Latest news with #SkunkAnansie
The Guardian
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Skunk Anansie: The Painful Truth review – a raw triumph of reinvention and resilience
Almost 30 years after Weak gave the London band a global smash, Skunk Anansie's 'painful truth' is facing up to middle age, parenthood, the loss of a longstanding manager, fears that their best days were behind them and two members being diagnosed with cancer. Recorded with drummer Mark Richardson in recovery and bassist Cass undergoing chemotherapy, their first album in nine years confronts such issues with candour and defiance. Opener An Artist Is an Artist stridently lays down the manifesto: over an infectious collision of electro-pop and post-punk, singer Skin insists that a true creative will not be denied by ageing or menopause. The vocalist subsequently addresses challenges ranging from the hedonistic rock lifestyle to her own family history. Musically, producer David Sitek of TV on the Radio has urged them to throw off the shackles of their 90s rock sound and be unafraid to go wherever experimentation takes them. Songs hurtle through electronic rock, ska, dub and even tinkling pianos as moods shift from urgent to ethereal. Singer Skin digs deep into her personal well for Shame ('I got the love from my mother, the pain from my dad'), but allows a moment of euphoria on the catchy My Greatest Moment. The album's sense of emotional investment and creative rejuvenation reaches a sublime apex with the closing track, Meltdown. Skin's delicate vocals give the song about a lonely breakdown a raw, disarming beauty.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
British band Skunk Anansie return with first album in almost a decade
The British alternative rock band Skunk Anansie, led by singer Skin, has reliably carved out a niche for itself since the 1990s, blending hard rock, grunge and metal elements. With their new album "The Painful Truth" - their first in nine years - set to be released on Friday (May 23), the band remains loyal to their early fans while still managing to surprise. 'The Painful Truth' - a new sound? With their new album, the band delivers a compelling statement of powerful, energetic sound, complemented by the signature falsetto voice of frontwoman Skin. Provocative songwriting rounds out the impression of a cohesive interplay of melodies and electronic sound elements. Naturally, the band's straightforward lyrics also include political statements. The album's messages are clear: more tolerance for transgender people, fewer religious fundamentalists who endanger this minority, and a migration policy that connects the human with the worldly. Skin, whose real name is Deborah Anne Dyer, sees the strength of her band in their individual roles and their songwriting. "I think that we have a different approach because when you've been crafting songs for 30 years, your technique is going to change. It should change," she said. "The way that we do things or we did things in the 90s, for instance, you know, it's not the way that we would do things now." She highlights the album's opener, "An Artist is an Artist," as "a beautifully crafted song that sums up in a chorus what it's supposed to. But the verses and the licks are very informative, cheeky, give you a good idea of where our heads at and who we are, you know, really tells you who we are as a band. And, you know, there is a serious side to it." Must listen-to songs The track "Cheers" is reminiscent of "Hedonism," the band's biggest hit from the 1990s, but surprises with its own gritty sound featuring grunge-like elements. "Animal" impresses with its powerful and precise sound, paired with a striking allegory that every artist has a beast within. During the coronavirus pandemic, the band not only had to search for a new manager, but Skin also built a gym and a recording studio in her home to stay fit. Skin, who has Jamaican roots, is pleased that King Charles III enjoys listening to Bob Marley and has included him in his favourite playlist alongside artists like Beyoncé and Kylie Minogue. "The Painful Truth" fits harmoniously into the band's previous albums but surprises with tracks like "Cheers." It's perfect for long-time fans and those who enjoy powerful crossover sounds that are truly unique.
