Devilskin rises again
Paul Martin tells Mike Alexander about the band’s excitement as their new album is unleashed.
Hamilton’s very heavy and very humble Devilskin broke the mould when they released their debut album We Rise in 2014. They wanted to start a revolution and that’s exactly what happened with the single Start A Revolution providing exactly what Jennie Skullander, Nail, Paul Martin and his son, Nic, had spent years in other bands preparing for.
We Rise took its place alongside a handful of other Kiwi heavy metal albums that have made it to the top of the charts, going platinum in the process.
If the group is feeling any nerves towards its follow-up – Be Like The River (which was released on Friday) – it’s more excitement than fear. We have always backed our songwriting and believe in what we produce. We all think we have stepped up a gear with the songs on the new album. We didn’t consciously try to make it for radio, or with the thought that we had aNo 1 album to beat. We just wanted to make the music we wanted to make. What happened with the first album was really cool, but whether people play your music, or like it, is out of your control really. If we didn’t achieve any of the things we did with our first album, we would still be happy with the new one. Yeah, it sure has. It is everything I have ever wanted to do with music, but the older I got I wasn’t sure it would ever really happen. I have been plugging away at music my whole life, but the last three years have been insane. riff... We have never had a problem writing songs. If anything, we have had to learn to self-edit more and stop ourselves from storing away half finished songs. dates were sold out), I remember seeing this huge queue which stretched around the block. My first thought was, ‘‘oh my God, there is something big on in town today, we are going to be screwed’’. But they were all there for us. That was a pretty defining moment for Devilskin as a band – to see people coming out en masse to see us. That first leg was nine dates in a row. So it was pretty crazy – and then one night after one of our shows our manager, James Southgate, told us We Rise had gone gold. As you can imagine, we had a couple of shots to celebrate and then it was straight back into the tour. touring throughout the UK and Europe and then we came back and spent two weeks recording the album. I guess we had the luxury of knowing that it was coming up so we spent a lot of time on the pre-production. We had songwriting weekends where the four of us would go away and hammer out tunes. We demoed about 30 songs for this album, including some that never made the cut for the first album. We had this huge back catalogue of songs that we had to narrow down to 13 tracks. It was almost like having to amputate one of your arms. We all had songs the we were personally attached to that didn’t make the cut. It’s actually a great position to be in. We all feel our songwriting has matured and come a long way since the first album. Ha! Jennie is a gym junkie, so she’s always full of energy. We all know that you have to be fit to be at the top of your game. More importantly though, you have got to have your mind right in the right place and be able to focus on what you are doing. We have a really cool crew around us who do their jobs exceptionally well. It makes it so much easier for us. All we have to worry about is keeping the music and keeping our heads together. It has changed our routines. If you have a normal job, it is very hard to walk out and say ‘‘see you in six or eight weeks time’’. Unless you don’t want a job to come back to. So we all now have part-time jobs, picking up anything we can do that gives us the flexibility to do the music thing when we have to. ● Devilskin will be supporting Disturbed at their Vector Arena concert on November 18. For more information on that and their upcoming New Zealand tour, see devilskin.co.nz.