** Interview conducted by Mike of Adrenalin Fanzine - October 2006 **
 

[Mitch] Skin Casket's sound is to be taken for what it is. We draw our influences from many bands, but with no intention of sounding like any of them. When we write, we go into it with an open mind. Our songs are very different from one another because we are not afraid of trying anything. If it sounds good to us, then that is all we need.

[Deano] Well, we started in the fall of 2000 with me, Mitch, and Drew with a guy by the name of Ross Mead on the drums. We actually had two lead vocalists in the band, but that ended badly, so I'm gonna move on past that. (laughs) Um..... We quickly moved up in our local scene because, I think, we were different from what the other bands were. You know, we grew up with Megadeth, Anthrax, Slayer, Pantera, shit like that. Hard shit. No pussy whiney shit, so that's the kind of music we wanted to play. Anyway, we cut a few demos, then recorded the first full-length, but we had a few problems with Ross, so we parted ways during the recording of the album. Then, we got another guy by the name of Tom Drew. We played for a few years with him, then recorded "The Greatest Threat". But, once again, some unavoidable problems came up, and we had to part ways with him too. Then we had Ross back for a while, and we all came to the conclusion that it wasn't gonna work, so we worked with another guy named Derek Fletcher from the Flint band Foundation of Power. He did shows with us for about 3 months until we found Gabe.

ADRENALIN: I understand that Skin Casket formed, in part, as a retaliation to rap-metal. Was it certain bands in particular that pissed you off? What is it about rap-metal that you didn’t like?

[Drew] It wasn't necessarily rap metal that made us become a band, that was just the trend of music that was out when we formed. We did not want to join the club of musicians that just played what was fresh to get popularity. In fact, we rebelled against the idea, not just rap metal but every other trend of music that finds its way onto our local scene.

[Deano] I didn't like the trendiness of the whole thing. Basically it was all these trendy mall kids that thought they wanted to be Fred Durst. Skin Casket was basically formed because no one was playing the music that we wanted to hear. So we pretty much formed the band to hear what we wanted.

[Mitch] Rap-metal came on to the Flint scene like a plague. It seemed that almost every band around were doing it. We hated it because we knew they were here for the wrong reasons. They must have thought that in order to succeed, you have to play what is the trend. And where are they now? Some fade off into obscurity, and others form a new project sounding nothing like they did before. My question for them and any other group sucking on the mainstream dick is: "Where is your integrity, and how many times will you change your sound before you realize that it's about the music?" If you believe enough in your band, and your creation, then nothing can stop you.

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