Telegraph
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Skunk Anansie's Skin: ‘Shoot the Royals? The King was actually rather sweet to me'
'Sexism is not my problem,' insists Skin. 'If I was to worry about that, and being black and queer, I literally wouldn't be able to get out of bed in the morning. 'Sexism is everywhere, just like racism and homophobia are everywhere. So I had to make a personal decision of how much weight I was going to take on my shoulders – which was zero!' She declares this with an exultant cackle of laughter. 'It's important to recognise when you're confronted by it, but to bypass it and keep moving forward. It's like no, no, no! You guys just move aside. I'm going to do my thing!' I wouldn't like to get in Skin's way when she is doing her thing. She may be a featherweight 5ft 5in with a squeaky speaking voice that sounds almost cartoonish, but the loquacious frontwoman for British alternative rock band Skunk Anansie is fantastically fearless. 'I'm not worried about being cancelled, because that's a ridiculous notion,' she declares whilst discussing how timid pop music has become. I suppose it is ridiculous if your whole persona is to be outspoken. Skin has complained over the years about being personified as a 'black, bald-headed, bisexual Amazonian', but in conversation she rarely shies away from the issues of class, race, sexual identity and is certainly not afraid to leap into the fray, sound bites blazing. After all, Skunk Anansie's biggest-selling album, Stoosh (from 1996) opened with a track titled Yes It's F---ing Political. 'There's so much fear around, people are scared to raise their voices,' she tells me now. 'So maybe it's easier to make music that doesn't test people, and easier to market if you do something as bland as f--k!' There is nothing bland about Skin. She was raised Deborah Anne Dyer in a 'very strict' and 'politically aware' working-class household in Brixton, London, where her mother was active in both church and local government, whilst her former RAF father was often absent as an oil worker. Her grandfather ran a reggae club, but the rebellious teenager was drawn to The Clash and Rolling Stones, joining her first band aged 20. 'It's really discouraged as a black woman to be a rock and roller,' she says. 'But there was a moment when I realised 'why am I trying to be like the person next door, when I stand out by just being myself?'' Her childhood nickname was Skinny. She shortened it to Skin around the same time she first shaved her head, in 1990. 'Every woman I've gone out with has massive long hair, and God, it's so much work and money and time!' Skunk Anansie were signed in 1994, conjuring a hybrid of punk, funk, soul and metal that sounded in stark opposition to the laddish retro rock of Britpop. 'We've always been outsiders. But that can be a powerful place to be.' It is probably fair to say her politics are more Left-wing and agitational than the politics of most readers here, but she has backed them up with positive community action, advocating for music education and mentoring for youth charities. In 2017, Skunk Anansie launched a scholarship in partnership with the Academy of Contemporary Music providing financial support for aspiring musicians. At 57, Skin looks and sounds pretty much exactly the same as when I first interviewed her in 1997. I tell her she got me in trouble with my then editors at the Telegraph when the rock provocateur spoke about wanting to 'hang the Tories and shoot the Royal Family'. 'I was obviously joking,' she protests (to be fair, she was). 'Imagine if I said that now? God, nothing is in context any more, and everybody's angry all the time.' In fact, she received an OBE for services to music at Windsor Castle in 2021. 'I got it from the King himself,' she says, rather proudly. So what happened to her youthful republicanism? 'I'm just older and wiser,' she replies. 'I understand how things work a lot more. I'm a reflection of diverse, modern Britain, and modern Britain gave it to me.' She thought King Charles III was 'very nice, quite gentle and sweet, actually. A lot of people tend to be different from their public persona, or what they represent.' Skunk Anansie are currently touring their new album, The Painful Truth (out May 23), the quartet's first new music in nine years. Its creation was set in motion by a minor controversy. In 2019, rapper Stormzy tweeted about being 'the first black British artist to headline Glastonbury'. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Skunk Anansie (@officialskunkanansie) Skin fired back 'Sorry Stormzy but we beat you to it in 1999! 20 years ago! ' Stormzy apologised, and Skin bears no ill will. Indeed, she sees the whole thing as innately political. 'There was much excitement around [having] someone who's black who we can use to beat Stormzy with a stick!' I blame the music industry and UK media for wiping out the fact that we did it. Did they really just forget us?' But she also recognised an opportunity. 'Inadvertently, accidentally, a little tweet put us back in a spotlight.' Post-Covid lockdowns, they were the first major British band to stage an extensive European and UK tour in 2022. There were 'heart-to-heart talks' and a decision to 'do something radically different and take risks'. They recruited TV On the Radio's brilliant Dave Sitek as producer, adding experimental improvisations and electronica to their rock energy. Skin relished the challenge of the recording process. 