Band: Skill Issue
From: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Their formation story:
(Ian, guitar): "Teddy, our vocalist, and I met last summer at the Soul Glo show at Zika Farm—a DIY skatespot in Baltimore—and eventually decided to start a hardcore punk band. I felt the urge to play music after picking up a used copy of Paint It Black’s Amnesia 7”.
"The pull from the scene right now in Baltimore and Philly is too strong to ignore. Our drummer C.C. and bassist Lewis already play together in the 2-person, fucked-up country band called Snot Hostel from Philly. So we just hit the ground running, and it was an open and collaborative process from the start."
Their sound in their own words:
(Teddy, vocals): "Honestly, I’d describe our style as what you get when you get four like-minded, passionate people with chips on their shoulders about how badly they’ve been fucked over together in a sweaty hot practice space in north Philly one day a week every week this summer. We’re fuck ups, but we’re having a shit ton of fun on the way down!
"As far as our sound goes, we draw from all of the kinds of music we would listen to on a casual basis, from hardcore/punk adjacent genres to '90s NYC hardcore hip-hop from the Nervous Records and Wu-Tang camps alike.
"I'd listen to a lot of that stuff when i would write my lyrics! 6 Feet Deep by Gravediggaz comes to mind immediately. Lew and C.C. had the idea to sample 'The Fang' by Nervous Norvus on 'Soot' to give you an idea of how all over the place we are when it comes to drawing from our musical influences. It rules."
Latest release info:
(Lewis, bass): "We're all total nerds. Big time. Teddy mentioned before that even though we're all in the hardcore punk scene, we’re each coming from different scenes in different places. Coming into the writing process of Total Doom, I think we naturally started writing music that represents what we want to see more of in hardcore punk. Fast, genre-bending, fuckshit, in-your-face hardcore for freaks and geeks. Total Doom is our first shot at that, it's our first time writing anything together.
"On a more serious note, I think that hardcore shouldn't be violent just for the sake of violence—and this is coming from a huge Man Is the Bastard fan—but that hardcore is an expression of anger towards the violence done to one’s own communities, whether it be predatory real estate agencies destroying neighborhoods through development, or hate crimes targeted against queer folks and people of color. We write music about resistance, about the harm done to our communities.
"We wrote the songs in Philly over the summer and recorded them in August with Sasha Stroud at Artifact Audio in Queens, NYC, endless thank you’s to Artifact. Sasha helped make this all possible. Was also pretty sick to record in the same studio as some of our favorite bands."
Future plans:
(C.C., drums/vocals): "Teddy & I are starting a tape label called Chooch Bear Tapes! We’ve put out our own EP as well as the Snot Hostel full-length already. Some of our favorite labels have had kind words to say about Skill Issue; though they’re currently unable to release anything of ours at the moment, I bet we’ll find someone to press a 7” in the new year.
"Shows are limited with all of us living in different parts of the country during the school year, so make sure to catch us at Raskol’s 10/19 tape release show at Cousin Danny’s in Philly. We’ve got another, yet-to-be-announced local show the next day, then it’s lights out til the holiday season."
What other bands from the region should we check out?
"We live a little all over the place, so these answers are varied: Raskol (Philly), Wasted Space (RVA), Texture Freq (Minneapolis), KOS (Philly), twoboyskissing (Providence)."
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Skill Issue on social media: Instagram
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