Birdskulls have created quite a name for themselves in Brighton. I was recently invited to the launch show of their debut album not knowing a huge amount about this Brighton rock three piece. However, Jack (guitar and vocals), Rory (bassist) and Sam (drum) played a phenomenal show which is without a doubt a top contender for my show of the year. Having listened to their album, Trickle, they are definitely not a one-trick-pony and are in fact an up and coming band that everyone should take note of. I caught up with the lads to find out more.
 
Where did you grow up?
[RORY] Me and Jack are from South Devon. Jack is from Exeter and I am from South Burton
[SAM] I’m from East Grinstead which is about half an hour away from Brighton.
 
What kind of music did you grow up with?
[JACK] My dad had really good music taste. He was listening to James, Oasis and Blur. I can remember hearing The Smiths but I wasn’t that aware of it. He had the Nirvana album Unplugged in New York which was how I grew to like Nirvana. There were lots of compilations we would listen to in the car, with stuff like Mike + The Mechanics.
[RORY] My dad had hundreds of records and when I was about 12 years old he started playing them to me. He loves Van Morrison and The White Album by The Beatles. When Jack and I were at college in Exeter there was a really good punk scene, so we got to see a lot of great touring American bands.
[SAM] My mum was into stuff like Abba and Disco, but my dad was into Black Sabbath. When I was a kid I went through this transition of looking for heavier stuff, finding Hardcore and then going onto Indie.
 
Can you remember the first album you owned?
[JACK] My first one was Surrender by The Chemical Brothers.
[RORY] Mine definitely wasn’t as strong as that, I think it was Shaggy Hot Shots or Music by Madonna.
[SAM] I think it might have been the first Strokes album, Is This It. My grandad gave me the album on the sly as it’s got a naked woman on the front of it.
 
How did you all meet?
[JACK] Me and Rory met in Exeter. We went to college together and also started a few band. I then moved to Brighton for University and Rory went to Bournemouth.
[RORY] I always wanted to move to Brighton and met Sam through Jack. So when I moved to Brighton, the band got serious and we did an album.
 
Can you remember the first jam you had together?
[RORY] We were down at the Black Bunker Studios in Brighton. As Jack and I had songs before, we were like “Sam, learn our songs dude!”
[SAM] Ha. It was just a crash course in how to play drums.
[RORY] It started with learning couple of songs, then we all started writing more. That was when the album started, about six months of not playing live and just writing instead. We were all fully locked into it.
[SAM] There was lots of bedroom jams and light night practices.
 
Is there a story behind the name?
[JACK] When I first moved to Brighton I kept seeing it, not actual bird skulls, but written down. I liked the combination of words and everywhere I went I was seeing it as a tag.
 
When you started writing Trickle, did you have an idea of how you wanted it to sound?
[JACK] Yeah, as we were writing an album we wanted it to have defining parts, dynamics and changes. The A side is definitely a lot heavier than the B side.
[RORY] There were points early on where it was just a collection of a few songs. Then we started thinking about them as a record – thinking it would be nice to have this or that. So we started trying things out.
 
Who produced the album?
[RORY] A mate of ours called Jamie Stewart, aka Jim Jam, did the recording and producing. He has a studio at his house which is used for voice overs and Warwick Davis was in there a couple of days before.
[JACK] Would have been nice as a guest vocal.
[RORY] Jim Jam was brilliant though. As he was a mate, he was friendly about it but still pushed us which was kind of genius at how he did that.
[JACK] It was good fun even when we were getting tracks wrong. We were both producing, floating ideas back and forth, Jim Jam would write pages of really detailed notes to send to Bob Cooper (Nai Harvest and Empire Of The Sun) who took all that on board and put his own twist on it which was pretty amazing.
[SAM] We were really fortunate to work with both of them really.
 
What has been a musical eye-opener?
[RORY] I can never forget the times me and Jack spent at The Cavern venue in Exeter. Must have been 17 years old and every Thursday used to be Freak Scene, where local and touring punk bands would perform. Seeing them play with this high energy that I had never seen before really changed my view on music.
[SAM] As I was from a small town I used to come down to Brighton a lot, to see shows, meet people and get involved. It was realising that things are actually possible if you just put in a lot of effort, as now we know people who put on shows, run labels and lots of other brilliant things.
[JACK] When I was really young, I watched a school band do a cover of Rage Against the Machine and thought it was really cool. I didn’t even know what Rage Against the Machine meant – they were shouting ‘Killing In The Name Of’. After that I thought I definitely could be in a band, just needed to learn how to play an instrument.
 
What would be your perfect line-up of any three acts and where would they be performing?
The Cavern (Exeter) is the venue. The Ramones headlining with Fugazi as the first support and then Elvis Presley. That would be one hell of a green room.
 
If you could work with any artist, who would it be?
[RORY] King Buzzo from Melvins could fuck us up a bit.
[JACK] Beethoven might add a bit of musical genius.
[RORY] It would be good to see the outcome of both of them working together.
[JACK] Picasso could do our art work, and Elvis could guest.
 
What are your future plans?
[RORY] Make more music.
[SAM] Tour loads and go to Europe.
[JACK] I would love to play CMJ next year. We are playing with Shit Present in December.
[RORY] We are playing London with Grieved, who are Swedish, in January.