The Skooners share their wisdom

The Skooners share their wisdom. Courtesy Photo

BLAIR DEWANE: Well it started with me and my brother Ian awhile back. I’d say about four and a half years ago we started writing music. We never really took it serious, and we probably still don’t take it as seriously as we should. But a couple years ago we got Jake [Farmer] into it. We had a kind of revolving door of drummers for a little bit, just a bunch of friends and then I’d see Jake every now and then and I remember Jake being the best drummer ever, so I called him and I was like, “You better come [explicative] play for us or I’ll slit your [explicative] throat. Then, um, then I did. That’s pretty much it.  It’s still me, my brother and Jake and we’ve kind of gone through a couple of bass players, a couple of keyboard players, but have kind of saved the core of three people.

RY: What kind of effect do you feel these line-up changes have had on your music?

BD: Our first keyboardist, Scott, was like 34 years old, coolest guy, but he was spiritually awkward. He was always trying to level into you with spiritual-this and spiritual-that like he was the greatest musician that we were ever linked with, you know? You could play anything and he’d like jam for days. He could jam out a hit. He kinda left because of a spiritual awakening and psychedelic drugs. He moved away and it was really, really hard to find another keyboardist of that caliber. We were kind of spoiled with him.   It was so easy.  We found another keyboardist, but he didn’t really live up to Scott so we got rid of him, and we’ve got a keyboardist right now, and he’s alright.

JAKE FARMER: We definitely have shifted more away from keyboards as a focal point.

BD: Yeah. Our last album, it was really dark and keyboard-driven, skill-driven. We’ve been going for a more indie-rock thing. Maybe even simpler?

JF: Definitely simpler, and I think we’re getting more mature.

RY: Who are your musical influences?

BD: The Beatles. Everything. When I was in middle and high school I was really into hardcore punk. Bad Brains and 7 Seconds were two of my biggest influences. Later in high school, I really got into ‘60s hippie shit, like Donovan and Joan Baez, all that singer-songwriter stuff. And then in the last few years, the garage explosion happened with The Strokes and The Kings of Leon. And then all the Arcade Fire shit, pretty much just Canada in general. Radiohead’s always been there.  They’re cool.

RY: Aside from music, what other elements influence your music?

BD: When it’s cloudy and rainy in the desert. I mean that’ll influence you to do anything. The last couple days have been a treat. Art, all kinds of art. We have a lot of artist friends. Not having money influences the music.  That’s probably the biggest influence. Going from job to job.

RY: What’s your opinion of the local music scene?

BD: It goes up and down. When we started off it was GDB [Goldfish Don't Bounce]. Who didn’t want to go to a GDB show? Who didn’t want to be in GDB? That was like the best psychedelic reggae blues ever.

JF: It’s a lot better now.

BD: Like A Crowd of Small Adventurers. H.O.T.S. [Holding On To Sound]. I saw them the other night. They’re by far my favorite local band ever. They’re amazing.

JF: Hungry Cloud.

BD: Yeah, that’s really good. Mike Weller, he’s actually the drummer for a A Crowd of Small Adventurers…he just did his first CD. Red Sparrow, our bassist Max, he’s actually in that band too. Good singer-songwriter stuff, good indie rock.

JF: The Pandas.

BD: Black Camaro. We’re actually doing our EP release with them [Saturday] We’re both releasing an EP. I actually got a copy of it and it’s blowing my mind. It’s crazy.  It’s really good. It’s too professional.

RY: What are your best and worst concert experiences?

JF: The best…probably up there was opening for The Hold Steady.

BD: Yeah, that was cool. The singer kind of turned out to be kind of a dickhead, kind of. Everyone else in the band was so humble and introduced themselves and were so cool and then the singer was like too cool. We won the Battle of the Bands.  That was cool.

JF: Yeah, that was cool.

BD: The Rock the Rainbow Battle of the Bands. It was like a three-month ordeal and we finally came in first place out of like 15 bands. That was a lot of fun.

JF: Worst…worst. The first one we played three songs and we were taken offstage at the Sunset.

BD: Oh! We played a Christmas party for our old keyboardist and it was a big-time architecture firm and somehow someone talked them into letting us play. At the time we weren’t even three months old. It was Jake’s first show ever.

JF: I had only been playing with them for three weeks.

BD: So we were scheduled to play seven songs, and we played three…actually, no, during the first song my brother breaks a guitar string and we don’t have a backup. We’re not pro.  We don’t know what we’re doing. They put us on the most elaborate stage, and all these big architecture people are standing there, so when the guitar string broke we had to stall them. This was like three years ago, so I was just sitting there with nothing to say to three hundred old people. I mean, what do I do, man? I said something ridiculous.  I don’t even remember what I said, then we played two more songs and the sound guy was like, “Alright.”  I don’t even think he said our name. It was just like “Great, later.”  Instead of being embarrassed and running out, we just got trashed drunk off of all the free booze. They gave us a free room, so it was the best and the worst. It was so embarrassing while onstage, but once we got off it felt like that was it.

JF: Our first and only dressing room.

RY: Have you guys done any touring, and if not, do you plan to?

BD: No, we but plan to tour when we have a product. We really want to finish this recording before we actually go tour. I feel like our last CD is cool and a lot of people have it, but we couldn’t go touring based off that. If we’re gonna go touring we better bring something with us that’s worth touring for. We’re going up to Seattle and stuff, and I have family in Southern California. We have connections, and we’re really planning on touring soon. We’ll do it, I promise.