Band of Skulls: Fact or Fiction

Written by Chrissy Mauck

The rising success of Band of Skulls calls for extensive international travel, not such a fantastic thing since Russell Marsden (right) and Matthew Hayward (left) share a fear of flying and both need to be practically blitzed to make it through a flight. Although not at all a religious person, Marsden wears a St. Christopher medallion to help keep him safe in the air. “I got it when I was born, a baby shower type of thing,” he shares. “I'm superstitious about wearing it, but I left the necklace in North Carolina after a show in a very small motel. I thought it was gone forever. I was devastated, but we phoned them up and it got FedExed back to me in LA. I took one flight without it and was just knocking back the beers to try and get through the fear of flying without it.”

According to the Band of Skulls official bio, the Southampton, London trio boasts some truly interesting feats. Vocalist/bassist Emma Richardson won medals swimming for England and recently held a “Meat Me at the Butchers” art exhibit at the butcher shop that once employed her, drummer Matt Hayward once played tennis with John McEnroe and vocalist/guitarist Russell Marsden almost fell through a glacier. Glaciers are apparently problematic for the Marsden family as his great-great grandfather was a stowaway on the Titanic, which as one may recall sunk after hitting an iceberg. 

Fortunately for Marsden’s great-great grandfather, most of the alternative rock band’s bio is an exercise in creative writing. 

“Our manager came up with the whole thing,” explains Marsden as he sweeps his bleached-blonde mane out of his eyes. “We were just being lazy one day and he was like, ‘Do the bio.’ We were kind of sidetracked making a record—kind of important you know. So he just took it upon himself to write it and get a little revenge, knowing that we’d be here now defending his blatant lies, mixed in with our real lives. But it’s been quite fun really. Some are true and some are fake, so it’s fun to play the game.”

As for separating fact from fiction…

Richardson is a talented artist—her artwork is featured on the cover of Baby Doll Honey Face Darling, although she only wishes she had worked at a butcher shop. 

“I used to go to there every day to buy crab bait to go catch crabs because I lived in this small village,” she recalls. “I remember seeing the big racks of meat and this woman in there chopping everything and I was just fascinated by it, so it did influence some of my paintings.” 

Marsden really did nearly fall through a glacier (causing his mom to “have kittens,” which he explains is just one of those English sayings) and he did meet Richardson at Art College; she was studying painting, he fashion — a truth Marsden had hoped to keep under wraps. 

“Thanks for that,” he says to Richardson, whose 5’11” slender frame is hunched up on a couch backstage as she tries to catch a quick catnap; Hayward, who has been Marsden’s friend and music conspirator since childhood, is down for the count on the adjoining sofa. 

“Matt’s father was a musician so he had all the stuff hanging around the house — drum kits, guitars, amps and so we would go around on Saturdays and play music,” says Marsden. “As we got older I was bringing random musicians around to his parents’ house, varying levels of different people. Eventually I brought Emma around to a rehearsal to play bass and they were like, ‘She’s a nice girl.’ So she got the nod from the family.” 

Still, there was a hitch. The new bassist had only been schooled on the guitar. 

Watch a Fender Vision video with Band of Skulls here.

“Russell handed me the bass and said, ‘Give it a whirl then,’” she recalls. “I’ve never played bass before so it was quite a new thing for me, and I only had a few weeks before we played a show.” 

“Yeah, we kind of tricked her,” Marsden admits. “We were like, ‘We’d really love to hear this song that we wrote with the bass line so just play open strings.’ Then we made a big fuss about how good it was and two weeks later we played our first show so Emma had a crash course. We must’ve known it was the right thing; if we didn’t make that decision, I don’t know that we’d be sitting here now.”  

The threesome—known then as Fleeing New York—began hosting club nights (called ClubSkulls) in Southampton and London, inviting DJs and other bands to join them on the entertainment bill. As well as eventually pinching Skulls from ClubSkulls for their band name, a tragic event within the local musical community led to the distorted guitar-infused ballad, “Fires,” which in turn opened doors to studio time at Oxford’s Courtyard Studios. 

“I think it got played to the people who make the decisions and was the song that opened all the doors really,” says Marsden. “It’s kind of an emotional song because some parts of the lyrics are about a friend of ours who was a musician in our local scene. He tragically died from this accident and it was this big shock and it brought our whole musical community together. All of the rivalries and bitchiness disappeared and all of the sudden it was this really close knit musical community. I felt like I needed to record that whole feeling and that’s where that song began. It’s just very apt that it gave us our chance to do what we did.” 

Fittingly, the first line of said song, “baby darling doll face honey,” became the title of the Ian Davenport-produced debut album, which was mixed in quite a hurry in Los Angeles following a request from iTunes. 

“We got a phone call saying they wanted to offer one of our songs as a free single and they wanted the album at the same time,” recalls Richardson. “We ended up having to do a lot of work in three weeks to get it finished.”

