Devilskin, New Zealand’s finest Metal band are ten years old this year and to celebrate they have just released their best album yet. We may be locked down but it’s impossible to not feel the urge to bang that head when you hear ‘Red’… Before release we caught up with Jennie and now it’s Paul’s turn and what a chat we had! We talked for so long that we’ve decided to put up the interview in two parts – it’s only right when you consider ‘Red’ may well be album of the year!
Mark: Hey Paul how are you?
Paul: I’m good man how you going?
Mark: Not too bad, I’m so glad we finally got the chance to catch up.
Paul: Holy fuck! It’s only the most chaotic time in the World’s history! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) It’s crazy the way it’s all panned out and just when things were about to kick into gear for you guys too with the release of ‘Red’. Where would you have been today if we didn’t have this damned virus?
Paul: I think today we would be in Sheffield or maybe Manchester, part way through the UK Leg of the Tour anyway (laughs) it’s just one of those things. I’ve got a wall planner and I was a bit lazy, I’d only just written the dates on it in the kitchen – then everything got cancelled! (laughs)
Mark: That’s Rock and Roll!
Paul: It is! (laughs)
Mark: There’s also the small matter that you’ve just released what is in my considered opinion and a couple of huge Devilskin fans I know over here your best album to date!
Paul: Wow, well thanks man that was certainly what we were aiming for. We wanted to put our best foot forward and we all seem to think that with this collection of songs we haven’t left anything out – we’ve put it all out there and we’re really confident it’s solid and we hope that people are gonna love it.
Mark: One of the problems with coronavirus is that it’s bloody hard to find over here at the minute too!
Paul: What’s happened with our Government at the moment is that all non-essential mail items have been stopped so unfortunately if it was a sack of flour you’d probably have it already. But we’ve not been allowed to mail out our Cd’s or our gorgeous box sets or our red vinyl or anything. We’ve got thousands of orders waiting and they’ll all be shipped as soon as the lockdown comes off here. But the great thing these days is of course digital so we could still out with the original release date and get everything out there on the digital platforms.
Mark: It is a great thing even if we have to wait to get our hard copies we can at least have a listen now. Now onto the serious questions – I was watching you on YouTube, I think it was the launch day and you had a recipe involving tequila that I missed!
Paul: laughs) Yeah man! We were playing in Germany one time and I get a bit nervous before shows, I always have, but it was a tiny little gig, not a big room at all, and it was all down to the language barrier. I just wanted a shot of tequila and they got the tequila bit but they didn’t know how I wanted it, and I was saying “Lemon and salt” and they said something like “liken slumpen beisen” (that’s what it sounded like to me anyway) and I thought OK that must be right, but he came back with a slice of orange instead of lemon and cinnamon instead of salt! And I haven’t looked back since Digg! It was a game-changer for me!
Mark: (laughs) It just shows you how well stocked those German bars are, I’m sure you couldn’t find one with cinnamon behind the counter here!
Paul: (laughs) I call it the Mexican Christmas!
Mark: I love that story, it’s fantastic and sometimes you just do stumble on things like that by accident!
Paul: It’s all part of the fun of travelling round the world.
Mark: (laughs)
Paul: Finding different recipes for cool things.
Mark: And you can’t beat a bit of tequila… Devilskin of course are getting more and more known over here in Australia and you had that great slot last time you were over opening up for Slash which I guess opens you up to a crowd you might not normally get to play for?
Paul: That was just incredible, it was so much fun for us. We’d done two shows with Slash previously in New Zealand a couple of years earlier and we got on so well with him and his crew that we got invited back for the next run they did through New Zealand and then they took us to Australia. That was so much fun, what a neat guy Slash is, lovely guy and his crew were just amazing and we had the best time. And Aussie rock crowds! Wow, sitting here in New Zealand listening growing up to all these Aussie Rock bands, AC/DC especially who were always at the top of the list for me. But Australia has always been the home of good Hard Rock and it was really great for us to be accepted so well and so openly by the Aussie Rock crowd.
Mark: Take us all the way back Paul, I know we can all read Wikipedia but it never seems to get things right and always misses the interesting bits out. You’ve had your radio show for a few years now?
Paul: 33 years.
Mark: Just 23 more than our website. By rights you should be interviewing me…
Paul: (laughs)
Mark: And I guess it was through that radio show that the band originally came together?
