About The Skints
The Skints are an English reggae punk band from London, described by Clash Music as "the torchbearers for modern British reggae music." The Skints mix reggae, ska, dub, punk rock, dancehall, soul, and rap, touring extensively across the UK, Europe and the United States. Their album Swimming Lessons debuted at number 1 on the Billboard reggae chart. Their original style of music has been described as "tropical punk".
The Skints formed as school friends at Woodbridge High School . The band hail from the Leyton/Walthamstow and South Woodford/Woodford areas of northeast London. They settled on the current line-up in May 2007. The Skints relentlessly gigged all over London's punk rock and squat party circuit before venturing out of the M25 to play their first self-booked DIY tour, alongside fellow east Londoners ClayPigeon in summer 2008. The band then released a six-track ska-punk/reggae EP on Do The Dog Music and were subsequently offered their first UK tour, as main support to The King Blues. This was extremely successful and allowed them to start making a name for themselves in the UK underground punk scene.
Over the next year the band toured with the likes of The Slackers, Sonic Boom Six, The Aggrolites and Random Hand. Recorded by Peter Miles, the debut album Live.Breathe.Build.Believe was initially released on 9 November 2009 and contains 10 tracks mixing reggae, ska and dub with a thrash of hardcore punk rock. Recording was done in 5 days, with an extra 2 days allowed for mixing. The band's first headline UK run started with a sold out show at Camden Barfly. In January 2010 the band were featured on the BBC Radio 1 Punk Show with Mike Davies and toured the UK with Random Hand, Chris Murray and Mouthwash as the "Rebel Alliance Tour". Live.Breathe.Build.Believe was re-released through their publisher, Bomber Music, in June 2010. They then toured Germany for the first time with The Slackers and played extensively across the UK that summer, culminating in their first appearance on The Lock Up Stage at Reading and Leeds Festivals. A seven-inch picture disc vinyl single, "Up Against The Wall" was released on Seven Inch Records in October 2010, featuring a dub version by prolific dub producer Mad Professor. Shortly afterwards the band embarked on a 5 week tour of the UK consisting of headline shows and two separate support runs with Bedouin Soundclash and Sublime with Rome, respectively. February 2011, The Skints supported Reel Big Fish on a 28-date tour of the UK and Europe.
In April 2011 The Skints started a successful campaign through Pledgemusic to crowdfund their second album. That summer they recorded with Mike "Prince Fatty" Pelanconi as producer, as well as a host of festival appearances including Slam Dunk Festival and their first Boomtown Fair. Autumn 2011, The Skints toured the UK supporting Gym Class Heroes. In January 2012, The Skints announced the title and release date of the album to be "Part & Parcel", released officially by Bomber Music on 12 March 2012. The Skints collaborated with British dancehall MC Parly B on the album. They opened for British rock band You Me at Six on their UK tour in March 2012, which also had sets played by Mayday Parade and Kids In Glass Houses. In May 2012, the band’s splitter van was stolen on a day off between shows from outside guitarist Josh Waters Rudge’s home, containing all their equipment. Banquet Records helped the band out by putting on a benefit show for the band to play in Kingston, with all proceeds going towards new equipment. In October 2012 The Skints did a 10 headline date tour of the UK, in support of Part & Parcel, selling out every show and ending at an oversold Scala in London. May 2013 they followed this up with a 21-show-in-19-day headline run which so them headline London's KOKO with new single "Out My Mind". Part & Parcel was released in France on 29 January 2013 on Soulbeats Records. This launched the band into 2 years of heavy touring across France, including a main stage performance at Reggae Sun Ska Festival replacing Chronixx, who was delayed due to tour bus problems. 2014 saw the release of the "Short Change EP" on their own label, Penny Drop Recordings, a heavy festival summer and support slots with Fat Freddy’s Drop in Utrecht and Berlin and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes in the UK. The Skints then entered the studio with Prince Fatty to begin work on their third LP.
The Skints released "FM" on 9 March 2015 after signing a one-album deal with New York City independent reggae label Easy Star Records. A concept album of sorts , FM is set on a fictional pirate radio station on the "hottest day of the year" in London, the three featured MCs across the album play the station’s DJs in the album’s skits, as well as an appearance from English comedian Rufus Hound. The Skints have said they were inspired by Songs For The Deaf by Queens Of The Stone Age and the Spike Lee movie, Do The Right Thing in regards to the album’s audio-theatrical concept.FM reached number 5 on the Billboard Reggae Albums chart and number 7 on the Independent Albums Chart in the UK. Touring was kicked off with a 4 week headline run in Europe and the UK with support from Hollie Cook, culminating in a headline show at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. The band then flew to the USA for their first ever American tour which including supporting Easy Star All-Stars and Fishbone on the East Coast and flying to the West for their first Cali Roots and a Punk Rock Bowling side show supporting The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and The English Beat. In 2016 The Skints travelled the USA a further 4 times, Tribal Seeds ‘Winter Reggae Land’ Tour in January/February, a May/June tour featuring West Coast dates with The Expanders and Morgan Heritage and an October East Coast tour supporting Sublime With Rome, taking them to Canada for the first time. They ended the year with a sold out headline show at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones Hometown Throwdown in Boston and a New Year’s Eve show with Sublime With Rome in Pennsylvania. 2016 saw the band host their own pop-up party/mini festival "Nice Time London" in Hackney which featured live performances from Jamaican rising star Jesse Royal and New Kingston and full sound system session on the other side of the room from Reggae Roast. That year The Skints also joined the Fireball "Fuelling The Fire" tour alongside Less Than Jake and Mariachi El Bronx across the UK’s O2 Academy venues. In 2017 they collaborated with Signature Brew to produce "Nice Time" pale ale, stocking it in venues across the UK which they subsequently sold out with their own shows. The band flew back to North America for Victoria Ska Fest in Canada and a USA summer tour opening for 311. Autumn saw them tour Japan with Asian Man Records legends Kemuri and Bruce Lee Band before coming home to write their next full length record.
In 2018, The Skints entered the Fish Factory in Harlesden, London to begin work on the follow-up to "FM". With a view to "push all ends of the spectrum of what The Skints music is and can be", the band headed production and creative vision and enlisted engineer Ben Lamdin to record the majority of the instrumentation, with Jack Longman covering additional vocal recording and production. During sessions, the band went to their first album producer Peter Miles in Devon to record the "heavier rock moments" of the album, before delivering the project to Prince Fatty who mixed the album at Jah Dub Studios in Si Racha District, Thailand. Spending the majority of 2018 in the studio, the band emerged to play a handful of festivals including Slam Dunk Festival, Summerjam, Boomtown Fair and a sold out O2 Brixton Academy as main support to Californian punk legends NOFX.
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