Name: Live Skull
Members: Dave Hollinghurst (guitar), Kent Heine (bass), Mark C (guitar), Rich Hutchins (drums)
Interviewee: Mark C
Nationality: American
Current release: The new Live Skull full-length Party Zero is out via Bronson.

If you enjoyed this Live Skull interview and would like to find out more about the band and their music, visit them on Instagram, Facebook, and bandcamp.  



For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

When I’m writing alone, I try to get outside of myself and tap into the collective unconscious. I’ll pick up my guitar and play, freely. Whatever comes to my mind, until some riff grabs me. Then, I’ll try out some changes or just repeat the new phrase like a mantra, so I don’t lose it. If one is nearby, I’ll reach for the tape recorder (I like the vintage Sony Walkman size cassette recorder with onboard speaker).

Later I’ll collage different riffs grabbed this way to build a composition. You can hear some surprising riff combinations that arise from this free-form technique on “Magic Consciousness” which opens our latest LP Party Zero.



That doesn’t mean I haven’t done some work beforehand, like close listening to new or vintage tracks that sound intriguing. It helps me to decide which riffs to work on, providing an aesthetic framework to crit my choices

My favorite way to write for a band, like Live Skull, is to write with the band, to have everyone in the room jamming. It can be a few moments before rehearsing or at some down moment during practice or even at soundcheck. Any one of us can start it off with a riff or a rhythm. Instinctive stuff usually. But it can also be a bit one of us thought up beforehand. And if it resonates, if it sparks some interest, the rest of us will join in one by one expanding on the original idea.

In visual art, which for me is mainly fine art photography and collage (often in the service of designing LP covers), previsualization can play a central role. For example, I might take an idea from speculative fiction and try and find a landscape that triggers a similar emotional response. Then, I might add an element of my own to the mix.

See the brain in the trophy cup on the cover of Bringing Home the Bait; or the black and white photos of abandoned piers on Dusted where the deserted landscapes resonate with the psychic content of the songs, the modal darkness of the music.



In the end the images appear as scenes abstracted from an imaginary stories, clues to a plot line that evolves according one’s own point of reference.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

I always like to have a recorder nearby. A room where I can make noise without distractions is great when I pick up an electric guitar! That’s why I love my studio, an out-building in an old factory complex across the Hudson from my loft in downtown Manhattan. A kind of separate peace, a blank slate to let the imagination take hold.

Once I’ve collected some riffs and words to work on, I make rough sketches, listening time and again, changing, refining and reworking the riffs and phrasing. I have to work a little to get something sublime to take shape.

But some of the foundational riffs on Party Zero came to me in Maine while sitting on an outcropping of rocks with an acoustic guitar on my lap, cascading views of the bay and islands stretching out before me. The rhythmic moodiness of the ocean has always been a source of inspiration to me. You can hear it in the wavy keyboard track I laid down over the intro and outro to “Mad Kingship” off Party Zero.  



Dave’s opening guitar riffs sound like waves crashing on rocks while Kent’s ominous bass line and Rich’s rolling drum beat mirror the push and pull of the tides pulsing against - in this case - historically heavy political currents.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

Well now that’s it’s legal in New York, let me grab a pre-roll before answering that. Hmm … what was the question again?

Oh yeah, I like having organic loose leaf tea on tap. And I’ll procrastinate by organizing my space or cleaning up a little. It helps clear my mind before picking up my guitar or mixing at the computer.

But sometimes late at night, when the world seems at rest, it’s a good time for me to knock out some guitar riffs; or sit down at the fender Rhodes and vibe out.

When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?
 
To get started, I try and conjure up signals from the world around me. I’ll grab lines of text from articles I’m reading, or news reports I’m listening to. When a phrase seems charged or triggers a reaction in me, I copy it down. Add it to a list of phrases found in the same way from other unrelated sources. Later when I need words for a new song, I’ll edit the list, deleting and moving phrases around until a new coherent idea takes shape, one often unrelated to the original sources.

As it gets close to a final version, I’ll try singing the words with the music and see what fits. But in the end what materializes is a combination of words and music that evoke ideas and emotions that had been in my head all along.

One thing I realized early on about the original members of Live Skull, - Tom Paine, Marnie Greenholz and myself - was that we were all constantly scribbling phrases and words onto random scraps of paper to be collected later on and referred to when a jam had developed enough to warrant lyrics. We also shared the habit of periodically screaming into the microphone at rehearsals to get down an idea or two while jamming. Later we would try the best we could to decipher what we might have been saying.

