.  So this tour came up and their new record came out; it was perfect timing.  So it just kind of fell into place.

SSM: What does the rest of this year and next year hold for Sekond Skyn?

GP: I think the rest of this year, we’re just going to try to tour as much as possible.  We’re going to write a lot of new material on the road hopefully, put on a new record as soon as maybe next spring.  That’s what I hope to happen.

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