SKYND has been releasing some of the most intriguing and disturbing music and videos of 2019. The mysterious collaboration between singer and creator Skynd and her equally enigmatic producer, Father, his visage and identity completely obscured by a mask with the mouth sewn shut, ventures deep into the darkness of human depravity. Every song they’ve done so far, across their two EP’s Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 is directly inspired by a true crime case. They don’t hide it either. Titles such as Elisa Lam, Richard Ramirez and Jim Jones all started to reveal themselves at a very young age to Skynd by her imaginary friend.

“I was 5 when he told me the story of Gary Heidnik for the first time.” Heidnik was a serial rapist and kidnapper who imprisoned six people in his basement in Philadelphia in the 80’s. Skynd has a track exploring the horrifying ordeal in detail (involving such things as a screwdriver and dog food) with the help of KORN’s Jonathan Davis, who is himself a fan of the duo, and appears in the video.

One of the many cases that fascinates Skynd (also the subject of a song and their latest music video below) is that of Katherine Night, who murdered her partner and prepared his body as a feast for the family dinner. Skynd even went so far as to travel to Australia for a meeting with Katherine (that ended up not happening for reasons undisclosed), while she serves a life sentence.

“I just have so many questions. When you read the story of her, she even wrote the names (of the children) on little papers. I mean…WHY? That’s something I want to know. Why do you want to have a proper dinner eating your [expletive] Dad.”

Skynd offers context for her shocking art and exploration. “I grew up with these stories. I felt like these stories were so heavy for me and I didn’t know how to process them. So I started off writing these stories or poems into my notebook and that’s how I started making music. That’s how I started keeping this inner animal I have inside of me..the bad side of me..tamed by my music.”

Skynd and Father also share a very unique creative process once they go into the studio and begin their journey down the rabbit hole. “Sometimes there is not even lyrics done yet. It’s just the feeling of the crime I want to write about. When I investigate these crimes, I have a certain feeling. I have this feeling in my stomach. I love to take this feeling into the studio with Father and just get it into the music and he’s just a genius when it comes to understanding what I feel.” She gives an example from their latest song, “Katherine Night, she suffers from bi-polar too so I can really relate to that.” It’s those details of the subject matter that Skynd takes very seriously when it comes to the world building of her music and videos. “I love to write down all their mental health problems. We try to create the sound that SOUNDS like being bi polar. When they’re depressed, we try to give it a really depressed mood.”

“It takes really long because we want to have all these kind of facts really straight. We want to stay true to the facts and what really happened. We don’t want to come up with a lie or something. So we try to even get the feelings into the music vibe.”

Skynd also reveals she is a massive horror fan. “I think I was five or six years old when I saw The Shining and that was really affecting me because I got addicted to it even as a child. I was really afraid and I felt really brave that I got thru the movie!” More recently she has been inspired by things like American Horror Story and Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House. “That one was REALLY good. When I see a series like that, I got my little notebook next to me and I write down all the stuff I want to have in my music videos.”

For new dates to see Skynd perform live in 2020 (including a tour with Babymetal, UK festival stops and their very first show in North America at Epicenter 2020 with Metallica, Deftones and more) hit up www.skynd-music.com. Check out their music videos for Elisa Lam and Katherine Knight below and listen to the entire conversation with Skynd on The Boo Crew Episode 90!

Follow Skynd on:

Instagram: @skynd_music
Twitter: @itsSKYND

Follow The Boo Crew on:

Instagram: @talesfromtheboocrew
Twitter: @talesfromtheboo