Waikato music: Devilskin

May is New Zealand Music Month, which aims to celebrate Kiwi music and the people who make it. The Waikato has some incredibly talented musicians, so we are showcasing some of them this month, whether they are currently based in the region or they grew up in the mighty Waikato.

Waikato-based Devilskin is rocking their way to the top of New Zealand’s music scene with chart-topping singles, hard-hitting lyrics, powerhouse vocals, gold and platinum albums, and Best Rock Act award at the 2017 Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards.

This month band members - singer Jennie Skulander, guitarist Nail, bassist Paul Martin and drummer Nic Martin - were presented with framed gold records in recognition of their recent album ‘Be Like The River’ reaching gold certification in New Zealand last year.

Jennie said it was an amazing feeling to receive the gold record, and it will be proudly displayed in her home alongside the framed platinum record they received for their first album ‘We Rise’.

“It’s awesome to be able to see them, to remind myself every day that this is what I’ve done with the band, this is what we’ve accomplished,” Jennie said.  

The band is currently working on new music. Jennie said they’re likely to record a new single over the next few months and the album will be released next year.

“The new music is going good. We’ve been having writing weekends to shut ourselves away and write some more music,” Jennie said.  

She says the music industry is hard to get into with rock bands, especially with a band where the members’ ages are a decade apart – “Nic is 23, I’m 33, Nail is 43 and Paul is 53,” Jennie said.

However, given the success they’ve had, the band is still unsigned and that’s just how they like it. 

“We do everything ourselves, we can still be ourselves and make our albums and songs high up on the charts, so we don’t need a record label behind us.”

With so much success around the country and worldwide, the band remains based in the Waikato so that they can be close to family and three of the band members own homes here.

“It’s affordable to live in the Waikato. Everything is close by, such as this week I need to go up to Auckland and record something for The Rock radio station and it’s only an hour and a half drive. That’s nothing, when people are stuck in traffic for that long some days living in Auckland,” Jennie said.

“I feel like it’s more down to earth here in the Waikato as well and It feels like home so there’s no need to move.”

The band has a huge family dynamic with Paul and Nic as father and son. As well as Jennie being Paul’s sister-in-law, and Nic is her nephew.

A bona fide supermum, Jennie was pregnant when they recorded their most recent album before welcoming her daughter Georgia, who joined the band on their tour last year. Jennie’s husband Phil and family members joined in the journey and helped take care of Georgia while Jennie and the band were on stage.

The tour included performances in New Zealand and Australia with American band Halestorm. As well as touring the UK and Europe, where they did 16 shows in 23 days.

Jennie says it was amazing having her daughter on tour, but it was also very hard.

“I was coming back after gigs and breastfeeding, and we’d be on the road, so I’d have to change her nappy while travelling, and then trying to adjust her sleep with the time zones. So, it was hard but totally do-able.”

Proud mum Jennie said Georgia already has music in her veins. Every time she hears music she dances and says, “dancing dancing”.

The band recently headlined the rock stage at the annual Homegrown music festival in Wellington, where they’ve performed four times now.

“It’s always great fun at Homegrown. You feed off the crowd, they always have so much energy,” Jennie said.

Growing up, Jennie listened to a lot of rock and metal music as a teenager, some of which she still listens to today, such as Deftones.

“I always thought it’d be cool to be in a band, but I didn’t think it would actually happen.”

At school Jennie got in to a vocals group to get out of class and hangout with her friends, but she had a music teacher who picked up on her talent and encouraged her to enter singing competitions, Jennie soon found that she really enjoyed it.

She remembers performing on stage at Rockquest in 2001 and thinking “oh my God I love this”.

Jennie was born in Tokoroa and grew up in Rotorua where she was in the band Slipping Tongue for six years before they departed, so at age 23 she re-located to Hamilton as her brother lived there.

Living in Hamilton, she already knew Devilskin bassist Paul from his Axe Attack radio show. He had been a fan of Jennie’s since hearing her sing at age 16. Paul asked Jennie to join the band and she said ‘no’.

Six months later, guitarist Nail contacted Jennie asked her the same question.

“I said, ‘ok, alright’, and I remember saying to them ‘I’ll start a band with you guys, but I don’t want to do any gigs out of Hamilton and I don’t want to do any recordings’ and now almost three albums later and touring Aussie, the UK, Europe, America, but I don’t regret it,” Jennie laughs.

She says Paul came up with the Devilskin name, and it means that everyone has a devil skin, where you have a darker or evil side to yourself as well as your angel skin, where it’s a lighter side of you.

“Originally the name was Devilgun, and we even had demos with that name on it and then it got changed to Devilskin,” Jennie said.

Jennie said the pressure to name a band, an album or even a song title is almost like the feeling of naming your new baby, so she admits she’s “not a fan” of naming songs.

Her highlights from the Devilskin journey so far include going gold then platinum, number one albums, performing in Hollywood, getting to tour the UK and Germany, receiving the Best Rock Act award at the Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards where they also performed, and opening for big name acts such as Motley Crue and Rob Zombie.

“Building up a massive fanbase and watching it grow over the years, it’s such a buzz on stage when people are singing your songs,” Jennie said.

To hear Devilskin’s music visit their YouTube channel and stay up to date with the band’s ventures on their Facebook page and Instagram.