'It gets harder, but it should be harder. Life gets harder.' Bassist Richard 'Cass' Lewis was battling stage four cancer during the sessions (he is fully recovered). 'You've got to make music around people's chemo schedules, which is not the kind of thing you think about when you form a band.' She talks about the 'spontaneity' of youth. 'It's like what I said about the Royal Family – that's how you should feel as a kid, like 'Raaaaahhhhhh!' to everything.' Now, she notes, with 'more experience and technical prowess,' she is more exacting. 'I shouldn't be in love with my first thought, or my first lyric. Otherwise, you literally haven't grown up. You're literally still a f---ing baby, fumbling around with little slogans and hitting everybody over the head with them.' She admits to disliking the way social media promotion and self-marketing have become such a big part of musical careers. 'It's this thing that's just constantly calling for your attention, it's so noisy, like a child wailing day in and day out, 'pick me up, pick me up!' And I have a three-year-old so I know exactly what I'm talking about.' Skin has been engaged since 2020 to an American performance artist and events producer known as Ladyfag (she no longer acknowledges her birth name), and they live with their daughter in New York and London. 'I still find men sort of hard and sexy, but my emotional relationships are always with women.' She was previously married to environmental activist Christiana Wyly, daughter of American businessman Sam Wyly (a former billionaire, declared bankrupt in 2014). Skin and Christiana's eight-year relationship ended in divorce in 2015. In a strange turn of events, her ex-wife married Elon Musk's brother Kimbal Musk three years later. Skin seems shocked when I mention it. 'Every day I wake up and hope no one makes that connection,' she admits. The Musk brothers are close, and Kimbal sits on several of Elon's business boards. 'I hope that my ex is happy,' Skin says. 'I'd say what's happening [politically] now goes against everything she believed in when we were together, but that's her world now, I have nothing to do with it.' Skin met Elon socially during her marriage to Christiana. 'It's not a very authentic world. It's not very empathetic. There's a lot of bigging people up who do very little. I try not to think about Elon Musk and all that lot. I've created my own little family of dreamers, my own little joy, and when we close the door, it's just the three of us, being happy.' Which is not to suggest she is turning her back on the world. 'Everything is political, now more than ever,' she insists. 'There's nothing that we do as humans that isn't connected to politics in some way, shape or form. Especially with globalisation, it's all about power, money and resources.' She continues: 'It's tricky to have an opinion about anything in public now, so I try to be very researched about what I say. I read a lot of history. It's an old-school approach. Too many people get their news from memes or 30-second sound bites.' In an era when pop seems disconnected from harsher realities, Skin remains determined to be someone who speaks up. 'I try not to be super divisive. I can understand that it's easier just to make nice pop music. But when you're one of the groups that is being oppressed, you can't just sit on the fence. My rights are the ones that they're coming for. I married a woman. I'm gay, she's gay, we have a mixed-race child. If we don't stand up for our own lives, who's gonna do it for us?' Skunk Anansie: The Painful Truth is released on May 23. The single Lost and Found is out on all streaming platforms now. Skunk Anansie are touring the UK and Europe until August 14, tickets:
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Skin on Britpop, Lemmy and 30 years of Skunk Anansie
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. In the UK in 1994, grunge was taking its final breaths, Britpop was making its lager-breathed presence felt in the mainstream, and the rock and metal scene was ready for something smarter, wilder and way more exciting. Enter Skunk Anansie, a genuinely revolutionary force Hammer readers fell head over heels for. Early songs such as Yes It's Fucking Political and Little Baby Swastikkka raged in on a wave of righteous, socially conscious punk energy, and, in frontwoman Skin, they had a ready-formed star, a born performer whose astonishing voice was matched only by her electric onstage charisma. Their albums – three released before their 2001 split, three since they reformed in 2009, with a new one on the way – mix politics and social commentary with soulful confessionals. In 1999 they headlined Glastonbury – in a set that went off – making Skin the first Black British woman to do so. They've toured with the likes of Rammstein and Killing Joke, been admired by luminaries such as David Bowie and Lemmy, and continue to defiantly follow their own path. Now they're back with An Artist Is An Artist, a furious takedown of social media negativity and the first single from their new album, The Painful Truth. Given the lightning speed with which the accompanying UK tour sold out, it's clear their fans were ready and waiting for their return. 'We're a bit of a people's band,' says Skin, from her record company's London office. 