Legendary Madison Punksters The Skintones play Halloween Bash at Mad Farm Moto

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The Skintones have created their own brand of punk and fused rock and roll,

and now after 25 years for albums and more performances than they can ever remember,

the Skintones new goal is the 30 year long. The Skintones continue their silver celebration year

where the flurry of shows coming up in October and a few gallons are still in the tank for these

guys. On the phone with us is singer guitarist and songwriter Peter Ress, and in the studio with us is

drummer Tony Leskinan. Pete Tony, welcome back to MagSync Radio. Thank you rocker.

Hey, there we go. We have him. Nice job, Jane. Nice job. I officially

stalled enough time to get him on the phone. You did. You know, my contract stipulates that I

was to be flown in on a PJ, but you know, you're one of those. We're still waiting for the funds

on that one. The Skintones were formed from the ashes of dysfunctional bands to make it 25 years

now. How is 25 years even possible? I'd like to say patience, but I don't think that's it. I

think being able to control, you know, you have to decide there's everybody has their own vision

of what the band is to them and what it should be. But in reality, you've got to take your vision and

be able to mold it for whoever else is in the band and and make it a vision for a group. And that's

a tough time, but we figured out. Yeah, we figured out a formula to make sure everybody has a vote.

And it's tough with the three piece because two votes beats out the last guy. But Pete, what do you

think about that? I mean, part of it is the secret to longevity. It really comes down to chemistry,

like Tony was saying. And you know, before Tony and I met, we both had in our different bands.

And what was the word you use as rockers out dysfunctional? Yeah, there was a lot of dysfunction

back in the day, but Tony and I, you know, right off the bat, we were like, look, man, we clocked

each other. You know, I was like, man, this guy is sick. I'm like, he's the sickest drummer I've

ever played with. And I put, you know, I put thousands and thousands of hours into this. I've

been doing this since I was 16. So, you know, we connected on that level. And for guys that are

built like Tony, me, guys, Henkels, you know, music is every, we don't really choose this. It's

just who part of who we are. That's hard to let that go. Well, it's again, it's like finding

kryptonite by magic. And I feel so bad for somebody, the musicians that I've known, you know,

you're in and you're out. I see them. And it's just like, you know, you get five people together.

And then things are going great, you know, and then all of a sudden, one person, boom, I'm out.

I get a drug problem. Who's going to ruin this? Which one of us is going to ruin this?

I think it's too late to be ruined. Everybody look to the right. It's that guy.

You're 25 years in now. So you're doing great. So what do you think the skin tones are about now?

Tony, I'll throw it to you first. All right. Right now, the formula is is that everybody's got to be

actively writing the songs lyric. And then everybody's got to sing. Everybody absolutely has to have

a mic in front of them. And so for the last, especially, I want to say 15 years,

Peter writes the majority of the lyrics, but he always says, Tony, here, this is your verse,

right? It come back next time. Have a verse, have a melody. And so you're on your toes,

not because you're forced to do it. It's a collaborative thing. Like, you're the drummer.

Here's your window. Jumping and singing is not easy. Well, it took, it took 25 years to learn how

to do it. I can't, I'm not there yet. Currently, I have five years left to get it done properly.

My job does not move while I play drums. It's just impossible. Okay. I don't know how you can do it.

Well, Tony, now you played with Matt Trucker gone, Matt, Pete, you were in mind. And the band

once even featured Darwin, Samson on drums. He was on drums. No, no, no, he played drums.

Kevin, Kevin LeFair, he was on bass. He's on bass and vocals now in the band. Was he in 715?

Is it the scene? Absolutely. And he is super talented. He's also an amazing sound engineer.

He really keeps us honest. Like, he's a realist in the sense of the word that he does not let it

get too fanciful. He says, you guys are way out of off bass here. And he reels us in. And he's

been in the band over 15 years. So, I mean, I consider he's our longest tenured bass player. We've

had three and tenured tenured is the word right? Tenured. Yeah. Yes. He cannot be fired. We've

already we've already tried. Second, administrative action has to take it and third get tenured.

