Wunky Zine #2: Skoal Kodiak Interview

We are excited to again bring you the electronic version of the interviews from the locally created Wunky Zine. Erica Krumm is back with a 2nd edition of the great Zine (the first edition can be found HERE) that finds her chatting with some really great local bands. Read the interviews all week and pick up the Zine for only $4 at Treehouse or Yeti Records and support our local scene! Today we share the final interview of the series with the great local dance-noise band Skoal Kodiak, who recently released their sophomore LP Kryptonym Bodliak on Load Records. Look for a Reviler review of the LP next week.
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August 16, 2011

I met up with the guys in Skoal Kodiak: Markus (vocals and circuit bending)Brady (bass) and Freddy (drums) at their cool warehouse practice space. We sat around and talked about art, their pets, and their favorite ways to spend a day. It was a total pleasure to hang out and talk to a band I’ve been so excited about for a long time!
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Erica- What do you think about when you’re playing? Are you fully present or is your mind wandering into weird thoughts? Maybe not even weird thoughts, but like, your grocery list or something?

Brady- I’d say the main reason I play music is that I don’t think about a fuckin’ thing…

Freddy- I’m the same way…

Brady- I can totally escape from the rest of my world.

Freddy- Yeah, I agree, I’m the same way.

Brady- That’s kind of the point.

Erica- Yeah.

Markus- Yeah, I’d say I’m definitely not thinking about my grocery list.

Freddy- (laughing)

Brady, No, It’s just the moment, what’s happening right now.

Erica- What is your favorite childhood memory?

Brady- I have a fond memory of tying this piece of yarn to my mom’s hairbrush and playing that as a guitar to Buddy Holly songs.

Erica- That’s good… did your parents encourage you to play music at a young age?

Brady- No, but there was always music on at home. There was no music training or anything like that.

Freddy- Music in the air?

Brady- I was in my mom’s belly at a Led Zeppelin concert.

Markus- My first good memory is my father tapping shells on the beach, and then crab legs sprouting out, and the shell moving around.

Erica- Really? Like, Showing you about it?

Markus- Yeah, trying to understand, that these were living things.

Erica- How old do you think you were?

Markus- I was probably four…. That was followed by getting the worst case of chicken pocks that the doctor had ever seen…

Erica- Really?!

Markus- Yeah, I had them in my nose and in my mouth and on my eyelids.

Brady- Oh man!

Freddy- Oh no shit!?

Brady- You don’t have any scars.

Markus- I do, yeah. If you look, you can see…(points to his face)

Freddy- Do you got any on your forehead?

Markus- Yeah..

Freddy- Cuz I’ve got.. Can you still see the one I have? (points to his forehead)

Markus- Yeah…You’ve got one too..(looking at Freddy’s forehead)

Freddy- Yeah, cuz my ma, I’ll never forget, my ma was like, ‘Don’t pick at those, especially that one right here.’ And I was like, ‘this one?’

Brady- I have one right here, too…

Freddy- And I picked it off, and It’s still a scar.

Erica- So we’ve all had chicken pox.

Brady- You as well?

Markus- You’re safe.

Erica- I had them when I was three..

Freddy- I had them probably when I was four or five…

Markus- (to Freddy) I want to hear your childhood memory.

Freddy- Oh, I was just thinking, I was going to say, biking around thinking about Pink Floyd. First time I remember being alive was going to…my family, my folks brought us all to, there were six of us in the family and they brought us all to Disneyland and so my first memory of being alive was like, walking around Disneyland. That was the first time I felt.. honestly I always equate it to like, Wizard of Oz, when everything went to color in the movie. It was the first time I was like, ‘Oh, I’m a living thing, walking around.’ It was weird. But it’s kind of cool.

Erica- Describe your perfect day.

Freddy- Day or date?

Erica- Day

(Everyone laughs)

Erica- Or date! Either way (laughing) Maybe it involves a date, I don’t know…

Markus- Recently my sister was getting married in Colorado, so I think, getting to hike in the Rocky Mountains and just keep going higher and higher. I had a destination, this high altitude lake called, Sky Pond, I had to hike through snow and up a waterfall and you know, mountains to a mid-westerner are pretty exciting….

Erica- Yeah, It’s really exciting!

Brady- You climbed a waterfall?

Markus- Yeah.

Erica- And then you swam in it?

Markus- I did not swim in the lake. But you know, it was around snow caps, it wasn’t cold, but… and then on my way back, there was like, a thunderstorm in the Rocky Mountains, a band of storms, and I had never heard one rickashaying off the mountains all around me.

Erica- So you had your perfect day recently?

Markus- Well, I think that was one of my perfect solitary days of the summer…and then, by the time I made it back near the shuttle bus station, there was a soaking wet family, a brother and sister, and the brother was screaming every time the lightning struck, the thunder struck. And the little girl was like, ‘I don’t wanna die.’ and her mom was like, ‘God will decide when you go.’

Erica- (laughing) Are you serious?

Markus- (laughing) Those were her comforting words…

Erica- Oh, that’s comforting… what about you guys (to Freddy and Brady)

Brady- It’s regretful that they’re infrequent, but the days where my entire family is together, and we’re out exploring something new. Those are my perfect days.

Erica- Your immediate family?

Brady- My wife and my two children. It’s usually on Saturday or Sunday because that’s how work weeks work out. Yeah, and you know, moving out, finding something we haven’t seen before and doing that all together, I wish we could do that every day.

Erica- Yeah. Do you guys usually do stuff in nature?

Brady- Generally speaking, yeah, I’ve never been to a mall with my family before. It’s more like, going to Franconia or going to northern Minnesota and walking in the headwaters of the Mississippi, something like that. I’d imagine my children have been to the Mall Of America, but I don’t know that we’ve ever been there together (laughing)

Erica- (laughing) They’ve gone there by themselves somehow…

Brady- (laughing) Yeah, we send them on the train.