Paul: Yeah, well kind of. I sort of fell into this radio gig by accident. I was in a band called Knightshade and I was interviewed on the local university station here in Hamilton, this is back in 1987. I got on really well with the DJ and we had the same record collection, and this is back in the days of LP’s of course and we got on famously, liked the same beer and I teamed up with him and we did this radio show for a year or so and then he left and I’ve been doing it ever since. It’s just playing the Metal that you don’t hear anywhere, helping local bands who can’t get a foot in the door anywhere else, and we’ve been really supportive of New Zealand music for the past 33 years. But it was through that you’re right that Jennie sent in a demo from her band when she was sixteen. They were called Slipping Tongue, and Digg mate, I opened up the envelope and all these bits of plastic fell out, there was a ripped up corner of a bit of paper where someone had written something on, it was really scruffy and I thought “Oh man, no thought’s gone into that”. I put it aside and thought “I’ll listen to that later”. And it was about two weeks before I thought “Oh shit I better listen to that, after all they did go to all the trouble of sending it to me.” And I listened to the drums and thought, oh man where was this recorded, but then Jennie’s voice came in and Holy crap! I got goosebumps it was really cool.
And every time I talk about it like now I get them again. Her voice was just stunning, sixteen year old Jennie just screaming, growling singing – listening to it as just amazing. And I probably shouldn’t have played it on the radio but I did, and I just kept supporting their band, they did an album, I was their greatest supporter. And then when that band fell over I pretty much pounced on Jennie “What are you doing, what are you doing? Do you want a jam?” And back then she was a bit tired of the bands thing because she’d been hurt a bit but she finally said “OK but just one jam, but we’re not gonna do gigs or go out of town are we?” and I said “No, no, no, just a jam and let’s see where it takes us” and at that very first jam we ended up writing ‘Little Pearls’, ‘Flayed’ and ‘Until You Bleed’ which are three songs which are in our set to this day, Something magical happened when we all got together and I think we all knew it pretty much straight away “This girl is good” and so we just started doing a few local gigs and gradually got out of town and the crowds got bigger till we could up our production and it grew pretty organically here in New Zealand.
Mark: So what’s it like when you play a show at home now? Crazy? Would I find it hard to get a ticket?
Paul: (Laughs) Yes it’s crazy. We have to have crowd barriers over here and we still pinch ourselves about that. But we’re pulling big numbers and that allows us to run things with big PA’s and big stages, we want them (the audience) to have a really good night out. We always make sure we have a really strong line-up when we’re touring here just to give everyone the best night out we possibly can.
Mark: That sounds great, I know you guys over there and we in the West don’t really get our fair share of touring acts.
Paul: Yeah, there’s so many Kiwis that will quite happily jump on a plane to see their favourite Metal band in Melbourne, or Brisbane or Sydney, it’s just what you’ve gotta do. I know what it’s like mate, when those big tours are announced we see no New Zealand and we see no Western Australia (laughs). We’re all in the same boat here aren’t we!
Mark: And whilst coronavirus might have changed many things it won’t be changing that, though we in the West of Australia would be a very safe spot to tour if any promoters are out there…
Paul: Oh mate the world’s in for a big shake up I don’t know what to expect. When all this is lifted. We had UK dates which we’d have been in the middle of now and then to Europe. We pretty much had the whole year planned out but everyone’s had the rug pulled out from under them so all we can do is hunker down and see what happens. We’ve still got an album’s worth of material that didn’t make the album so we can work on new songs and hone our skills, do lots of interviews and we’re getting a lot of really good press at the minute especially in the States which is great.
Mark: I do try and spread the word where I can Paul because I do consider you a ‘local’ band Perth and New Zealand together (laughs).
Paul: Too right man! (laughs) Everything’s been really good so far, it’s all positive, the word’s getting out there slowly. Obviously with the state of the world at the moment our plans for marketing and everything just went out of the window. So keep listening and if you like it tell your friends!
Mark: I did ask Jennie the other day what her three favourite songs were to sing, but as a failed bassist myself what are your three favourite to play when you’re in the engine room?
