Meet The Band gives you the chance to get to know a new or up-and-coming group. Skin Drone are a duo with one member in Boston and the other in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Their debut album is Evocation. Otto Kinzel introduces us to his band.
Heavy Music Headquarters: Give us a brief history of Skin Drone.
Otto Kinzel: Erik (Martin) and I met when his other band, Critical Dismemberment, was involved with a compilation album my label (Bluntface Records) was releasing. I really liked their music and I reached out to them, to see if they would be interested in working with the label on more releases.
I got to know both Erik and his bandmate Chase Fincher pretty well. It just naturally flowed in terms of what we had in common and our musical and non-musical interests. It was a natural step to start collaborating on music.
Describe the songwriting and recording process of Evocation.
It’s really not that different from most other bands. One of us comes up with a riff or pattern. We record a quick demo and email the WAV files to the other person, to listen to and provide feedback. From there we bounce ideas back and forth and will work out specific parts as the song starts to take shape. We’ll usually do a couple of demo versions in order to have an audio reference point before deciding if we want to pursue it further and try to make it a “final” song (one that we keep).
How would you characterize the album’s style/sound?
Very eclectic. We really tried not to pigeonhole ourselves. There’s a lot of elements from technical death metal in there, but also a lot of industrial and avant-garde influences as well. We wanted
to take a lot of big risks, as far as extreme metal goes. That included trying to use a lot of darker, more ambient and dissonant type sounds. We want the listener to think of the songs in a different way; for it to feel more like scenes from a movie.
Do you have any plans to play live shows?
For now it’ll be difficult. I live outside of Boston, MA and Erik lives in Arkansas. So there’s approximately 1,000 miles between us. Depending on well Evocation does, we’ll certainly consider it! But right now our primary focus is promoting this album as much as we possibly can.
Who are your musical heroes?
For me, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, Ministry, KMFDM, Rush, The Mars Volta, Public Enemy, Ween, Mr. Bungle, old school Bay Area thrash metal like Metallica, Megadeth & Testament…the list goes on and on. I have a lot of different influences and find inspiration in all types of music, especially “non metal” type stuff.
What are some of your non-musical interests and hobbies?
I’m a huge motorsports fan! I love Indycar, Formula One and Sports car racing. I also love hockey. I’m a diehard Boston Bruins fan. I bleed black and gold!
What’s your all-time favorite album?
That’s a really hard question to answer. I can give you a small list of some of my all-time favorite albums: …And Justice for All, Psalm 69, Dark Side of the Moon, We’re Only In It For The
Money…that’s just a few.
Anything else you’d like to mention/plug/promote?
Our album Evocation is out now. Buy it at Bandcamp.
(interview published June, 2016)
