Photo by Jane Duke
Among the original mid-’80s progenitors of grunge—Soundgarden, Melvins, Green River, Malfunkshun, etc.—Skin Yard has been frequently overlooked, despite the quartet’s deep ties to the scene, the presence of renowned producer/guitarist Jack Endino in the band and being the launching point for numerous world class drummers. And, hey, their musical out put was outstanding, if not a little atypical of the sounds most people associate with the scene. Early on, Skin Yard were artier than some of their contemporaries, many of whom came from a hardcore or even metal background. That wasn’t Skin Yard, though they definitely got heavier over the course of five full-lengths and numerous singles.
The band’s full range is on display in a brand new box set of 7″ singles put together and released by bassist, and C/Z Records owner Daniel House, along with Endino’s sonic support. The seven-single set features rare and previously unreleased tracks from across the band’s history and includes performances by drummers Matt Cameron (Soundgarden, Pearl Jam), Jason Finn (Love Battery, Presidents of the United States), Scott McCullum (Gruntruck) and Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees, Mad Season). Skin Yard was, of course, fronted by vocalist Ben McMillan (later of Gruntruck), who passed away in 2008.
The limited edition box set, to be released by C/Z on December 2, comes in different color vinyl configurations and can be ordered here.
We linked up with House via email to get some further insight into Skin Yard’s legacy and the process of putting together this unique piece of grunge history.
Skin Yard started nearly 40 years ago. How have you seen the outside world’s appreciation, perception or understanding of the band change over the years?
Yeah, absolutely. I like this question. I think that the answer has to be viewed through a couple of different lenses. I think the perception and understanding of the band has—ultimately—only gotten more relevant and grown over the decades. We have so many fans now who were not yet born or just kids when the band broke up in 1991, and they are serious fans. I think this is a really cool thing. Because Skin Yard was a little more cerebral in our music as opposed to many of the other bands at the time, we were a little bit on the “outside” to a certain degree. I think we gave our fans a little more to chew on, you know? The other band that was similarly a little more cerebral or “adventurous” were Soundgarden, and I think that’s a big part of why we’re sometimes referred to as sister bands. Our younger fans today don’t seem to bother to make a differentiation between this band or that band. Instead, I think they look at the whole scene and all the different bands that existed at the time as part of the same zeitgeist, which of course, it was.
Skin Yard had some roots in the artier, weirder side of Seattle’s early music scene. In what way do you think you guys brought that side to what became known as grunge?
I’ve always considered Skin Yard as being two different bands—who we were with Matt [Cameron] as our drummer during our first record, and the Skin Yard that started with “Hallowed Ground” and continued from that point forward. Our first record was (and still is) unlike anything that was happening in Seattle at the time and, honestly, I think anything that has come out since. I kind of hate the term “grunge,” but accepting that word for the context of this conversation, I do not think we were a “grunge” band during our first iteration. We were a heavy art-band. We were part of the scene for sure, but we stood apart. After Matt left the band, Jack and I were still feeling like we hadn’t fully arrived at the vision of what we wanted Skin Yard to be, but once Scott [McCullum] joined the band, the floodgates opened and we found that special sauce that allowed us to move forward with the recording on Hallowed Ground. I think that leap was monumental.
In my mind, that was the point at which Skin Yard had truly arrived. No shade against our self-titled debut, but from Hallowed Ground forward, I never thought that we were an art band any more. We still fucked around with textural elements and time signatures, but I’ve never considered those kinds of qualities as “weird.”
What’s a favorite memory from mid-’80s Seattle, when you and bands like Soundgarden, Malfunkshun, Green River, Feast, Melvins and others were playing shows together and sort of developing this shared musical aesthetic?
What I miss the most is the sense of community. Two things happened in 1991: The Seattle music scene became an international phenomenon at the same time that the World Wide Web came into existence. Before the scene exploded, there was an intimacy in Seattle with everybody supporting one another across genres and in different clubs. We all knew each other, played together, we were going to many of the same parties and sharing the whole myriad of experiences in a way that perhaps only happens when you’re in your ‘20s. But I think more importantly—prior to the advent of the Web—this was when social engagement was in person, in a city that was largely insulated from the rest of the world. Back then, competition was minimal, because everything that was happening was purely organic. Money wasn’t the motivating factor yet. We were creating for the love of creating. Those were our salad days.
There’s a previously unheard track—”California”—on this collection. Since you had Jack Endino in the band, did you record a lot of demos and such and is there more unheard material (rough demos, alternate mixes, etc.) still in the can?
There might be a couple of things still in dungeon, but if there are, there aren’t likely many. We’ve done a pretty good job of scouring the archives, with the bulk of the previously unheard material released on the 2001 CD, Start at the Top. When we released that collection digitally, we pulled a couple of those quirkier songs and replaced them with a couple of different tracks. We’ve always done this with different formats. Don’t ask me why. We’ve just always done what felt right for each of the release on different formats.
One thing that we did for years, would be that we would jam at the beginning of our rehearsals and record the jams onto a reel-to-reel. Jack would listen to all of the tapes and would then compile the best of the jams onto cassettes that he would then distribute to the band members. We did this a few times a year. We referred to these tapes as “the riff bank.” From there, we would only work on the ideas that everybody agreed on as being the coolest riffs, and from those seeds., many of our songs would be fleshed out.
Give me ONE word to describe each of the four amazing drummers who were in Skin Yard.