'People identify with what we have to say and the way that we say it. There's a lot of authenticity in our band. There's no fakeness. People enjoy our gigs because we put everything into it. Maybe they just like great music. It can be as simple as that.' You grew up in Brixton, and your grandfather had a nightclub in his basement. What was it like growing up in that environment? 'In the 60s, when a lot of Black people came over to England, most clubs wouldn't allow a bunch of four Black guys into their club. They weren't playing the kind of music that those guys wanted to hear anyway. So all around London, all these clubs started where it'd be a DJ with all the ska records and the bar in there. I remember sitting at the top of the stairs watching everybody dance.' What kind of music did you hear there? 'I heard reggae and dub. The Beatles. Jamaicans love country and western, so Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette, and Motown.' Who came through the doors? 'I remember seeing a picture of me dancing with the guitarist from Bob Marley's band [Peter Tosh]. Bob Marley used to go. Michael Manley, the prime minister of Jamaica. Muhammad Ali, when he was Cassius Clay, he used to go.' Why were you living with your grandad? 'My dad was in the Air Force, so we lived in Air Force bases up and down the country. Then when I had to go to school, we moved to Brixton. My grandad had that base in Brixton, and he helped my mum buy a house.' How did you first discover metal and rock? 'Top Of The Pops was this window to another world. I never missed it. I remember Boy George when he came on, and everyone was shocked because he had a dress on. I remember Shalamar with the breakdancing, and Prince singing Little Red Corvette, and this was my world. And the whole ska thing – The Beat, The Selecter, all those bands, I loved that. When I was a bit older, I started listening to The Cure, and then I heard Led Zeppelin and it was all over.' What was it about them that appealed? 'It was very complicated music, riffage, great vocals, sexy tunes, sexy band, and they were so different. It was a theme tune to Top Of The Pops, so that was the first rock song I got to know.' You witnessed the Brixton riots in the 80s. What was that like? 'Brixton in those years was forgotten about, because Margaret Thatcher underfunded the Labour towns and cities, all the people that didn't vote for her. And they brought in the sus law ['suspected person law'], which meant you could be searched on suspicion. Black people just got stopped all the time and searched in a very aggressive way, because they wanted you to retaliate and then they could be violent towards you, and then you're thrown in prison. That meant that there was a lot of tension in Brixton. My brothers were always getting stopped and searched, and people got fed up with it. That's why there were riots. But I have fantastic memories of growing up in Brixton. I had an idyllic inner-city childhood, and we'd go to Jamaica for holidays. That was amazing. Yes, we were raised in poverty, but we did get to go to Jamaica. We did get to play and have a lot of freedom, even if we didn't have any money. So for me, it was good times.' What was your first band called, and what did they sound like? 'My first band was called JASS, which stood for 'jazz and soul septet', because there were seven of us. But we didn't really do anything jazzy. We used to do covers of obscure indie songs, like Blind by Talking Heads. I was learning all these weird songs that I didn't really know. It was terrifying, but it was fun.' How did Skunk Anansie come together? 'I left my interior design job, and I met my manager, Leigh [Johnson], who introduced me to [songwriting partner] Len Arran. I've been writing songs since I was 13. The more we wrote songs, the more I wanted to be in a rock band, but that was a very difficult thing to do in the late 80s into the 90s – there were no lead singers that looked like me. There was a lot of rejection, because I was a skinny Black girl trying to be the singer of a rock band. But then I found the Splash Club scene [in Kings Cross, London]. We had a lot of interest for [previous venture] the Mama Wild band, but it was too bluesy, it wasn't modern, it wasn't fresh, so I ended the band and started Skunk Anansie. Mama Wild got everything wrong, and then when we started Skunk Anansie, me and [bassist] Cass got everything right. We knew what we wanted to do and it blew up from there.' What do you remember about that first gig at The Splash Club? 'It was mad. We were in a little scene at The Splash Club, which was started by [guitarist] Ace and his band at the time. I'd hang out with Ace a lot, I really liked him. I wanted him to be in my band. We saw Oasis, Echobelly, a bunch of those bands. Record companies loved coming to that club. When we got together, the word got out that we were playing our first gig. Everybody came because I was the best singer, Ace was the best guitarist, Cass was the best bass player, and people liked our drummer at the time. He left because he didn't think we were going to be successful with me singing! The first gig was rammed. It was spectacular. And the next gig we did was full of A&R men, because we didn't have any demos, so we just said, 'If you're interested, you've got to come down to see us live', because we knew we could wow them. The beginning of Skunk Anansie, from first gig to being signed, was three gigs.' Did you experience much homophobia when the band first broke through? Or do you think it's worse now? 