Mike Skinner
Pushin' Things Forward
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This young "45th generation Roman" was recently in America's Rome, New York, for a gauntlet of press interviews in preparation for his second U.S. tour. NATN caught up with him at a friend's cozy apartment on Avenue A, where the soft-spoken Brit held forth on such subjects as songwriting, simplicity, and suits (lawsuits, that is).
NATN: When did you get in to New York?
Mike Skinner: Last night. You're the first [interviewer]. So you get me feeling keen.
NATN: So you missed the big snowstorm?
MS: Yeah. It happened the day before we came, so all the planes were canceled. And we were worried that our plane would be canceled. Instead, we just got all the people whose planes were canceled in the airport with us.
NATN: You're coming back to the States to tour in March. Does doing so much press and touring off the one album seem tiring to you, or does it keep you on your feet?
MS: No, it's weird. I think it's like, if you don't fuck yourself up with eating badly and drinking too much, it's quite a kind of healthy lifestyle, always being on the go, right? Getting the sleep that you need. But I think if you drink loads, do loads of drugs, and eat badly, it really starts fucking you up.
NATN: What sort of stuff have you been working on lately?
MS: Streets music. Just making another album, really.
NATN: How far along is that?
MS: It's about...don't tell my manager (nods in his direction)...but I've only just started. He thinks I've been working on it for six months. But don't worry about him, he's a doof.
Tim (manager): I hear all.
NATN: The email I got said you were working with OutKast.
MS: I don't know who told you that, but I've not spoken to anyone about it. At the moment, I don't know them and they don't know me. So nothing's been said, really.
NATN: But you've done other collaborative stuff lately?
MS: Well yeah, I produce. So I've done a few remixes lately. For the most part, the Streets has been just me, just cuz I've been really enjoying doing it on my own. But that's how really I grew up, just collaborating with everyone that I know.
NATN: Do you find it easier to work that way or alone?
MS: I quite like working on my own, cuz I can decide exactly how everything is. And I can do it when I want, and take a break whenever I want. But collaborating can be fun, cuz it's a bit more social. You know, you can have a good laugh. But generally I'm not into different ideas. I'm pretty headstrong, if I'm honest. I'm not very good at accepting other people's ideas.
NATN: How do you go about writing a song?
MS: I usually do the beat first, then I think about what I want to say. And I try to always make sure I know what I'm trying to say before I say it. Then I write it down and I do it. But I can't just write, I usually have to think about what I'm saying.
NATN: So you dont have like notebooks of material?
MS: You know, you do think of a lot of stuff when you're eating breakfast or walking to the tube station, and you kinda note all that down. But only use it when you need to use it. D'ya know what I mean?
NATN: Does the beat of a particular song make you want to write about certain stuff?
MS: Yeah, because I usually write the beat first, but generally what I'm talking about has to in some way fit. You know, if the beat sounds really angry, than I'm not going to write a love song.
NATN: Your style on the first album seems quite minimal. Do you envision yourself keeping on in that medium, or trying on some different musical styles?
MS: Yeah, I mean simplicity, I think, is good. It's always good. It's the only way you can try and be powerful with what you're saying, is when you're simple. So I think simplicity's not a style, it's a...[searching for word]...virtue? You know, something it's always good to try and be anyway. So I'll always be simple, and I'll probably, as I get better, get more simple. Hopefully.
NATN: Do you see yourself branching out into different musical styles with the Streets, or would you save that for different projects?
MS: I think there's a difference between a scene and a sound. I'll always try to be representing the scene that I'm in at the time. That will never change. But the sounds change, and the styles change.
NATN: A lot of the Stateside press has been characterizing your album as hip-hop. Do you think of your music in that sense?
MS: Yeah, I'd like people to think it's rap music, cuz that's what I look up to the most. But whatever really people think it is...if it's not, than it's not. I don't worry about what it is, though.
NATN: Do you use a lot of samples?
MS: I use a lot of samplers, but I don't use a lot of samples. Like, nothing that I sample ever belongs to someone else, see what I mean? But it's all samples. It's all stock sounds or music that I've made myself that I put in the sampler.
NATN: What sort of sounds inspire you?
