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When Songs Write Themselves – An Interview with Skinny of Mushroomhead

Interview by Melanie Falina

Ohio-based atl-metal masters, Mushroomhead, are in the midst of a pretty awesome 2018 – and they’re amping up for an even bigger 2019.

Having just released a brand new DVD, Volume III, and currently on the road with The Summer of Screams tour, UnRated caught up with Mushroomhead founder and drummer, Steve “Skinny” Felton to talk about the writing of their forthcoming album, the creative process, and their tour coming to The Forge in Joliet this Saturday, September 15.

Melanie Falina: You guys are on tour and have a whole lot of stuff going on – but one of the most exciting things right now is your new DVD, Volume III! It’s amazing with tons of new footage and it’s very cinematic looking too. How’s it feel now for you that it’s finally out there?

Steve “Skinny” Felton: I am glad that it finally got turned in and proofed and done, you know, how many edits, how many times you’re so close and then you end up working on it for another month or whatever [laughs]. Deadlines definitely help. But yes, very, very proud of this one. It’s our third DVD and it’s quite different than the others, and like you were saying and other people have said it’s very cinematic. It plays out more like a movie or an album than your typical band DVD release. Bands will have a video and then show some behind-the-scenes antics, and then back to a video. We really tried to incorporate a lot of the live element and bringing slow motion pieces together of live footage and doing some remix audio to tie all the videos together. So the first 38-40 minutes play more like a film or a record, but I’m really proud of it, it came out great.

Melanie Falina: And I’m sure you can use the knowledge you gain with each release to build on and get even better going forward too.

Skinny: Absolutely. Every day you sit down and work on that kind of stuff, it’s a learning curve. And when you get done with it you think, ‘If only I would have…’ but you don’t know that until you get done with your initial objective. I look back and go, ‘I could have done that differently,’ but I wouldn’t have known that then if I did stick it out and finish stuff. And that’s part of the problem too because we have our own studio where we do a lot of the video editing and audio editing as well so it’s kind of a blessing and a curse, you can keep tweaking it until you get it right but is it ever going to be right? [laughs]

Melanie Falina: And I read that you’re actually building a new studio right now.

Skinny: Yeah, we just moved in early spring to another location which is an old transmission shop actually. And we got about half of it done before we set off on this tour, so when we come back we’re going to knock out a few more walls and start tracking some drums because we’re very busy writing the new album. We got some work in before we left, and we’ve been recording a lot of new ideas and just messing around with things on the bus. But we’re really excited to get back home and write a new record in a brand new place.

Melanie Falina: When is the anticipated release date for the new album?

Skinny: Well, if everything can happen the way we’re seeing it, it’ll be out late-March or early-April. Brand new Mushroomhead – album number eight – it’s crazy! Here we are, 25 years later, making the eighth one. But I’m really looking forward to this one. We’ve been doing this awhile and we’ve got some really solid ideas right now. You know, we find that the good albums just write themselves, so if everything goes right I think this is going to be a really smooth album. We’re going to home for a month, and then go back out for two weeks at the end of October to celebrate 25 years, and with our annual Halloween party that we do in Cleveland. This year it’s October 27th, the last Saturday of October. And then after that, we’re back in the studio, and if everything works out right we’ll be done by Thanksgiving. Then it’ll go on to mastering, do a new video, and get a couple of months pre-push as far as lead time, but yeah, in a perfect world that’s my next schedule. [laughs] And over to Europe is the definitely the next step, we’re going to focus on that pretty hard in 2019.

Melanie Falina: You had mentioned that the new album is kind of writing itself, and that’s something I experience too with my poetry. There are times when it just seems to flow out of nowhere, but then – for myself anyway – there are times when that inspiration just isn’t talking to me. Do you have that same issue?

