Live Skull: EU/UK Tour Starts This Week; Watch New Video For “Mad Kingship”

Celebrating the release of their latest album ‘Party Zero‘, this week Live Skull return to the EU and the UK kicking and screaming with protest songs and tales of the psychic dark side.

To coincide with the tour, the band has today released a video for album’s track ‘Mad Kingship‘. Mark C explains: “Having lived through a mad would-be- kingship for four years and well aware of the fact that it could happen again, Live Skull is digging in with this video. When the world around us grows dark and foreboding, we navigate a way forward with equal amounts of apprehension and hope. Like driving between gigs late at night in unknown industrial territory. Ominous structures, flashes of light, abrupt changes of scenery splash across the windshield, as we drive on. Though the lyrics read, “we’re waiting, counting the days until the voice of reason goes silent,” we are not hanging passively, rather we’re charging ahead, riding riffs and beats that pulsate with the will to fight back!”.

FULL DATES – TICKETS HERE

Fri 09 February – Arci Bellezza – Milano, Italy 

Sat 10 February – Bronson – Ravenna, Italy

Sun 11 February – Brin De Zinc – Chambery, France

Mon 12 February – Les Nautes – Paris, France

Thu 15 February – New Cross Inn – London, UK 

Fri 16 February – Poppodium Volt – Sittard, Netherlands 

Sat 17 February – La Zone – Liège, Belgium

Sun 18 February – Parade – Den Haag, Netherlands

Tue 20 February – Reset Club – Berlin, Germany

Thu 22 February – Råhuset – Copenhagen, Denmark

Sat 24 February – Vinyl Reservat – Göttingen, Denmark

Mon 26 February – Hafenklang – Hamburg, Germany

Tue 27 February – Sonic Ballroom – Koln, Germany 

Wed 28 February – Kinett – Kusel, Germany

Thu 29 February – Le Grillen – Colmar, France

Fri 01 March – Hush Hush – Bern, Switzerland

Sat 02 March – Gasworks – Winterhur, Switzerland 

Their third release on Bronson Recordings since reanimating in 2018, ‘Party Zero’ updates the post-punk, noise guitar approach they pioneered in the New York underground music scene of the radical 80s. Revved-up classics from that period animate their set as the current lineup – Mark C, Rich Hutchins, Kent Heine and Dave Hollinghurst – doubles down on Live Skull’s massive cacophony. But forget about a nostalgia trip, Live Skull’s new jams swing wild and heavy, blasting their way to a better tomorrow.

BUY/STREAM ‘PARTY ZERO’ HERE

The first phase of the group spanned the 80s. Mark C and Tom Paine met in San Francisco and relocated to the big, filthy apple at the start of the decade, their ears still ringing to No New York, Brian Eno’s epochal survey of the city’s bruising No Wave scene. But while they loved noise, the duo were also in love with British post-punk: Gang Of Four, Joy Division, Wire and The Fall. “We wanted to put New York’s wild, noisy guitar thing with this music that was more atmospheric, more intriguing, more melodic.” Looking for a ‘punk-funk’ guitarist to play with, they learned that no guitarist existed yet that fit the bill, so they became those guitarists themselves. The group pushed boundaries while also proving a more complex, subtle proposition than many of their contemporaries. “We wanted to make songs people would want to listen to, rather than just have the loudest, biggest guitars,” says Mark. 

As the decade wore on, their line-up evolved, as did their sound. By 1989, the group were touring with Jane’s Addiction, and “getting way more heavy-rock and less arty-sounding. After that tour, however, Mark had to step away for a while, and the band split up. Mark explored other projects, dabbled in electronic music and sort of lost touch with the noisy, punk-derived scene Live Skull had been a part of. But that scene didn’t lose touch with Live Skull. “Live Skull has become an aesthetic now,” he says, noting the waves of younger bands now haunting New York’s dark corners, playing music indebted to his group. “That’s why we can jump into this and not be out of step. Our sound is open-ended enough to have infinite space to explore.” He says that when the group initially reconvened, he intended them to record as “New Old Skull”.

Their new record label urged him to reclaim the old name instead. “And I thought, ‘Well, then it needs to still have the energy of Live Skull’.” It was a challenge the group set themselves – a challenge Mark had been grappling with his entire career, really. “We originally chose ‘Live Skull’ as our name, because it was something we’d have to live up to. You can’t call yourself ‘Live Skull’ and just be some little New Wave band. It had to be something big and brash.”