Paul: Well I’ll tell you, we have a song called ‘Be Like the River’ and it was the title of our second album but it never appeared on that album so continuing the theme it made our third album, and it’s kind of different to anything else on there, it’s kind of bluesy and open and quite slow. And there’s something about that song. When we demoed it for the second album it just didn’t sound up to it so it got left behind. But when we get to band practice if everyone’s has a shit day at work or whatever when we play that song we all felt good. It’s just a feel good song for us and we all enjoy playing it. And as a failed bass player myself…
Mark: (laughs)
Paul: (laughing) There’s just a nice little bass run in there that I wrote and makes me feel it kind of justifies me having four strings now! Now I can play an actual bass part! (laughs) I’m a failed guitarist I guess if you look at it one way, I’ve been playing guitar all my life and just in that one first jam we had with Jennie I said OK I’ll play bass, just for this one jam and I’m still here, still continuing to play bass guitar through my Marshall guitar rig! (laughs)
Mark: One of the things I do notice about the albums and you alluded to it there is that you always have a track on the latest album that has the title of the previous album. I guess it is now but was that always intentional?
Paul: Yes that all started with our first album ‘We Rise’, we’d written the song ‘We Rise’ and assumed it was going to be the album as we thought it was a great name for a debut. This is what we want to say, it’s all about taking off and ascension. But when we demoed the songs and I guess there were about 30 for that first album, there were other songs that were better at that stage so We Rise’ didn’t make the album cut. But when we demoed it for the second album it sounded better and it was it’s time so we stuck that on the second album and then as I said exactly the same thing happened with ‘Be Like The River’ the song just didn’t quite cut it in demo format, it didn’t sit in there well with everything. Its timing wasn’t right, so we pushed to get it on this album and our manager was saying to us it didn’t fit well, it didn’t have the same drive and we said “That’s right” that’s why we loved it, it was different. And we’ve had a really good response to it. But yes I think that you probably can look forward to a song called ‘Red’ on our next album!
Mark: Is that amongst the demos already?
Paul: (laughs) Not yet but I have plenty of ideas around it.
Mark: As long as the next one isn’t a coronavirus concept album!
Paul: (laughs) it’s the last thing we’d ever want to do. People are sick to death of it already (laughs)!
Mark: Lock-down I guess gives us that opportunity to listen to a bit more than we might normally, what’s been on your playlist?
Paul: Well it’s been quite good because my son Nick who plays drums in the band, he gave up his flat just before we were due to go out on tour, so it’s been really cool to have him at home as he’s locked in with my wife and I so he’s actually introduced me to so much music – he’s the one who put me onto 12 Foot Ninja. I think when we were recording our second album that’s all we were listening to. He’s also put me onto a band called Loathe – I’m absolutely loving that, and I love Testament’s new album, Overkill’s new one I love my Thrash. And I still revisit a few of my old school first loves like The Stranglers and Ramones and Sex Pistols. And Black Sabbath of course is never far away from the CD player – that’s my favourite band ever so I play a lot of that. But during the lock-down I’ve been listening to lots of different stuff. Last night I listened to Phoebe Snow, and we had some Supertramp on when we were eating dinner. And also as I have a little bit of time on my hands I’ve just gone and finally got with the digital age and put my other band World War Four up on Spotify. So were keeping busy, and it’s all about music as that’s what we do.
Mark: I know what you mean and it’s also a chance to reflect and slow down. I found myself reading a book the other day, I can’t remember the last time I did that.
Paul: That’s a cool thing, man I used to read so much. And lately I loved listening to music and climbing inside my favourite songs and favourite artists and reliving that cool buzz you got the very first time you heard it.
Mark: Talking of which, take us all the way back when did you know that you had to be a musician? Was there a defining moment.
Paul: I remember growing up and always wanting to play trumpet. I remember my mum telling me that when she saw my face when I was listening to the radio one time and Louis Armstrong came on playing trumpet she said she saw a little spark go on inside my head. But we were pretty poor when I was growing up and it wasn’t until I was about thirteen that I got my trumpet, and I got really good at it and my Dad was in the Post Office so we shifted around a lot and we moved to this place where there were a lot of neighbours real close and I got paranoid about playing the trumpet so I ended up getting an electric guitar (laughs). I couldn’t play that either! But basically for me I grew up listening to a lot of Elvis, a lot of 50’s and 60’s Rock and Roll records my parents had. And then I’m the youngest of four so I had my older sisters’ Uriah Heep and Led Zeppelin and T-Rex, all good stuff you know and CCR. And then my brother came home with Black Sabbath Greatest Hits that had the old Bruegel painting on the cover – the Triumph of Death and I thought, man this sounds good. At the time I was pretty hard into Ramones and The Sex Pistols at the time. But as soon as I put on Black Sabbath that was it, the world changed – I thought “This is me, this is what I want to do now”…
Read part 2 of our interview HERE.
You can buy ‘Red’ now in various formats from: https://devilskin.co.nz
