The Skunk Anansie singer on the band’s 25 years, playing for

Nelson Mandela, and a “super-creepy” Michael Jackson.

Interview: Ian Fortnam

I

nstantly recognisable Skunk Anansie frontwoman Skin –

who, perhaps unbelievably, was once a painfully shy church

warden’s daughter called Deborah Dyer – is looking back

on a quarter-century at the epicentre of one of rock’s most

tumultuous live bands. “After twenty-five years I’m just

happy to have music as my main source of income,” she

says with a smile, while cradling an insistently yowling Siamese cat.

“That’s what I call success.”

She’s modelled, DJ-ed and judged Italian X-Factor, but in June she

gets back on the road to do what she does best: accentuate the

searing soul in Skunk Anansie’s rock’n’roll.

Skunk Anansie are celebrating their quarter-century with the

band’s first live album, 25LIVE@ 25. How come it took you so

long to release a live record?

Perfectionism. You record gigs, and because you’re jumping around

like an idiot you only end up getting half the vocal of every line, and

listening back you think: “This sounds like crap.” In the early days it

all sounded crap because we didn’t know how to record live things

properly. We also always tended to look forwards rather than back,

so we’d focus on new albums rather than old songs. Then in 2017

we thought: “We’re twenty-five soon. We should do something

special for it.” So we recorded the tour. Since then we’ve been

looking back on old stuff while working on new stuff, being

nostalgic as well as looking forward.

When is the band’s actual birthday?

Is it February twelve, or March nine? This is the long debate. I count

the beginning of a band as the first time they play live, not the first

time they rehearse, because you’re not really a band until you do a

gig, in my opinion. So March nine.

That first gig was quite a cool night. We were like an unsigned

supergroup: Cass the best bassist, Ace the best guitarist, and I was

the best lead singer on the King’s Cross scene. I’m not being

arrogant, it’s a fact. When we came together everybody was like:

“What’s that going to be like?” So everybody in our crazy little

debauched King’s Cross scene came down to the Splash club and it

was absolutely rammed. That first gig was legendary. It just went

off. It was madness.

Ace DJ-ed down there, didn’t he?

Yeah, the Splash club was actually started by Ace’s band Big Life

Casino so they could make money to pay for rehearsals. So Ace

used to help organise bands and DJ. I was always sidling up to him

because he got all the white labels when they first came out. He

once said to me: “I got this record last night, and when I put it on it’s

going to go off.” It was Killing In The Name by Rage Against The

Machine. That’s why I was always leaning on the decks, talking

records with Ace.

Do you have anything special planned for the remainder of

your Silver Anniversary year?

We’re working on an EP, so we’ll have some new songs when we

tour in June. We’re also doing something special I can’t tell you

about. So the answer’s yes, but you’ll have to wait and see.

You’re an incredibly physical performer. Do you have to keep

constantly toned?

Yeah. I’ve been doing lots of promo, so haven’t been in the gym

much, but I’ve been on a proper diet, had a sober mid-January to

mid-February, so it starts now. We’ve had two years of no gigs. I’ve

been DJ-ing, but that’s just standing playing records and drinking,

so it’s not the fittest thing. I still work out, so I haven’t got far to go.

I just need to tone up and get my fitness levels back.

Skunk Anansie has taken you to some unlikely places.

When we hadn’t played together for eight years, we decided to do

a gig to test the water where no one could see us. And weirdly we

got asked to play a wedding in Lamu in Africa. We hadn’t all been in

the same room for years, but got together to play the wedding of

two mad Skunk Anansie fans. They didn’t pay us for the gig, but

they paid for our tickets and for a house for us to stay. So we played

in front of a pool at this villa to about fifty people, then we all

jumped into the pool fully dressed and got horribly drunk. We then

spent ten days together, hanging out in the middle of nowhere,

eating good food, reminiscing, going through things we felt we had

to talk about. And it turned out there were no bad vibes, and we got

back together. We were rusty, though, unbelievably shit, so we were

really pleased that it was only the wedding guests that saw us.

You also sang for Nelson Mandela. How did that come about?

Skunk Anansie were the first multicultural rock band to play in post-

apartheid South Africa. We played a massive arena and it seemed like

the whole of Johannesburg turned up. So Mandela invited us to play

his eightieth birthday concert. I actually sang Happy Birthday to him,

with Stevie Wonder singing on keyboards, harmonising with Michael

Jackson and Nina Simone. It was surreal. We’re just a flipping rock

band from King’s Cross and we’re hanging out with Stevie Wonder.

And Michael Jackson – who was super-creepy.

Are you a habitual singer – do your neighbours ever benefit

from impromptu Skin performances?

I sing around the house, but my neighbours can’t hear me so it’s

cool. I walk from one room to another singing along to stuff.

There’s no microphone, but I do sing at full volume. If a good tune

comes on I’ll put on the full-on voice.

Any unfulfilled ambitions?

We’re still selling-out gigs, headlining festivals, have our own label

and run our own shit, so that’s cool, but I’m always excited by doing

things with music I’ve never done before. I’m all about new

challenges, the radically different, and music’s always changing...

The next thing’s the best thing.”

25LIVE@25 is out now via Republic Of Music. Skunk

Anansie tour the UK in August.

Skin

26 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM