| “Chaotic and abusive metal” is the name of the game for Sacramento’s Skribble, and not many local bands are described so accurately and with so terse an explanation. Whether grounded in New York hardcore, Floridian death metal or a bizarre cacophony of virtually everything on the map (a la Strapping Young Lad), one thing’s for certain: It’s damn catchy.
The story of Skribble’s founding reads vaguely like the beginning of a low-budget, fake-blood-laden horror flick.
“When we were younger, in high school, we went on a little trip somewhere in the f-ckin’ wilderness and we had about five different bottles, a bunch of shitty beer and a group of best friends,” reminisces vocalist, guitarist and founding member Chris Richards.
That group of friends, made up of Richards, vocalist/guitarist Matt Robbins, guitarist Kenny Digiordano, bassist Garrett “G” Lopez and drummer Mario Cuadra would later become the original Skribble lineup. Although the pieces seemed to fit together, the seemingly obvious thought hadn’t previously occurred to them.
“We knew we all played,” Richards says, “but it wasn't until then that we wondered why we didn't have a band together.”
The band began playing shows in 1999, and it didn’t take long for them to realize the high stakes involved with paying their dues. Just three shows into their career as a band, Skribble landed a gig opening for The Council, at the time one of the hottest bands in the Golden State’s capitol. Skribble played to a sold-out crowd of close to 500.
“Needless to say, we were nervous as f-ck,” Chris remembers.
Over the next five years Skribble steadily cultivated their fan base, gaining attention for their unabashedly brutal style of hardcore and grind.
But as the gears churned on, the members of Skribble began to show signs of burnout. “The music was going downhill, the practices were few and far between, the fire was going out,” Richards says. When Giordano decided he wanted to exit the band to pursue higher education, Skribble decided it was time to close up shop and in 2004 announced that they were breaking up.
“We look at [the break-up] as shell shock now,” Richards explains. “It was a premature announcement, obviously.”
Richards, Robbins and Walker went on to form Bindtorturekill with ex-Forktung drummer Mike Filipino. What ensued was nothing short of complete reinvention. New music was being written as early as a week after the initial break-up.
“We canned all the old songs other than one…and wrote a whole new set all in about a three months time period,” Richards says.
Abandoning most of the classic Skribble catalog was a decision with several determining factors, one of which was resistance to prevailing trends, Richards says.
“Some of our past members may have thought that we need to cling to some sort of style that would be more widely accepted,” he remarks. “That isn't happening now.” | Another key ingredient was improved musicianship. With Jeff Yeager on bass and Cody Walker now playing guitar (his main instrument), the band seemed better equipped to play the material they had always wanted to.
The Bindtorturekill sessions would eventually give way to a rejuvenated Skribble, and mere months after the initial breakup, a comeback was imminent.
The band re-emerged more brutal and structurally complex, strengthening their arsenal with Iron Maiden-esque guitar harmonies and significantly quickened tempos.
A fair distance from the hardcore leanings that made up the Skribble of old, the band now had a firm grasp of the death metal aesthetic they always seemed to be on the verge of obtaining, with songs that could whip audiences into a frenzy as easily as they could spin heads with mind-bending technicality. It may have taken close to six years, but Skribble had finally found themselves and the ideal sound had begun to take shape.
“With the new line up we are capable of things now that we weren't before,” says Chris “We're now able to play the style of music we like the best.”
A new writing process also took hold, one that would hopefully insure Skribble would never grow stale as a songwriting collective, each member having his own level of input into each work. Always attempting to push the envelope, Skribble are out to even further improve their chops in order to properly manifest more challenging ideas.
“I guess in a nutshell,” Chris continues, “the faster we are capable of playing, and the harder we are capable of screaming, and better we are able to smash out the beats, well, that's what we are going to do.”
The band will take their sound to Los Angeles in August to record more material and will of course keep their regiment of shows, but while Richards says their hard work is paying off, they are tempering their dedication with sensible expectations.
“We're just along for the ride,” Richards says. “We all have hopes, but we are very logical, and know that the music business isn't what it used to be.”
With labels in the throes of a feeding frenzy for fresh-sounding heavy bands, however, Skribble may have blossomed at just the right time. Still, Richards remains agreeably skeptical.
“No one is really going to come along and be super excited to signed another loud f-cking metal band,” he says, “but then again, they might. You never really know.”
In other words, Skribble really have nothing else in mind but to simply be Skribble, an attitude that Richards believes has served them well during their six-year run.
As he tells it: “We're dedicated as f-ck to what we do, and that shows through all the trials and tribulations we have had to overcome thus far already.
"Skribble will never die, until we actually do. It'll always be a part of us, and I think a lot of fans know this.”
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