By Andrew Bansal
Blending elements of thrash, glam and power metal with traditional vocals, riffs and harmonies, Skull Fist are a quartet based out of Toronto, Canada that excels at creating instantly catchy tunes and thrives as a live band. I was part of their journey on their recently completed US headline tour with support acts Elm Street and Night Demon, and got a chance to see them from close quarters. Freshly nominated for the 2015 Juno Awards, Skull Fist look ahead to an eventful year. Minutes after they got off stage at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz last Sunday January 25th, I spoke to guitarist Jonny Nesta about the tour, future plans and other things. Enjoy the converstaion below.
It’s been a pleasure touring with you guys. I wish it was a longer tour. Four weeks have flown by. How would you summarize this experience?
It really did fly by. I wish we could just take it around the world! That would be so sweet if it didn’t end for a couple of years. It’s been super fun. Night Demon blew me away. Before this tour I only saw the music video for the song ‘Night Demon’, but it’s definitely not as powerful as seeing them live. They really killed it and it was cool to watch them every night. I had a lot of fun playing. The driving wasn’t so much fun (laughs), but other than that it was all good.
You do a lot of the driving?
Yeah, me and JJ split it.
Why don’t the other guys drive?
Because they’re smart and never got their licenses (laughs).
That’s what I did. I don’t drive either.
You’re a smart man, Andrew!
Anyway, the Night Demon music video you were talking about is very old and completely DIY. They’ve come a long way since then.
Yeah, it definitely doesn’t capture what they’re about now. It’s a cool song and I was like, these guys are cool, but never thought too much of it. They totally blew me away when I saw them live for the first time.
I’ve been noticing that you’ve been watching the whole set every night.
Yeah, they’ve got something special going on. They’re really good.
I’m glad you like it, man. Coming back to Skull Fist, I find it a little surprising that you guys are from Canada but you don’t really get to tour all that much in the US. Why is that?
We always wanted to come but we thought it would be more worthwhile for us to try to get a slot on a tour supporting a bigger band, because it’s hard here, as you’ve seen for yourself. In a lot of places you don’t get much of a crowd. But after so many years and a lot of offers falling through, we figured we’d just go on a headline run in the US and see how it goes. It’s been pretty good. There were a couple of stretches where we were playing for like three people (laughs).
I know all about that! But you’re right, if you’re not getting the support tours you’ve just got to go and do it yourself.
Yeah, exactly. And then you’ll kind of build up from there anyways. We did that in Canada but the prospect of going through that all over again in America which is just as huge was kind of daunting, and it would be easier to just get a support tour and get your name out there.
Right. You guys do have a lot of fans, probably mostly from outside America. South America and Europe are great for you, so in that sense the band is doing pretty well.
Yeah, most definitely. Europe and South America always kill, and Canada is going well too. It’s crazy that we haven’t spent more time in America but the visas are expensive and it’s kind of a commitment.
On this tour we did 20 shows, some of which were good and some weren’t. What have been some of your favorite spots?
LA was killer. Actually all the California shows were really good. Chicago and New York were great. Everything has been good, even the shows with a couple of people were pretty fun.
You just played for the other bands at those shows.
Exactly (laughs). It wasn’t bad. It’s always going to be like that. Everywhere you go, there’s going to be places where there’s not a huge turnout but it’s fun anyways.
I’ve noticed that you guys have been taking your time to hit some tourist spots. How’s that been going?
Not as much as I’d like! We did the Grand Canyon which was really sweet and Las Vegas was cool too. But I definitely want to just come back to America on my own to spend some time here and see some stuff. There’s been so much driving but you get into the city, you’ve got to play rightaway and then you leave. You don’t get to see a whole lot. But it’s somewhere I always wanted to go and it’s pretty cool.
The one thing I wanted to ask you is, the whole concept and music of the song ‘Get Fisted’ is just instant classic. It represents your band perfectly. Who came up with it?
It’s a Zach song. I love it too. Thank you, man (laughs). That one usually goes over pretty well.
The other thing I wanted to talk to you about is the part where you get up on his shoulders during the guitar solo in the song ‘Head Of The Pack’. Have you ever had any accidents doing it, where you fell off or something like that?
Of all the years doing it, only once. We were playing in this tiny, tiny, tiny club somewhere in Germany and it was really funny. There was an archway in the front of the stage and Zach forgot that there was an arch. Behind the arch the ceiling was a little bit higher, but even so it was super low. So he put me up on the shoulder and walked right to the front under the arch, and knocked me off (laughs). Luckily there was a bunch of people in the front that caught me and put me back up. That was the only time I’ve fallen off. He likes to scare me too. Like if it’s a big stage and there’s a big open gap, he’ll walk right to the front and put his toes over. I’m fucking terrified but he loves that shit (laughs).
Rock ‘n roll, man. I think it’s cool. Everybody gets excited when you do that.
Yeah! That’s when all the cameras come out.
So, this tour is done. What do you have after this?
The next one will be through Europe in May and June, and then we’ll work on a new album. We have to do a Canada one too. We haven’t done a cross-Canada tour in may be two years. It’s about time we did one of those.
Yeah, it’s your home country! I bet you have a lot of fans there.
Yeah, it’s a lot of fun now, after years of touring there. It’s a pretty good time.
I think I have one more question for you. There’s a song named ‘Call Of The Wild’ on the latest album ‘Chasing The Dream’. It’s really my favorite song on the album but you guys don’t play it! Why is that?
Thank you! That’s my favorite song on the album too. It’s funny, it’s becoming difficult now to try to fit all the songs we want to do within an hour or hour and 20 minutes. So, that’s one song that we haven’t done. We haven’t really played it since the album came out. I really want to get that one back in there too.
And you said there’s a new album in the works? How much of that is done?
I think we probably have about eight or nine songs written. We haven’t started jamming them yet. We kind of write songs individually, make demos through a drum machine, send them around and then work on a jam. So we’ve sent the new songs around but haven’t started jamming them out yet. We’ll probably have time to record in the fall.
Cool, man. Looking forward to it. I think that’s all I have for this interview. It was great talking to you and hope to see you again soon!
Yeah, man. It’s been great spending time with you, Andrew. Thank you so much!
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