'Politically for queer people, it's much better now. But at the same time, people are deliberately being homophobic. They're doing it with knowledge, whereas back in the day, people were just a little bit ignorant. But it's much easier to find your community and to get strength and support from that. I've never come out, I don't believe in it. I'm just myself. I don't see any straight people coming out. It's a ridiculous idea that at a certain point in our life we've got to tell people that we're gay. And everyone just shouldn't assume that everybody's 100% straight.' Your first release was Little Baby Swastikkka, a bold introduction to the band… [Sample lyric: 'Who put the little baby Swastikkka on the wall?'] 'It was a different way to tell a story about the indoctrination of kids. I saw a little baby swastika halfway up a wall, it looked like it was done by little kids. A lot of those early songs were quite odd, but they just worked somehow, and they were very different to everything else that was going on. That was good for us, otherwise we would have got lumped in with Britpop.' You didn't fit in with it, did you? 'No, we weren't part of it at all. We had a moment of wanting to be part of it, just because they were just sucking up all the press and TV shows and radio. So there was a bit of jealousy from afar. Within a year and a half, we were like, 'No, don't do that shit.' It very quickly became a bloated, dead whale on the beach that was just rotting, while we were swimming our way to each country in Europe. Pulp, Blur, Oasis, Elastica… these were just great British bands. But then a lot of bands that were not very good jumped on a bandwagon.' People look back on that time and think of it as such a blokey thing, but there were loads of women in bands. Your friendship with Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson is one of the loveliest things on Instagram. 'I interviewed her for my show on Absolute Radio. She started off saying, 'In the 90s, I had a bit of a beef with you, because I was always getting compared to you.' I had no idea. They were always trying to tear her down by saying I was better than her. And she's like, 'Now, I realise it was so much harder for you.' I mean, Garbage are massive in America. They did a fucking Bond theme [1999's The World Is Not Enough], we were nowhere near the size that they were, and the way that people would try and knock her down is by comparing her to me. But yeah, me and Shirley love each other.' What kind of person were you back then? 'I was very ambitious. The aim was to be in a rock band forever, like The Rolling Stones. It was all about climbing mountains. It was very stressful having that mentality, because you have your goals, but you're not enjoying the process. It's only when we stopped and then we reformed that I just enjoyed the climbing more than the goals, and that comes with maturity and age.' You were good friends with Lemmy. What was he like? 'He was very gentle. He was the most authentic person I've met. He was who he was, and he wasn't going to hide it. Also, he had absolutely the most perfect skin you'd ever imagine on a man, good baby skin. He was such a gentleman. We were writing music together whenever I was in LA, and I had the sweetest messages from him. I remember one time I was supposed to write with him, and I couldn't, because I'd had a break-up, and he just left me the loveliest, kindest thing: 'I'm here for you. Come over to LA and we'll hang out.' He was a sweetheart.' You coined the genre 'clitrock'. What was that about? 'Clitrock was an accident. In the very beginning of our career, people were like, 'What do you think about being a Britpop band?' And I said, 'Britpop? We're Clitpop?' It was a joke, but it became a whole thing. There's a Clit Rock festival, which, of course, I give my blessing to. But it was just a sideways comment, I was just being cheeky.' Who were your allies in the rock and metal scene? 'We played a lot with David Bowie. He was the ultimate inspiration. I loved him. I was nervous meeting him, because there are certain people who're elevated beyond everybody else. But he was just a down-to-earth dude. And his wife Iman is as hugely iconic as he is, and she was a delight as well. The only people that I didn't like were boybands. Five were fucking horrible. I think it's because they didn't have control, they didn't write their songs, they were just puppets.' What was the Rammstein tour like? 'Those guys are unbelievable live. They'd have the pyrotechnics and the fire was just beyond anything, and then they'd have these backstage parties where they played this really fast, Russian, cheesy pop. It was so funny that they love that kind of music.' You released the song Yes It's Fucking Political in 1996. Was it the big statement that it seemed? 'That song came out of people slagging us off because we're political. My point was, everything's political. It's in everything we do, whether it's clothes or the food that we eat. If you want to live in a world where you don't talk about politics, that in itself is a political statement.' Why did the split happen in 2001, and how did that affect you? 'We were just worn out. We had really overworked ourselves and hadn't really taken care of ourselves. We didn't even have an argument – we just stopped and went off and did a bit of solo musicianship.' You're based in the UK and in Brooklyn now. How's life in the US post-election? 