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Skull'Rz Bane shows new side with acoustic songs
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
YOUNGSTOWN
Skull’Rz Bane will play its 350th show Saturday, a milestone that comes amid a time of musical evolution for the band.
The act started in 2005 as a three-piece founded by guitarist-singer Drew Johnson. After his daughter, Roxanne, joined as the drummer in 2006, they went through a series of bass players — 13 to be exact — over the next four years. As of 2010, the Johnsons decided to just keep it a two-piece.
Skull’Rz Bane doesn’t fit smoothly into any category, but it can best be described as metal with a melodic structure, along the lines of a Metallica or a Pantera. The band plays only original songs.
To hit 350 shows, it obviously plays out a lot — including a 2012 road trip that included club dates from South Carolina to Massachusetts.
In its early days, the band also landed a lot of gigs at the last-minute. “We were the replacement band,” said Roxanne “It someone dropped off and they needed a late addition to fill in, we did it.”
In the past year, the act has begun to blend acoustic tunes in to its mix of metal and power ballads. It had been performing its acoustic shows separately under the moniker Sweet Sacrifice. But lately, it’s keeping it all under the umbrella of SRB — an acronym for Skull’Rz Bane — and merging all musical facets into one show.
That will be the case Saturday when Skull’Rz Bane, or SRB, plays a free-admission show at Strikers on the West Side.
Actually, there is a second — and bigger — reason for the subtle name change: It’s easier to pronounce.
“A lot of people struggled with it,” said Roxanne. “Some people say it ‘Skulls or Bane.’ One bar was calling us ‘The Skull Band’.”
The new name, and songs, are all part of a plan to become more accessible.
“We’re trying to be more palatable,” said Drew, who describes his band as “melodic power groove,” a phrase he coined.
There are no plans to add a bass player — or any other instrument — to the band. But SRB’s sound has become fuller with the addition of a looper.
A looper is a device that allows a musician to record a short segment while playing live and then play it back as a continuous loop. As a result, a two-piece duo could wind up sounding like a full band, maybe even with backup singers, with the help of these musical layers.
Despite its expansive mindset, the core of Skull’Rz Bane remains a constant.
Drew is a graduate of the Dana School of Music, where he majored in guitar. He was a full-time guitar teacher years ago and still gives private lessons.
Roxanne never thought she inherited the music gene until she discovered otherwise. “As a teacher, I didn’t think she had the music in her, and neither did she,” said Drew. “But she grabbed the sticks one night and played it right.”
Roxanne has since learned the guitar and joins in on acoustic songs. “The second time I ever played guitar on stage was at the Hard Rock Cafe in Pittsburgh,” she said, recalling the nerves of that night. It was last March, and her band was opening for Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols) and Sylvain Sylvain (New York Dolls).
Skull’Rz Bane’s segue into acoustic rock came about organically, as Drew explains.
“I started in a metal band in the ’80s but I’m a blues player at heart,” he said. “I was messing around with my acoustic one night and played a song that didn’t fit in with our act. I played it at an open-mic night, and it was put online. Right away I got two calls to play, and it was based on that song.”
Fans who attend Saturday’s show will hear several new songs — which likely will wind up on SRB’s fourth album, due this summer.
Skull’Rz Bane is also planning a change to Roxfest, its annual two-day summer music festival that is entering its eighth year. Talks are under way to move it to a new site in Columbiana County.