Skinny: Oh absolutely, we say that all the time – we’ll be working on a song and it’ll be three, four hours later and walk into the other room and go, ‘It ain’t talking to me!’ Or, ‘I’m not hearing anything yet, it’s not telling me what to do.’ You [tell yourself] it’ll come, but after six or eight hours it doesn’t. It’s not the easiest to just walk in every day and just be creative, but we are fortunate enough to have our own studio so when the inspiration does happen – or strikes – we can get right on it, record it and capture it, and that’s a huge win for us. And that’s helping now as far as the time factor when, like you said, it just flows out of you. But we’re pretty open-minded too, we’ve been doing this a long time, so we can find inspiration pretty much anywhere. Like the other night, it was right after a show and we were standing outside the bus talking and I was drinking a beer, and the light pole in the club parking lot had this weird buzz to it and would flicker, and it was doing it in a loop. [laughs] And I instantly said, ‘Man, we should record that and put it in a loop and make a drum pattern from it.’ And we didn’t do that but it’s as simple as that sometimes, I was inspired by the sound of this fucked up lamp post. But that’s not something you’re going to look for like, ‘I’m going to go listen for weird sounds.’ [laughs] It doesn’t happen that way. We’re still just open-minded and willing to try stuff and still experiment. I know we’ve found Mushroomhead has sounds and styles, but is there one particular sound? I don’t think so, and I tend to like that. We write more like normal life – you’re not mad all the time, you’re not sad all the time. So you don’t just get one emotion out of Mushroomhead you get a full circle, plus there’s eight of us so there are a lot of different moods and personalities to capture.

Melanie Falina: You guys are on tour right now but also doing signings in full costume and with your masks. Is that ever something that’s kind of daunting, or do you still really enjoy it every time you put the mask on?

Skinny: You know, we all still really enjoy it. I think the only time when it really becomes bothersome is when we’re under really hectic schedules and say the wardrobe doesn’t have a chance to air out or dry. Putting on wet wardrobe that next day is always a kicker and sometimes it just stinks. [laughs] I think that’s the biggest problem and the biggest challenge that we find out there is keeping our wardrobe clean, but after so many years of the mask and the makeup you get used to it and it becomes part of the character, it’s part of getting ready before you go onstage – you get the wardrobe on, you get the makeup on, and by the time you put that mask on you’re ready to rock. The pre-game ritual gets you in the mindset.

Melanie Falina: So how is The Summer of Screams Tour going? Are you having fun with all these guys?

Skinny: Oh, absolutely! It’s a great tour, and it’s fun because some of these guys we’ve been out with before – Unsaid Fate, The Browning, and Psychostick – so it’s like a high school reunion basically. It’s a lot of fun and antics, and everyone’s just on the same page and everyone’s really happy to be here. And it’s been a smooth running tour, everyone’s just been really easy going and it’s off to a great start. I hope that The Summer of Screams Tour turns into something annual and that they continue to do.

Melanie Falina: Changing gears a bit here, but what would you say is the most important lesson that you’ve learned so far in life?

Skinny: In life – I think, be happy with what you have. Absolutely. Don’t take anything for granted. If you’re blessed in any way, take a second to take a step back and look at your life, I bet it’s not that bad. I have two teenage boys, they’re 17 and 19, and I say to them, ‘If that’s the worst thing that happened to you today, you’re doing ok.’ [laughs] It’s very important to keep your head straight, especially in the entertainment world, your head can get spun off really fast and it’s a whirlwind of a lifestyle for sure. But if you can be happy with what you have – it’s very challenging – don’t get me wrong – but I think that’s one of the most important things ever. Take a step back and be thankful, it could be a lot worst, I promise you.

Melanie Falina: And yeah, speaking of that, musicians are always surrounded by people telling you how great you are – so how do you stay grounded like that?

Skinny: Well, or how bad we are. If you’re on the Internet then it’s how bad we are. [laughs] If you’re face to face they love you, behind a keyboard they hate you. And sometimes it’s crazy because it’s that same person.

Melanie Falina: So how do you emotionally balance out those different kinds of reactions?

Skinny: You know, I say it to the band, and a lot of artists – they say the bigger the band the more it’s going to get ripped. At the end of the day, I don’t really create art or music for everyone else’s opinion, I create it because I’m trying to express myself as an artist. And whether people like it or hate it, it doesn’t matter, I’m going to make stuff. I like to create, I’m very much addicted to the creation of all of it – entirely – the craft of writing, recording, mask-making, blah blah blah. But it’s not as easy as everyone thinks. As an artist, if you can just be happy with what you do, I think that is the key. And then if there are people who end up liking your music and maybe become fans of your stuff, then that’s a humongous bonus. I didn’t start this to be in the biggest band in the world, I didn’t start this so everyone would like me. As an artist, I needed to express myself and create, and this is what came out. But if you’re true to yourself then it doesn’t matter what anyone else says. I think it was Andy Warhol who said it, “Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”

Melanie Falina: Is there anything else that you’d like to mention?

Skinny: Just that I can’t thank the fans enough. We’ve got an amazing underground following, and I don’t care if you’ve been here for 25 minutes or 25 years, thank you! We would not be us without you – flat-out. The fans are the reason we got bigger and more popular, we were just making art [laughs] and people ended up liking it. So, I just can’t thank them enough.