Freddy- What was it again? Perfect Day?

Erica- Yeah.

Freddy- Well….

Markus- We’re about to go to LA…

Freddy- Yeah, I was gonna say, like, for me it’s… LA will be great, but it reminds me of like, a couple years ago, my Ma died, I went through a bunch of crap, which kind of sucked, but one of the beacons, two of my favorite times during that whole thing, that first tour we did…I really like, especially with these two goofballs, and John, just going out with friends that you know, you can just hang out, everyones kind of generally on the same page. Yeah, that’s a good day for me.

Erica- Yeah, a vacation where you play almost every night?!

Freddy- Yeah, just see people you know and like hanging out with…

Markus- I think a perfect day for Freddy definitely involves playing the drums.

Freddy- Yeah, that’s true, well I was gonna say, like, when I’m playing drums that’s the main time I feel comfortable, otherwise I just feel like Steven Wright or something…that comedian..

Brady- (laughs)

Freddy- Do you know that guy?

Erica- yeah!

Freddy- He’s got a joke that I always thought was awesome, and could totally relate to. He’s like, ‘you know that feeling you get when you’re leaning back in a chair and you’re just about to fall over and at the last second you catch yourself? I feel like that every day, twenty four hours a day.’

(everyone laughs)

Freddy- And I’m like, Yeah, I kind of feel that way too, except when I’m playing.

Brady- We all have our own neurosis but we all definitely chill the fuck out when we’re playing.

Freddy- Yeah, especially in this band.

Erica- O.k What was your favorite album when you were sixteen?

Brady- Sixteen is when I bought my guitar, I learned how to play Led Zeppelin One… with one of those tablature books.

Markus- It was probably Jesus Lizard, Goat.

Freddy- Oh sweet! I can work with that.

Erica- Do you guys still listen to those albums…all the time?

Markus- No, but I’ll revisit it.

Freddy- (to Brady) What was yours?

Brady- I mean, it was the whole catalog, but the store had the tablature which is the thing where you don’t have to read notes, but there’s like numbers that corrospond to your string.

Freddy- Right.

Brady- They had the Led Zeppelin One book.

Freddy- Oh, right! I remember you talking about this because my brother got that.

Brady- Yeah, That’s how I learned how to play guitar, but I was listening to all that..

Freddy- ‘81.. I was thinking ‘81 is probably a tie, but, I’ll pick the more obscure. This band called Modern Eon. The album is called Fiction Tales.

Brady- Would you say that if you weren’t being interviewed?

Freddy- Yeah, that’s the first one I thought of, but then I also thought-

Erica- What’s the less obscure one?

Freddy- Psychedelic Furs’ second album, Talk, Talk, Talk. The drumming on that is awesome, and that’s probably my favorite Psychedelic Furs album.

Erica- Um, (laughing) do you guys all drink coffee?

Everyone- yeah.

Erica- What do you order?

Markus- Americano with room for cream.

Freddy- That’s what I’ve been drinking lately, too, but half caf.

Brady- Depends on the season. I would say generally speaking its americano, but in the summer I like to make cold press. It saves so much money to make it at home, and it’s so good on ice.

Erica- Are you guys dog people or cat people?

Markus- Both.

Freddy- Both.

Markus- I say both but I’ve never had a dog, so I’m more of a cat person.

Erica- Do you guys all own cats right now?

Markus- I have a cat

Freddy- Yes, but I’ve never had a pet til like the last year..

Erica- Really? Never?

Freddy- It’s awesome.

Erica- Isn’t it awesome?

Brady- We’re down to a cat and a rabbit. A year ago it was two dogs, a cat and a rabbit.

Freddy- A rabbit? You had a guinea pig, no?

Brady- No, a rabbit. His name was Jo Jo, he lived for twelve years.

Freddy- Wow.

Brady- We took him to the vet and the vet had to look up how long rabbits live, he didn’t believe me that he was twelve years old.

Freddy- Do guinea pigs live longer?

Erica- No.

Brady- I don’t know anything about guinea pigs.

Erica- Guinea pigs live more like six years…

Markus- (to Brady) Your down to a cat and a rabbit?

Brady- I said it wrong, I’m down to a dog and a cat (laughing)

Markus- I didn’t know that your dog died.

Brady- Bella died.

Freddy- You had two dogs…

Brady- Yes, I said it wrong. Two dogs, a cat and a rabbit a year ago. Now we’re down to a dog and a cat.

Erica- O.k. so, last question is what is your spirit animal as a band?

Markus- Its probably not a pretty animal.

Brady- Probably not a pretty animal? Yeah, you’re probably right.

Freddy- Badger? Is it a badger?

Brady- That was the first word that came into my head. I’ve been told that’s my personality, too.

Freddy (laughing)

Markus- It’s hard to put three personalities into one animal… that’s almost impossible…

Erica- Badger is good…It can be mythological or made up, too.

Markus- Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, I was combining animals in my head.

Brady- Yeah, that seems more reasonable to make up your own…

Markus- Skesis are the villains in The Dark Crystal…

(everyone laughs)

Brady- There’s totally some Skesis…

Markus- There should be another element there…

Brady- I agree. We need the trilogy. Three piece animal.

Markus- Something more solid, to balance out the evil.

Brady- (laughing) Exactly!

Markus- One third Skesis, one third mother, one third pyro maniac… I had to throw something wholesome in the mix.

Brady- There’s something nurturing about what we’re doing.

Erica- Yeah.

Markus- That’s not the final answer…

Brady- No, it’s like, Let’s party while the fucking world collapses!

Freddy- I get that.