Right? And, you know, he's he's been with the felonus. But it even goes back further than that

because Gavin has been a part of the skin tone family since the very first album.

Because Travis Casper-Bauer who produced us, Gavin, Travis was teaching at the late great

Madison Media Institute. And Travis, you know, he's he's one of the sickest engineers out there.

And, you know, he's currently out in San Francisco working, you know, with the great. But he produced

our and engineered our very first debut full length on crustacean. And then he came back for our

third. This is science. And then, you know, weasel that he is. We would be the studio at night.

He would start recording guitar tracks. He'd come back or he'd say he's like, hey, I put this part down.

What do you think? Sneaky. Sneaky.

It's gone better. And you worked your way into the trio. And like you said, our founding

talking principles, like Tony said, hey, everybody writes, everybody sings. This is a trio. We don't

have there's no fourth member, but he he found a way in, but he was the one and only one. And that

door is closed. It opened. Even to him. And he knows that. Well, you met you mentioned crustacean

and you've got four albums. But there's a new one. Yay, you guys. A new one in the works for

2026. What can either of you or both of you tell us about what we can expect from this new album?

First of all, I just have to do a little bit of correction here. And I have a bit of announcement.

The skin tones may have made their last album. What? You say last album?

It was Gavin. And that's what I wanted to underline what Tony said about Gavin is, you know,

I like to say that I'm a theoretical pessimist, but a realistic optimist. Well, with Gavin,

no, he's it's all theory. It's all practice. He is a pessimist. And that's why I quit. Tony says

he keeps us honest and straight. And I appreciate that kind of directness. We don't like to

to BS around things. You know, we serve the gods of music. Not each other's egos. And we're big

enough to deal with that. But Gavin brought this up to me and I was resistant. I'm a Chenexer,

right? So I grew up with albums and CDs, right? So I always thought musically in terms of albums.

But, you know, time goes by. Things change. And so when he suggested it was a very exhaustive

process coming to collect. We put a lot of work into that. We've got a shit. No wonder we didn't

put out a record in all these years because it's a lot of work. But today, Gavin's like, you

know, we should just maybe put out singles. And I'm thinking cyclically, music kind of used to be

that way. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. And we'll put it like an A side, right? And today with

social media and the short and attention stands, I think it's almost a lot to ask, because

I'm listening to, right? To listen to, oh, you're going to listen to your whole album. Oh, my God.

It seems like such a task. But if, you know, I think we're going to try to keep it fresh by doing

singles, A sides and B sides. So technically our first release of 2006 will be two pairs of singles.

And whatever we want to call that EP A side B side. But it's a new approach. And I think

digital 45 area to look to look at to kind of grab it while it's fresh. Not overthink it.

Not overproduce it. And just kind of get it out there and move on to the next one. That's

humiliated. But we only have a few minutes. We only have a few minutes. I want to make sure we

talk about your shows. The skin tones are playing a flurry of shows this fall. Saturday,

October 11th at the Mad Farm, Motto and Music Halloween bash at the party barn on Highway 14

in Brooklyn, Wisconsin. And you have more shows coming up in October, November, October 17th at

Studio 301 in Portage. And then back to the Mad City at the Gamma Ray Barn November 15th.

How can we download your music and keep up with the skin tones online? We're on every streaming

platform. Spotify, iTunes, all the albums are on there. There's remixes of the two singles we put

out off our last record coming to collect. And those singles are remixed and kind of upgraded.

And it's all free. He said absolutely. Nice. All free. The skin tones. Make sure you go see

him in Madison coming up Gamma Ray Barn November 15th. And the mad photo mad moto farm. I can't

mad farm. There will be photographs there as well. There will be photographs.

Well, let's take out one of the songs from coming to collect from 2023 on Coastation Records. This

is the skin tones, salt and sugar. You're listening to Maxi radio. We are sugar salt local music.

Sugar.

Sugar salt.

Talking about sugar.

Sugar salt.

You got the question.

You know the difference.

The way sugar salt.

The blood.

You never know the taste.

Shop local, eat local, listen local.

This is Maxinc Radio.

We are local music.