And before getting sidetracked talking about how the iTunes placement quickly led to mainstream notoriety, Hayward actually did play tennis with McEnroe, by the way. Coincidentally, Marsden believes that he and Richardson’s dueling vocals in the in your face bluesy-rock number “I Know What I Am” is a bit like observing a tennis volley, with Hayward and his drum set splitting the stage like a net. 

“It’s kind of amusing to watch people watch our band because you see them looking left for my line and then right for Emma’s and back to left,” he says. “It’s quite funny, but it’s become sort of a little style of ours I guess. It’s just how we shared the work load.” 

The trio also splits songwriting duties, ensuring that there’s never a lull in creativity because of writer’s block and at times, creating some competitive sparring.  

Russell Marsden with his Fender Jazzmaster® and Vibro-King® amp. "I’m not very good at any other guitar now," says Marsden. "I need the elements of the Jazzmaster guitar to be any good. There’s only three of us so I like to make some interesting noises. Playing behind the bridge is the classic Jazzmaster misuse but it makes some interesting noises and it’s always different so it’s like a random generator of sound I’ve relied quite heavily on the tremolo as well. It’s like a different way of playing the guitar and it’s fun. It makes it more like a voice and changes the pitch and so I like using that to get some crazier tones and stuff.”

“We all write quite differently,” says Richardson. “Matt’s a brilliant arranger and comes up with some of the heavier parts and Russell is always pushing the more tender moments. We pass ideas around and things come together that way so it’s refreshing because no one really ever finishes songs individually. And we’re always battling because you want to have written the best song or the best part on the record.” 

“Death by Diamonds and Pearls,” a blistering garage-rock number sonically reminiscent of White Stripes, is a prime example of the trio’s piecemeal style of writing.  Hayward and Marsden had been toying with a riff when the latter received lyrical inspiration following a night on the town in Toronto. 

“I went out with these lovely people who were just much, much richer than me and I just couldn’t believe that lifestyle,” recalls Marsden. “I was almost terrified by it, overwhelmed really by how they lived. The next day I was like, ‘There’s got to be something there so we used the riff and did this cheeky song about it.” 

Richardson meanwhile chipped in with “Honest,” arguably the album’s most vulnerable track. Accompanied by acoustic guitar, Richardson perfectly matches her brooding lyrics with sultry vocals, highlighted by harmonies from Marsden. 

All in all, the trio’s collaborative efforts constructed a first compilation that unlike their fanciful bio needs no embellishment. Simply put, every track warrants a listen, even one that was only meant to be a demo. Instead, “Friends” was selected for the highly-anticipated New Moon soundtrack. 

“We read the news in the LA Times,” Marsden says. “It said, ‘director Chris Weitz has confirmed that the album is going to include Thom Yorke, Muse and Band of Skulls.’ We were like, ‘No way.’  We found out our manager again had been playing tricks and 'accidentally' put that song on a promo of our album and that's the song that was chosen. He’s very sneaky.” 

Brilliant, too. Released in October the the New Moon soundtrack was quickly certified platinum. The movie release soon followed, shattering box office opening day records and creating mega publicity opportunities in its wake for Band of Skulls. 

“We don’t want to be known only for that one song on New Moon, but having that platform to get your music introduced to new people is a great experience,” says Richardson. “We are amongst amazing bands on that soundtrack and it’s a pleasure to be asked and a privilege to be involved in it.”

Interestingly, a new moon refers to the darkest phase of the lunar cycle, the polar opposite of Band of Skull’s dizzying rise on the international music scene: from the iTunes spotlight and the iPod commercial to inclusion in New Moon and HBO’s True Blood to performances at Lollapalooza, the New Moon world premier, Jimmy Kimmel Live and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. People magazine topped of the U.K. trio’s very successful 2009 by naming Baby Darling Doll Face Honey as one of the top 10 best albums of the year. 

But of all those heady opportunities, it was a far less grandiose experience that most stands out to Marsden. 

“We were playing a show in Brooklyn and people knew our songs, written about our friends and our lives back in England, so that was nice,” Marsden says. “That was probably the most special moment we've had.”

It was a moment that Marsden wasn’t sure would ever actually materialize. 

“When Matt and I were really, really small we were completely convinced that all of this is what was going to happen,” he shares. “Then we did the whole how tough it really is thing. It becomes difficult. It’s quite a freaky thing to do because you see all of your friends being normal, making money and having normal relationships and you are just out there still playing in a band. But if you are driven enough, and for us, it’s a really important thing to be creative. So you stick to your guns, keep on doing what you do and hopefully your audience will find you.”

And so they have. 

Catch Band of Skulls at Filter’s Showdown at Cedar Street during next week's SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, the Coachella festival in April and lots of stateside dates in between. View tour info here.