Matt Cameron: Precision
Jason Finn: Vibe
“Norman” Scott McCullum: Ferocity
Barrett Martin: Tribal
You’re writing, or have written, a Skin Yard oral history book, Words on Bone. Wanna tease us with something crazy or interesting that you gathered in putting it together?
Two items that come immediately to mind were ultimately not surprising, but were/are still fascinating to me:
First is the degree to which a shared experience can be remembered completely differently depending on the person who was being interviewed. Sometimes only in small ways, but sometimes with significant details, things that almost get recounted as a different story altogether. I know that memory is like this—that it can be remarkably fluid and is malleable based on the context of the individual, but it’s a trip especially when I’m comparing to my own recollection of an experience that another band member remembers in a completely different light.
The second thing—also having to do with memory—is how good some people’s memories are and how nonexistent it is for others. In some cases, that can be attributed to drugs and alcohol, but not always. Some people just have zero recollection when it comes to detail. Others that I’ve interviewed have memories with such a specific attention to granular detail that I’m amazed. A few interviews were cut short, because the person being interviewed would tell me that they can’t remember much of anything from a specific time. That made me sad to consider, because I value my memories as such an important piece of the fabric of my own life.
Do you miss running a label and putting out regular releases on C/Z? Do you ever entertain the idea of relaunching it some format? Maybe doing reissues or other archival releases similar to Skin Yard Select?
Currently, I don’t have any specific plans after Skin Yard Select, but I suppose it’s a possibility. The thing is, vinyl has become insanely expensive to press, not like the old days. I do not imagine myself with any sort of regular release schedule. The only way that C/Z could be a proper full-time label again would be if somebody with deep pockets were to come along and wanted to bankroll the effort. I don’t see that happening. Realistically, if I were to ever do a label again, I think it would have to be as a partner in a new label that had funding. Clean slate!
What band are you most proud of signing to C/Z Records?
That’s a tough one because I genuinely loved everything that I released, but I guess if I limit myself to bands whose debut full-lengths came out on C/Z, I would say—in no particular order—Hammerbox, 7 Year Bitch, The Gits, Built to Spill, Tone Dogs, Coffin Break and My Name.
What was your criteria for selecting the songs on Skin Yard Select?
First and foremost, I wanted to create a collection that consisted of recordings that both Jack and I could agree were songs that represented the many aspects of Skin Yard’s music. We weren’t necessarily focused on what might be the obvious tracks, per se. Instead these are songs that either of us might play for the uninitiated—for somebody who knew nothing about the band previously. Additionally, it was important that the songs feel cohesive as a collection, because the songs span the full scope of our recordings during the six and a half years that Skin Yard was an active band, from 1985 through 1991. This was a little tricky since our four drummers clearly brought unique qualities to the band, so it was important to have the flow feel seamless. I think we succeeded. The final consideration was our fans, many of whom are serious collectors, so for them, we have a previously unreleased track from the recording sessions from our first record, two alternate versions and two completely new remixes,
If you had to pick one of the seven singles in the set to turn somebody on to Skin Yard, which one would it be and why?
Oh wow, that’s near impossible since the intention of the collection is to turn somebody on to the band as a whole, with the idea of assembling a collection that spans the full career of the band, regardless of which “period” a particular song might have come from. Because we had four distinct drummers over the course of our almost seven years as a band, each one brought their own personality into what Jack and I were writing. Our basic cohesion as a writing duo and our basic thinking didn’t necessarily change that much, but when you’re in a band everyone has an influence on each other, right? All that said, I would probably pick one of the singles from when Barrett Martin was our drummer, if for no other reason than we were fully realized as a band by then, and our writing and playing chops were at their zenith. So maybe either “Ritual Room”/”Slow Runner” (single #5) or “River Throat”/”Living Pool (alternate version” (single #6).
Any idea when Words on Bone will be published? Can it be preordered yet? Please share any details regarding its release that you can.
Words on Bone should have come out last year. Something I haven’t talked a whole lot about is the fact that I’ve been dealing with Long COVID for over two years now, and it’s some serious fucked-up shit. My entire life has largely been turned upside-down, and everything has had to slow down, sometimes almost to a compete halt. My mental and physical energy can be so low that I can be debilitated for days and sometimes even weeks at a time. So the book has largely taken a back seat for the last year. That said, working on Skin Yard Select has been a genuine joy, and it’s made me realize that I need to get the book done! I’m pretty much finished with all the interviews that I think I need, and everything has been transcribed and edited, so I’m at the point now where I just need to start working on assembly and writing passages for the beginning of each of the chapters. The book is going to be an oral history of the band, and I’ve done a ton of interviews over the course of the last five years or so. In the last six months, I finally conducted a couple of interviews that I’ve wanted to do for a while. Had the book come out last year, I wouldn’t have them in the book, so maybe these two needed to happen before I embarked on the final stretch. The first one was with Kim Thayil. I’ve known Kim since before Soundgarden even existed, and his mind is as sharp as ever. He’s a great talker and invariably has fantastic insight and perspective on so much of what happened back then. The other person was Charles Cross [author and publisher of Seattle’s The Rocket magazine] who sadly died recently. I think my interview with him may be the last interview that he ever did. He’s gonna be missed, but I’m really glad to have him in the book. In a perfect world, I’m hoping that the book can be on the shelves towards the end of 2025. I need to finish it, and it’s going to happen for sure. There are too many amazing interviews not to, and in a weird way, Skin Yard Select is a prelude to Words on Bone. Both will be great and both will be worth the wait.