Since I collect words all the time there’s no telling which is created first, but the music is usually pretty well defined before I work seriously on attaching lyrics. For “In a Perfect World” on Dangerous Visions, some words came to me as I was holed up with my partner in our downtown loft during one of the darkest nights of the pandemic.



I was listening back to a rough jam Live Skull had launched into at rehearsal several weeks before. Black Lives Matter protesters were marching below my third-floor window, sirens and chanting emanating from the darkness. I contemplated what it might mean to live in a perfect world.

I put on my headphones, cranked up the volume, and got a few phrases down before going in search of my notes to flesh out the lyrics.

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

I generally go for evocative words and phrases that can compete with dueling electric guitars and heavy beats. I’m drawn to lyrics that can embellish a seductive bassline and speak to the inner struggles we contend with on a daily basis. And I like a bit of mystery, lines that can be interpreted in multiple ways. “Flying Blind” on Party Zero opens with “I miss my secret audience, humoring me while I disappear …”



In the last couple of years, I’ve been a bit obsessed with content of a political nature, in response to some troubling backwards trends here and around the world. Resistance and the struggle for enlightenment are twin themes that currently hold me in their sway.

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

It’s definitely a moment of heightened sensibility, when the world goes from black and white to color. (Poly Styrene in X-Ray Spex screams that the world turns day-glo!) It’s a feeling of freedom beyond the confines of day-to-day consciousness. It helps you to imagine what it’s like to soar above the clouds like a raptor.



But I’m not sure it rises to the higher order of spirituality, that’s something heavy and might weigh you down.

Especially in the digital age, the writing and production process tends towards the infinite. What marks the end of the process? How do you finish a work?

That can be a serious issue when you are working in your own studio, on your own computer. Especially if there is no deadline. But there usually is, and once you start making changes that make a track sound worse or have no effect at all, then you know you are done.

Lyrics have a way of winding down on their own. When you’ve solved the puzzle rhythmically; and answered the questions that were nagging you when you started. Then you just type it up and make sure you’ve got the title right!

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?  

Often, it’s way later when I finally come to a determination of what was done right and what wasn’t.

After the recording, after the mixing, after the mastering … No matter how many times I have listened to it, the attributes of a new LP aren’t ultimately revealed, until I put the needle down on the finished vinyl and press play. It somehow, suddenly becomes crystal clear, the good and questionable decisions, of mixing, of writing - when there’s nothing I can do to change it!

But during the process, allowing some time to pass between listening sessions and changing locations can be of some help. Sleep on a mix, play it the next day when you are fresh. If you are feeling bold playing it for other people can change your perspective.

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

Mastering is vital, it’s the final polish that can help tie together the different tracks. It can enliven the mixes and take them to a place you might have been hesitant to go while mixing for fear of over doing it, as far as volume and eq are concerned.

We like to leave that work to a professional. When possible, I try and attend the initial session and we all make comments and suggestions as the process moves along. But working with someone well versed in the sorcery of mastering and who has “fresh ears” seems vital.

I’ve come to appreciate more and more the importance of production - something somewhat looked down upon in the early days of punk, which is when I first started playing music. But the best punk music made a mark, is still listened to today, because of the stripped down, in your face, production style which matched and accentuated the edgy rhythmic intent.

Great production is what elevates an LP, a collection of songs to a seminal or classic work. Which is not to be confused with high end recording qualities. That can help obviously, but the quality of the illusion is what really matters. The illusion of a full band playing in front of you, though technically squashed in the stereo playback. It can elevate a track so that you forget about the individual players, forget about the instrumentation and get lost in an emotive wonderland.

Starting with our LP Saturday Night Massacre we have been recording, mixing and producing our music ourselves.



I think we made some positive production choices in “Turn Up the Static” on Party Zero, heightening the drama, while maintaining a sense of intimacy.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

For me it’s more a kind of exhaustion. When I hand in a project, I’m creatively satisfied - or drained if you will - for the moment and so I don’t usually rush to create something new. But eventually, new ideas find their way onto tape, onto a piece of paper. And before I know it, I find myself in a room with my band members, amps cranked up, going places we’ve never been before.

But if I experience a moment of deflation, at the end of writing an LP or following a tour, then I’ll switch art forms to clear my mind and help regain my bearings.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Writing and playing music, or the act of working on a creative project is for most of the artists I know, a treasured form of therapy. Cooking, or gardening, or say walking in the woods, or whatever distracts you from your troubles, can also play an important role in keeping you centered. But I wouldn’t necessarily conflate the two.

If successful, a new artwork, a new song brings a new idea into the world, creates an uplifting, lasting resonance to wash across the landscape.