No Rush, No Rules: Skunkhour’s Cult Groove Keeps Rolling

Commemorating thirty years since the release of one of the Aussie music industry’s most iconic singles, this November will see Australian funk rock heroes Skunkhour perform nationally for their Up To Our Necks In It (For 30 Years) tour. A celebration of the 1995 smash hit of the same name that cemented the cult sonic alchemy that catapulted Skunkhour from the local scene into international infamy, the upcoming tour will showcase the track Up To Our Necks In It alongside some extra surprises. Thirty years on, Skunkhour remain one of the country’s most enduring acts, and 2025 is primed to celebrate the past, present and future of this influential genre-bending collective. Aya Larkin talks to Hi Fi Way about their thirtieth anniversary and their show at The Gov.

Thirty years of Skunkhour, that’s an incredible milestone and definitely worthy of a massive celebration. When you reflect on that, how does the milestone sit with you?
We’re incredibly lucky, like, considering the fact that we never really had commercial radio or chart success. With any of the songs, it’s mainly on the live and cult following of punters. I think the fact that we made music that doesn’t sound like anyone else. I think that that’s really helped, that we’ve stayed friends and been able to keep the thing on the road. That’s half of it.

What’s the secret to keeping it together and going so well for so long?
Well, we’ve had the two sets of brothers, which is, you know, can be a blessing and a curse, but it does keep that kind of blood-is-thicker-than-water thing going, where you’ll tend to blow up and then forgive each other quicker because you have that tie. I think that’s a large part of it. Even though Michael, the drummer, has left in the last few years. I think we’re also pretty pragmatic as a band. There’s a lot of egos there to manage, but you still have to put them aside and realise that you’ve got to all compromise for the greater good, for something that’s bigger than all of you. I think if one of you gets too up themselves or ahead of themselves, that’s when things start to splinter. I think we’ve got a similar sense of humour, we still like to really take the piss and make fun of each other, and I think that’s half of it too.

Being able to do it on your own terms must be a big factor. If you want to tour, you tour. If you don’t, you don’t. There’s no pressure from anyone else.
I think you hear it as a cliché with a lot of older bands, that they’re sounding better than ever or whatever, but I think it’s true with us because when you’re touring non-stop, like, we were doing a gig every two or three nights for three or four years, it just becomes a grind. You start to get lax, and you start to just phone it in a bit, and you rush. I hear a lot of the live recordings from back then, and it’s fast, it’s rushed, it’s loose, because you just take it for granted a bit. Whereas now, because we’ve had jobs and time away from it, kids and things like that, you really get to appreciate how lucky you are in doing what you’re doing.

It gets back to that balance, having a normal life, jobs, family, and then the touring side is a nice bonus.
Yeah, it’s fun, and it’s not a part of the job. You’re not doing what the record company wants you to do, or doing what your manager demands you do. You’re doing it as it suits, and if the want or the need is there. We’re lucky enough that it is. It takes a bit of work. You’ve got to keep that going, and you’ve got to try and remind people that you’re still there. That’s harder and harder these days, with how splintered the whole music culture media is, and trying to get in front of punters. When everyone’s on twenty different platforms and listening to multiple different things, it’s difficult. It’s not as easy as it was in the old days.

With this milestone, do you get swept up in the nostalgia of it? Does it bring back a lot of good memories over the journey?
It does, yeah. This song in particular, I think this does for punters as well. That’s what we’re noticing with the response we’re getting from media and people, that it’s a song in our catalogue that’s truly cherished. It’s cherished by us too, because it’s a pretty unique song in its own right. It was very different to anything we’d done before, different to anything on that album. It really came about incredibly naturally and quickly, stemming from a dream that Warwick had. He woke up one morning and that riff was in his head. Then brought that to rehearsal, and I already had most of those lyrics written from a poem I’d written a few years before, and it just worked in this spoken word thing, which I’d never done before. I think that mellowness and jazziness of it helped transcend a lot of the barriers of radio and music, from commercial radio, which at the time was a lot more conservative and adult-oriented. But it got on those stations as well, ABC National and Triple J, which was huge.

