Skin has done it all. So it’s no surprise that, when Skunk Anansie’s singer is on tour these days, she’s a self-described “goody two-shoes” who doesn’t even want to step foot in a manky service station…
As Skunk Anansie emphatically roar back into action with a UK headline run and news of their long-awaited seventh album The Painful Truth, Skin helps lift the lid on the highs, lows, creature comforts and touring weirdness of a travelling band…
“I’ve got a couple of little statues I put in the room to give it a nice vibe. But the thing about being on tour is you’ve got to be prepared for all situations. I don’t have sweatpants for that reason, because you’re always going to get caught out somewhere embarrassing and what are you wearing? Sweatpants! When I was a kid, there was a massive fire on my street and we had to be rescued out of the top window. I always remember my brother had no pants on. We were little so it didn’t matter, but from that day on I’ve been like, ‘Always have your pants on, you never know when you’ll need to be rescued by a fireman.’”
“We were on tour in America, there was a storm coming, and our tour manager got himself an earlier flight and left us to get the later one. It took us two days to get home. I don’t think I’ve ever lied so much in my life. I got very good at judging what bands the person behind the counter was into. I said, ‘We’re a rock band – we’ve got to go and do some dates with Bruce Springsteen.’ And she went, ‘Springsteen! We’ve got to get you to do that!’ and sorted us out. We fired the tour manager when we got home!”
“About 10 or 15 years ago, we played a festival in Germany. We got there early and all fucking day it was hardcore techno. The last band before us came off and everybody started booing because they knew Skunk Anansie were coming on. We walked on and they started hurling bottles. Halfway through the second song I lost my temper, like, ‘How fucking dare you?’ I called them all kinds of things. They went quiet and then, on the third song, they were like, ‘Oh, she’s quite aggressive…’ and you saw the vibe change. By the fourth song they started moshing, and by the end it was brilliant – we did two encores!”
“When I’m on tour, I’m a goody two-shoes because I can’t afford to lose my voice. We learned really quickly that, if there’s too much excess, you can’t continue, because you can’t keep it up physically. So, my post-gig raving days are over. Don’t eat too much, don’t drink too much and stay away from the crazy shit.”
“There was one place in Russia where it was like someone did a beautiful painting using their own shit. Luckily, we now have an amazing wardrobe person who goes in beforehand and sorts everything out. We don’t do the private toilet thing, though – everybody can shit in the same one as me!”
“Nowhere! I don’t get off the bus. The only thing I hate more than service stations is ferries. I will die drowning because I decided to stay on the bus and sleep in the dark.”
“Fucking stoosh. When we headlined, we had our own section away from everyone else. There was a circle of dressing rooms and we had our own bar. It wasn’t a muddy year, thankfully. I’ve been a couple of times in the mud and literally had to leave.”
“When you’re backstage and you hear people going nutty before you go on. If you can hear people going ‘Raaaargh!’ and ‘Skunk Anansie!’ then that’s the best feeling, because you know you’ll walk onstage and it’s going to fucking go off. I’m getting goosebumps now, just talking about it!”
“I’ve done the classic ‘Hello, Paris!’ when we’ve been in Milan. Every singer does that two or three times in their career to a collective groan. But I don’t really watch what I say. When you’re in a band, you take the piss out of each other and have private jokes which translate to us but not to other people. So I definitely try not to take that energy onstage. People can make controversy out of nothing and I’m very much aware of that, and if something goes viral, for good reasons or the wrong reasons, it’s still gone viral. We’re in that kind of world now.”
Skunk Anansie tour the UK from March 28. The band’s new album The Painful Truth is released on May 23 via FLG Records.
This interview originally appeared in the spring 2025 issue of Kerrang!.
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