'That was the saddest day I've had in a very long time. Us lefties have got to stick together and not tear each other apart, because these people literally don't want us to exist. Especially trans people. They're trying to wipe trans people off the face of the Earth. And when they come for them, they come for all of us, they're just first on the list. Next it's diversity, it's queer people, Black rights. But I'm in New York, and it's like its own country. That counts for a lot, because otherwise I think it'd be very difficult to be there.' You were awarded the OBE in 2021. What did that mean to you? 'It's a weird thing, because I think that for Black people, there's so much negativity around us accepting any award. But of course I wanted to accept it, it's a great honour. It was a lovely thing to happen. It was a record of everything I'd done up to that point. And it made my mum really happy and proud. It's not like Prince Charles even knew who I was. It's a body of people that decide, and that body is extremely diverse.' Do you think you paved the way for bands like Nova Twins? 'They supported us in their early days. It gets irritating for them to be compared to Skunk Anansie, because they're nothing like us. They're their own entity. I'm really happy that bands like that are getting through. But I'm not into the role model thing. I think athletes are great role models, because they really do have to be perfect and pure people. I'm an anti-role model.' New album The Painful Truth is out May 23. Skunk Anansie's UK tour resumes May 14 at Great Escape Festival and the band play with The Smashing Pumpkins in August. For the full list of dates, visit their official website.
The Independent
11-04-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Skunk Anansie drummer Mark Richardson shares cancer diagnosis: ‘Please get checked out'
Skunk Anansie 's drummer Mark Richardson has revealed that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, just months after his bandmate Cass Lewis disclosed his own cancer diagnosis. The British musician, 54, is a longtime member of the groundbreaking rock band, having joined a year after they first formed in 1995. In a post to Instagram on Thursday 10 April, Richardson disclosed his diagnosis, which he said he received in February, as he urged men to get themselves checked. 'I had a positive diagnosis on 22 February and I'm waiting for a date for a radical prostatectomy,' he explained. According to Cancer Research UK, a radical prostatectomy is a major operation to remove the prostate gland. 'The reason I'm telling you this is because it's the biggest cancer in men in the UK, there are about 150 new cases in the UK every day,' Richardson continued. 'It's so easy to catch it early if you go for a check-up at your doctor's, or you can get PSA (Prostate-Specific Antigen) 'pee sticks' online. It's very easy to get an early diagnosis, and that's what's gonna save your life.' Richardson said he had gone to the doctors for his annual hearing test to check for issues such as tinnitus, a common issue for drummers due to prolonged exposure to loud noises. While there, his doctor realised they hadn't done a recent blood test. When they carried one out, the blood tests came back with a high PSA rate: 'When that's high that means there's an issue.' 'If you have a test regularly, you're gonna catch that higher number as soon as it increases, which means it increases your chances of surviving this thing. 'It's probably the most treatable and survivable of the cancers, if you want to talk about it in those terms, but only if you catch it early, so that's my message. 'Please get checked out, get regularly checked out… pee sticks, blood tests, whatever, but get checked out. The way you survive this thing is by early diagnosis.' Richardson said he would keep his followers updated about his progress. Skunk Anansie are currently on tour in support of their forthcoming album, The Painful Truth. The album's title was inspired in part by their long-time bass player Cass, who was diagnosed with stage four cancer while they were recording their new music. "During the process of recording I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and so I was having chemo while we were making the album,' Cass said at an album playback in February. 'I thought my f***ing cards had been marked, actually, and so I was just, I was happy with having had a good life, and I was quite content, you know, I accepted whatever my fate was. 'I wouldn't think about the work, the record, I would think about my life. I'd had some very intensive chemo sessions, and no one knew [anything]. I just thought, I'm on this long road of chemo. And that took a year.' He has since been given the all-clear, he told the audience: 'As soon as I knew that I wasn't going anywhere, I was 'Just get back on the record'. There's nothing better to work for!' Lead singer Skin then explained that the album's title was Cass's idea, inspired by his personal experiences as well as the band's ups and downs through the years. 'That's what all the songs are about, that connects everything, that connects what we've been through over the last few years,' she said. 'It's the connection with these guys. I love them to bits, you know, they're my brothers. 'What we're going through, and everything, it's quite emotional, it's the painful truth. It's what you're here for, and what's important in your life, and what you're going to do about it. That's the painful truth!'
