HMS Sid Skank Interview The reviews

An interview with HMS Sid Skank, rhythm guitarist with The Incredible Skank Brothers, for ABSOLUTELY PI**ED zine.



OK then, formalities first, what's the music and who's the band?

The music's ska music - we mainly perform cover versions from that period around 1979-81 when the ska scene was massive here, but we do a few of our own songs as well. Apart from me, there's Garth 'B' Skank on vocals, Lenny 'The Lips' Skank on sax, Hank 'B' Skank on lead guitar, Guitar George Skank on bass guitar and Stevie 'Skin' Skank on drums. We thought about getting a female backing singer once, but that would have meant changing the name to The Incredible Skank Siblings or something, and that sounds a bit crap.

Where do you play your gigs?

We play pubs and clubs anywhere in north-east England where we haven't been banned from. With four of the band living in Newcastle and two living in Hartlepool, and nobody having a tour van, it's tricky getting much further. Although we'd love to have a week long tour out of the country somewhere. Preferably somewhere sunny and lively with cheap beer.

Does this mean you've been in trouble with many pubs or clubs?

No, not really. There was one pub where the staff were really nasty to our audience, one of the biggest audiences the pub had ever had, so before we left we pinched their pool balls.

Pinching their balls? Sounds a bit below the belt. Anyway, where are the band's musical influences?

Madness, The Specials, Bad Manners, The Selecter, The Beat, that kinda thing. Anything with a good skanking sound that gets the listener tapping their feet to it.

What do you think before you go on stage?

I think "Let's get out there and have a good dance about and have a fun time". If the audience see how much you're enjoying it, then they seem to enjoy it more themselves. Getting down off stage and having a dance away during the songs usually gets the audience on their feet as well. Garth has a habit of leaving his mike and going and dragging up any particularly happily-seated people.

Ever get anything interesting thrown at you on stage?

What, you mean knickers and stuff? Nah, no such luck. Just verbal abuse and the odd plastic pint-glass.

So is the band one big happy family?

Yeah, I suppose so, we regularly go out and have a good laugh and a good drink and fall over together. You need to be able to see the stupid side of each other and get on well in order to work well as a team. We argue all the time at practices, but that's because we all feel we need some input into what we do. And anyway, we only spend half of our practices practising, we spend the rest of the practice messing about, playing daft music, telling jokes, having a drink.

What do The Incredible Skank Brothers do for a living? Obviously you don't make enough money to live off your music.

I suppose we'd need to play half a dozen gigs a day to pack in our jobs. Until then, George is a student, Stevie's an electrician, me and Garth work in education research, Hank works in a hospital and Lenny is a self-employed woodwind repairman. Once repaired the sax for Lee Kix Thompson out of Madness, in fact. Our band's only half-interesting claim to fame, that. But when we're bigger than they ever were, they'll be repairing our instruments, you'll see.

Any song releases on the horizon?

We're hoping to get into the studio soon to record our first tape/CD. We have two of our own songs and a cover to put on it.

And any big plans for the future?

Just to keep doing what we're doing and having fun. Although... it would be pretty good to support some big ska bands and play some big venues. And I suppose a record contract wouldn't be a bad thing either. Come to think of it, I've never been on telly, that would be unbelievably cool as well...

Do you have any final words for anybody reading this interview?

Just "GET SKAAANKING!"