NEWS
Skunk Anansie’s Skin says that finding a new sound for their new record was ‘painful’
30 May 2025
Skunk Anansie’s Skin joined X-Posure with John Kennedy on Radio X.
Skunk Anansie front woman Skin joined John Kennedy in the Radio X studio last week, where the singer revealed that trying to find the band’s new sound was a ‘painful’ experience after the group suffered what she calls a ‘slow decline.’
Skin also reveals the band have done some gigs ‘just to put money in the bag’ after being ‘bled dry’ by the COVID-19 pandemic
Key
Skin – S
John Kennedy – JK
Skunk Anansie’s Skin says that finding a new sound on their new record was ‘painful’ after the band suffered a ‘slow decline’
JK: “Now, ‘An Artist Is An Artist’ is such an amazing track. It really stopped me in my tracks when I first heard it! It was an X-posure Big One on the show. It's such an amazing statement and such a visceral sound that the band have created here. How did this come about?”
S: “Gosh. Well, that song actually started from a poem, and it was, like a lot of songs, it was a reaction to something I'd seen online where there was this new artist and they put this song out there innocently, and everyone was just ramming it and just mashing it up or whatever.”
[…]
S: “So we started working with Dave Sitek, who's from the band TV On The Radio, because we wanted to have someone who really understood how to get into songs and to raise them up above the level that we had got to. And so that was the first song that we did, because we went into a very scary predicament. We didn't know what the album was going to sound like. We wanted to discover it. We wanted to develop it. We didn't want to go have like 10 songs and then just go into recording studio and record them. We didn't want to do it that way. We wanted to do a few songs, have a listen and develop a new sound. Because I think that, to be really honest, the painful truth is, maybe Skunk Anansie were a band that was in slow decline. Because a lot of bands from the 90s, we've been around a long time. People are very used to us. And I have this sense of like, sometimes when you're doing new stuff with some bands, you know, everyone takes the opportunity to go to the pub and have a drink, go to the bar and get a glass of beer when the new song comes on. Certainly I've done that, because some of the new songs aren't the favourite songs that you want to hear. So, I was just very much aware of, like, nobody goes to the bar during the new songs. That was my barometer in my head. And it was all about trying to find a new sound. And it was quite painful, it was quite a hard thing to do when you're so used to doing things a certain way. And we kept going and kept going. It just felt like we just held hands and jumped off the cliff and hoped that we were going to land in water.”
Skunk Anansie’s Skin reveals the band have done some gigs ‘just to put money in the bag’ after being ‘bled dry’ by the COVID-19 pandemic
JK: “I mean, you're launching the album with a special show. You're supporting Smashing Pumpkins this summer for a couple of nights in August, but there's a missing thing, which is a long tour date list for all the fans to look at and go,’ Oh, I'm going to go and see them there.’
S: “Yeah, it's coming. It's coming. We've just done a long tour. We just finished a two-and-a-half-month tour, sold out, and that was absolutely brilliant! And then we're doing a few more dates in Italy, and some dates here and there. I mean, we're doing some dates to just put money in the bag, really, because, you know, we got bled dry with COVID. So some of the dates we doing are just like… Yeah, this is a big-ticket gig. Let's just put some money in our pot so we can start to make the next album and not have such a big gap.”
Skunk Anansie front woman Skin joined John Kennedy in the Radio X studio last week, where the singer revealed that trying to find the band’s new sound was a ‘painful’ experience after the group suffered what she calls a ‘slow decline.’
Skin also reveals the band have done some gigs ‘just to put money in the bag’ after being ‘bled dry’ by the COVID-19 pandemic
Key
Skin – S
John Kennedy – JK
Skunk Anansie’s Skin says that finding a new sound on their new record was ‘painful’ after the band suffered a ‘slow decline’
JK: “Now, ‘An Artist Is An Artist’ is such an amazing track. It really stopped me in my tracks when I first heard it! It was an X-posure Big One on the show. It's such an amazing statement and such a visceral sound that the band have created here. How did this come about?”
S: “Gosh. Well, that song actually started from a poem, and it was, like a lot of songs, it was a reaction to something I'd seen online where there was this new artist and they put this song out there innocently, and everyone was just ramming it and just mashing it up or whatever.”
[…]
S: “So we started working with Dave Sitek, who's from the band TV On The Radio, because we wanted to have someone who really understood how to get into songs and to raise them up above the level that we had got to. And so that was the first song that we did, because we went into a very scary predicament. We didn't know what the album was going to sound like. We wanted to discover it. We wanted to develop it. We didn't want to go have like 10 songs and then just go into recording studio and record them. We didn't want to do it that way. We wanted to do a few songs, have a listen and develop a new sound. Because I think that, to be really honest, the painful truth is, maybe Skunk Anansie were a band that was in slow decline. Because a lot of bands from the 90s, we've been around a long time. People are very used to us. And I have this sense of like, sometimes when you're doing new stuff with some bands, you know, everyone takes the opportunity to go to the pub and have a drink, go to the bar and get a glass of beer when the new song comes on. Certainly I've done that, because some of the new songs aren't the favourite songs that you want to hear. So, I was just very much aware of, like, nobody goes to the bar during the new songs. That was my barometer in my head. And it was all about trying to find a new sound. And it was quite painful, it was quite a hard thing to do when you're so used to doing things a certain way. And we kept going and kept going. It just felt like we just held hands and jumped off the cliff and hoped that we were going to land in water.”
Skunk Anansie’s Skin reveals the band have done some gigs ‘just to put money in the bag’ after being ‘bled dry’ by the COVID-19 pandemic
JK: “I mean, you're launching the album with a special show. You're supporting Smashing Pumpkins this summer for a couple of nights in August, but there's a missing thing, which is a long tour date list for all the fans to look at and go,’ Oh, I'm going to go and see them there.’
S: “Yeah, it's coming. It's coming. We've just done a long tour. We just finished a two-and-a-half-month tour, sold out, and that was absolutely brilliant! And then we're doing a few more dates in Italy, and some dates here and there. I mean, we're doing some dates to just put money in the bag, really, because, you know, we got bled dry with COVID. So some of the dates we doing are just like… Yeah, this is a big-ticket gig. Let's just put some money in our pot so we can start to make the next album and not have such a big gap.”
