Adelaide’s SKIES are gearing up to make their Brighton debut at The Great Escape this year, bringing their infectious brand of synthy, indie goodness to the Brits for the first time. Since playing their debut UK show at The Old Blue Last in London on Tuesday night, the band has now set their sights on larger audiences and, as Dusty Stephensen lets us know, the ambition they have is one set to extend throughout 2016 too.
Tell us who you are and what band you are in?
>I’m Dusty, I sing and play guitar in SKIES.
Have you played The Great Escape before? If so, how many times?
We’re first timers, can’t wait to get amongst it!
What are you hoping will come out of this year’s event for you?
Hopefully an opening/opportunity to find a second home for our music. I love how diverse, expressive and creative the European music scene is. I think we could learn a lot and also bring something new to the table with our sound. It’d be great to come away from this trip with a network of industry folk in the UK music scene that we can work with in the future to release music here and come back and play more shows.
Why should The Great Escape attendees come and see you?
The line we tread between being a live band and an electronic act can sometime’s be difficult to get right in the studio, and takes time, but when these tracks are performed live they just come to life.
Massive drum parts, fuzzy guitar solos, belting vocals with live vocal looping, synthy suby filthy bass parts and soulful piano intros. Sounds like none of this would go together, but it somehow does. I honestly think it’s hard to lump us as a live band into a category, what we do on that stage is quite unique. I guess the only way to find out is to check out a show!
What is a track that you think best represents where your band is right now, and what audiences can expect from your sound and your set?
“Speed Boy” is our latest single, which takes us in a different direction. You can hear the real live band side of us coming through on this one. This was also the first time we worked with another producer (Steven Schram). We had a lot of fun making this track!
What made you want to showcase at The Great Escape?
At first we didn’t put much thought into it because we didn’t realise we’d be in a position to be considered for it so soon. The opportunity became more of a possibility when The Music Development Office in SA who are working with us via the Robert Stigwood Fellowship, organised an SA showcase at this year’s TGE. So we were offered the opportunity to come over for that, which soon evolved into us also doing an official TGE shows outside of that, plus two other gigs while we’re here, stoked! None of it would’ve happened though without the funding from Arts SA Via the Stigwood Fellowship, we’re very humbled and thankful to have this opportunity.
Do you have any dream collaborations?
I personally would love to work with someone like M-Phazes, particularly after I heard what he did with Meg Mac‘s “Grandma’s Hands”, the production and arrangement on that is second to none. Andrei Eremin would be another one, his production on the Chet Faker tracks is badass. But having said that, I think we’re still making ground with our personal collaborations. Every single track that we make is a collab with each other, and all of our different ideas and completely different musical tastes come into play. Its a trip! So we aren’t thinking much about a collab as of yet.
How much more international touring is on the cards for this year?
Just the UK shows for now! We’d like to look at hitting up the US at some point as well. But when we get back into Australia, we will be doing some interstate shows and keeping our presence known on the East Coast. I guess more will be clear in the coming months as to what our plans are for the international market.
How do you hope the British crowd will receive your music?
We hope they will embrace us! From what I gather, from the two days we’ve spent here already, they’re on another level of creativity. So much culture and so many people just being themselves. I think we can get weird here and just be honest.
I don’t get the vibe that we’d have to try and be particularly cool or try to hard to impress punters. I think as long as we perform well and showcase what we do to the best of our abilities, they will respond well.
What other Aussie act playing The Great Escape would you recommend the rest of the world needs to see?
The Aussie bands representing this year are ridiculously good. We’re pretty humbled to be playing along side the likes of Methyl Ethyl, City Calm Down, Grenadiers, Northeast Party House, SAFIA, Slum Sociable and some other crackers. We’re lucky enough to be playing an Aussie BBQ gig with a bunch of these bands, at the tail end of all TGE mayhem. I can’t stress enough that every single aussie band this year is absolutely worth seeing and even though that could be a biased opinion, I’m certain I’m right. Its gonna be a big couple of weeks for Aussies in the UK.
The Great Escape Artist Page can be found HERE.
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