MS: Well I like real instruments, but kinda cut up, you know what I mean? I like any real instrument...I like strings, like film music. I think that's probably my favorite instrument, or my favorite sound. But a lot of other things I dont even know what the instrument is. It's just the sound that sounds nice. Unless I played it, obviously, and even if I played it, I don't know what I'm playing.
NATN: So where would you hear something like that and say "I'll use that!"
MS: Stock sounds, sample CDs, keyboards that use sample sounds. You know, like the horn on "Let's Push Things Forward" is a horn keyboard sound. And I couldn't tell you what the notes I played were, but I played the notes.
NATN: When you tour, what's the set-up on stage?
MS: Drummer, keyboard player, bass player, singer. Five, including me.
NATN: And do you just try to recreate the album?
MS: The drummer hits sample pads, and the keyboard player's playing the sampler, so it pretty much does it really faithfully. It doesnt sound much different than on the album, except it sounds like it's being played live. You see so many dance bands who've made a good album, and then they try and play it with instruments and it just makes it sound like jazz coffee-fusion, coffee-table fusion. Because the thing with sampled music is it can get a fatness that live music can't. So if you use live instruments to try and recreate that, it just sounds horrible. Sometimes.
NATN: Do you play music that's not on the Streets album?
MS: B-sides. There's no other stuff that has been written that hasn't been released.
NATN: Videos?
MS: Yeah, we've got a company, we work with a company to make like short films. It just makes it more interesting than just looking at a load of doofs on the stage. You know, it's a little bit more than watching people play music. A little bit, not much. Some of the videos are really funny.
NATN: How many have you made?
MS: One for every song, pretty much. They're cheaply made, and sometimes we just use the video for the single, you know.
NATN: Would you ever make music yourself and not call it the Streets? Do you see the Streets as having an identity separate from Mike Skinner?
MS: I've not really thought about it. Uh, no I kinda see it as me, really. But I probably will maybe in the future. But I see it as me.
NATN: Do you think you would be able to create your music if you didn't live where you live?
MS: Yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah, the specifics, I couldn't do that if I didn't live there and hadn't seen that. But I think the thing is with the Streets, is it could have been anyone. I mean probably if I was raised in Paris, you could still make the Streets album. But it would just have you know, stripey shirts and garlic rather than night t-shirts and chips. You know, the specifics are definitely specific to where I'm from. But anyone could have made the album, d'ya know what I mean?
NATN: What are your biggest influences?
MS: Rap music, and anything else. I love rock music, but it's just a bit of sort of everything that sounds alright. A lot of ragga, lately. Garage, more than ever really. It's more like U.K. rap music all the time now. Gradually moving away from the dance hall, which was the start of rap music, wasn't it? After hip-hop. So yeah, it's just the same kinda changes are happening. And it's a bit more exciting than rap music, because it hasn't really got a formula at the moment. And no one really knows what they're doing. In the same way that nobody really knew what they were doing in rap music at the start. So that makes it interesting. But everyone knows what they're doing in rap music now, and it's all very obvious what everyone's got to do. So it sounds the same.
NATN: I have to ask you about a report in the NME today that an old friend of yours, Shaun Kelly, is accusing you of using material he'd written on Original Pirate Material (Ed note: for more insight into this situation, read the bio on the Streets' official Web site).
MS: Oh this is an old story, really. I had a pretty mad time last year. There was a group of people that I really wanted, that really started being involved with the Streets. And it was going to be a group thing at first. But they weren't really interested in it, and they just didn't want to put the work in. Or they just weren't focused, so I ended up doing it on my own. But there's elements of what I've done that sound similar to what they were doing when I was working with 'em. So it's this whole thing...they think I owe them something and I deceived them. But I think I just went and did it myself, and they weren't interested in it until it became successful. Which is the same story that you get with everything. But it's definitely a conflict. We tried to get 'em to...at one point last year they were going to sue us. And I tried to get 'em to sue me, instead of threatening me and my family, but they didn't, and I've not really heard from them since, until they went to the papers this week. But I hope they do sue me, and they get what they want, d'ya know what I mean? But it seems they're just not focused enough to want to do anything. They're just haters, as clichéd as that sounds.
TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.