Are there any particular moments over thirty years that you reflect on now that stand out just as proudly as they did when they happened?
Yeah, that’s different for all of us. I’m incredibly proud of the fact that I’d never been in a band before I joined them, and within eight months, we were supporting INXS in Fremantle on their Back to Basics tour after they’d just done Wembley. I worshipped those guys, grew up worshipping Australian rock in the ’80s, when it was dominating and so powerful. Things like that were incredible. It was just mind-blowing, and suddenly I’m on stage thinking, how did I get here? Then a few festivals, Adelaide, always loved. Our first trip to Adelaide was in ’93, and we had no idea what to expect, doing the drive from Sydney. Just awesome crowds and appreciation, and seeing that wow, this thing is bigger than I thought. This is going to work. It’s not just a Sydney thing. We were lucky enough to come about in a big scene where all the musos and bands had massive groups of friends, and everyone went to each other’s gigs.

You can get a false sense of what’s going on from that. But once we stepped out of that, went to Adelaide, playing places like the Cargo Bar, they were awesome days. We had a favourite club in Australia for years. That’s where we met Groove Terminator, when he was DJing old-school funk breaks. He was one of the best I’ve ever seen do it and then getting on some of the big festivals. Livid Festival in Brisbane was a highlight, and the original Byron Arts Festivals at New Year were just unreal. It was before everything got commercialised, before there was masses of security everywhere, and you were paying fifteen bucks a beer. It was a good time.

To commemorate the occasion, did you consider any reissues or a compilation. like a best-of Skunkhour?
It’s a bit hard. It’s probably a little too risky these days. You’ve got to outlay a fair bit, and we tend to keep a pretty small kitty. Like we said, we’re not an ongoing business these days. I’m self-managed, and we still have agents and stuff like that, but you’ve got to keep a kitty there and be very conscious these days. There are so many more costs involved in touring and getting your promotion out there, with all the various platforms and things like that. I’d love someone to come, one of those small indie reissue labels, to hit us up, sure. We’d never say no, but we haven’t gone down that road yet.

Is approaching new music a similar proposition, just weighing cost versus benefit?
Yeah, we did the Parts of the Sun EP in 2022, and that got us a lot of great play. I think we were pretty nervous going into that, because you’ve got a pretty loyal fan base who really love your catalogue, and you’re kind of risking do we still have it? Do we want to muddy the waters there and risk not having it? But we did, I think we did pretty well. I think it was a great EP. Got a lot of good play on radio for us and then we did another one a year and a half ago with Rain On Me. So I think it’ll be more like that, we’ll just do one or two singles here and there. I think we’re due for that next year, definitely.

Do you get frustrated with where music’s heading now?
Well, it’s not one cohesive culture anymore, or media, even on a corporate or commercial sense. It’s all kind of splintered into different scenes. So whatever music you’re into, alt country or whatever, there are platforms out there where people go looking for that. Everyone’s not beholden to radio stations anywhere near like they were, or commercial record companies. So everyone has a lot more autonomy. I think everything’s happening, but it’s happening on the quiet, within their own scene. You’ve got to be in it and go looking for it, and it’s there. A lot of Gen Xers and baby boomers get the wrong idea. We see commercial radio, and that’s just a really small scene now that’s for a very particular age group and market. It’s nowhere near the breadth and scope that it was in the 80s and 90s. They’re not doing any of what they used to. So you’re going to get the wrong idea if you just look at that and go, “Oh, music’s stuffed.” It’s not, it’s just happening elsewhere. You just got to go looking for it.

What’s next for Skunkhour beyond touring?
We’ll do this tour and work our tracks. We’ve got a new drummer in the past few years, which has really helped invigorate, burst some fresh blood in the band and a fresh perspective. It’s really helped lift the live shows. They’re a lot more powerful and dynamic. Our shows in general are a lot more powerful and dynamic, because like I said, we don’t just rush through everything these days. We really take the time to pay attention to the feel and atmosphere of the songs, the tempos, and making sure we’re giving the best representation of those and focusing on stuff that’s great for a live show. We want people to have fun, we want them to boogie. We’re not interested in indulging in our unknown catalogue or our difficult stuff. We’re happy to be giving people what they want.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Skunkhour on the following dates, tickets HERE…