The Goo 1
FEB '25 Aaron had been in school bands since he w
as ten but only played guitar and never sang. Given that he was often the youngest member of any act he played in, he felt his ideas and suggestions were frequently disregarded before any consideration. Still wishing to express his concepts, Aaron stopped playing in bands at fifteen. Between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, Aaron took up the classic acoustic guitar and harmonica combo and performed original tunes and bespoke rearrangements of country classics at various open mic nights across Dublin. At these events, he would see avant-garde performances and poetry (sometimes performed by non-English speakers in their native tongue), which further expanded his realisation of the limitlessness of expression. Not long after, he found something which pushed that concept even further. “I got into punk music when I was seventeen,” he says. “I had a friend from school who was really into a lot of really obscure bands and stuff like that. I think it just came at a certain period in my life when I needed it. He got me into very obscure bands before I even heard the Sex Pistols kind of thing. Then I listened to the ‘70s, classic punk, but it was more when I got into the more nowavey stuff that things kind of clicked a bit more because it was kind of like music that I’ve never heard before because a lot of it is totally unlistenable, but I kind of liked it for that aspect because, all of a sudden, the opportunities and what you could do are so open.” Not long after, he scrapped his solo project. “I got bored of doing that because you can only be so loud with an acoustic guitar!” laughs Aaron. “And I got sick of busking, as well. So, then I just did Skinner.” Skinner have been releasing music and performing consistently for over a half-decade. For Aaron, the crucial aspects of the band are creative freedom and the opportunities to morph. Referring back to the opening paragraphs of this article, Aaron explains how he contrasts it, saying, “I think everything became very saturated around 2017, 2018 with that starker post-punk sound, where it was just very noisy and angry but [with] not a whole lot of depth to it, at the end of the day, and I was listening to a load of bands that were doing that “And, obviously, Ireland had that huge blow-up, where it was the same six or seven bands in the same NME and fuckin’ Pitchfork articles for ages, and it was just almost tiring for a long time. Although I like some of that music, it wasn’t the stuff that resonated with me. The stuff that resonated with me was the weirder stuff - the more musical, lyrical, danceable stuff - and I think I liked that music a lot more, and, also, it lent itself more to individuality and it was more adaptable. So my big thing is I like to include as many instruments, as many genres as I can in the music, so that, further on down the line, if I want to do something different, it’s not a big deal when you change it. Whereas other bands, they just do one thing, then they tour that for a year or two, and then they come back and they realise, ‘Oh, we’ve all changed as people, but everyone knows us for this,’ and then they go and make a funk record or a reggae record, and everyone’s like, ‘This is awful!’, because they didn’t allow themselves that freedom and that experimentation phase. I think you can get funnelled in really quickly, whereas I’m, right off the bat, coming in like, ‘It’s all of these things, and expect even more things than that, afterwards.’ That’s important for an artist because, a lot of people, they get stuck doing the same thing because it’s worked once and everyone tells them, ‘Keep doing it. Keep doing it.’” On January 10th, Skinner’s debut album, New Wave Vaudeville, (a nod to a short-lived New York club that became Club 57, where most of the city’s no-wave acts made their name) was released via Faction Records to critical acclaim. At the beginning of February, Skinner will embark on a headlining tour of Ireland and the UK to support the album, which Aaron promises will feature high-energy shows and “something different than you’d get at a typical, quote-unquote, ‘punk show.’” Despite only releasing 9 his debut, Aaron is already looking towards Skinner’s future material, some of which he teases will be performed on their current tour. He tells us that their new material will specifically feature influences from the credence of the Olympia, Washington musician Calvin Johnson and his band Beat Happening and record label K Records. As a critic of the mainstream institutions and players in the music industry and his first- hand disdain at the transactional nature of those “relationships,” Aaron is utilising his success to pay his fortune forward, offering his engineering services pro bono to acts that interest him in an attempt to foster a counter network that’s founded on trust and altruism. Aaron also likes to use his press time to shine a spotlight on some of his favourite acts on the Irish scene, which we would be remiss not to print. In our interaction, he recommended our readers to check out Spit, Girlfriend., Delivery Service, Stupid Son, Burglar, hotgirl, iNNUENDO, echo northstar, Shark School, I Dreamed I Dream, pôt-pôt, and Crying Loser. Aaron concludes our interview with a message that has somewhat become his mantra at this point and which is a core tenet to his work: “If you’re a main band and you’re playing a headline show, don’t be a dick and let the supporting band use your backline.” Skinner’s debut album, New Wave Vaudeville, is out now. Between February 5th to March 1st, Skinner will perform across Ireland and the UK. You can find all the dates and buy a ticket or five at: linktree.com/skindizzle.