Desert Island Dicks - SKIN

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

Well we've only gone and got Skin from Skunk Anansie to come on the podcast to tell Dan all about the people and things she'd hate to be stuck on an island with and the results are very fine indeed. But don't just take my word for it, press play and hear for yourselves. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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host endorsements or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lipson Ads. Go to LipsonAds.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N-Ads.com. Hi, I'm Dan from Desert Island Dicks. Today we have a sort of Christmas special. It's not a traditional Christmas special in that it's not Christmas themed at all. In fact, I don't think we mentioned Christmas once, but it is special because we've got a great guest. It's Skin, frontwoman of Skunkinancy, singer, songwriter, DJ and much more besides. It was great talking to Skin. She got properly stuck in and I think her choices are very sound indeed, so I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed recording it. As I look back at this year as a result of dewy-eyed nostalgia and just as something to do while stuck in Tier 4, it occurs to me that we've got loads of episodes in our back catalogue for you to listen to over this time and I urge you to check them out, if you're new to this podcast go and have a browse also it would be a wonderful Christmas present for us if you could

subscribe to this podcast and give us a rating too before the end of this year there'll be a new compact dicks on Christmas day that's where me and James share your special Christmas dicks so if you'd like to get involved and share the people and things you hate with the world then please give us a shout dixpod.com slash contact to email us or get us at dixpod on twitter and instagram there may well be another episode of desert island dicks before the end of the year as well but i'm just waiting to confirm a couple of things but if not we'll be back very soon anyway because we like to keep the dicks coming at you strong, so you won't be without for long either way. And just because I'm feeling sentimental, I'd like to say a massive heartfelt thank you to everyone who's listened to us this year, because we really do appreciate it. And remember, we don't care if you've been good boys or girls,

but if you are going to be a dick, don't be surprised if you end up on the desert island. And now, here's Desert Island Dicks with skin. Hi, I'm Dan Benedictus and welcome to Desert Island Dicks, the show that sees you marooned on a desert island after a plane crash with the worst people and worst things imaginable. Who they are and why they're a dick is up to our guest and here to share their Desert Island Dicks with us today is singer, songwriter, front woman of Skunkinancy, radio host and DJ Skin. How are you doing? I'm very good, how are you? I'm good good it's nice to have a bona fide rock star on the podcast finally. Oh well thank you very much I appreciate the title. Thank you for coming on today how did

you sort of find the process of whittling down your choices for the island I mean do you find it easy to be negative or is it kind of more of a challenge? yeah it's really easy i'm a rocker you know all my songs are dark and about horrendous people um but actually it it was really easy but the thing that was more difficult was people because right now don't you feel like in the world there's just so much choice um i mean with food and with other things i mean i've just got my my eternal hatreds of things that should never be on the planet. But when it comes to people, God, that list is long. And it got longer this year.

Lockdown seems to have bred as like a culture of coronavirus wankers, really, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. As the coronavirus got bigger, so did the tosser or the level of tosseration, you could say. Yeah, because I think it's like, as well as like the big heavy hitters in, you know, the pandemic, you know, you're spending a lot of time at home.

So there's a little niggly things that can just sort of like grate at you as well. Exactly. I mean, I think that there's a whole group for me in the people section, you know, conspiracy toss heads. You know, I think that that's just a whole group, but you made me will it down. So, yeah.

Should I give you my people first? Yeah, let's get straight into it. What do you want to go for? Well, I think one of the people, one of the kinds of people that annoy me the most are kind of like self-help gurus. And I would say Tony Robbins is probably my number one all-time hated person in terms of that because you know I mean I actually I actually I I read a book I had an ex that was really into him and so she bought me um the book and I was like okay read this you know I'm open-minded and I um read like two chapters and I thought this is just I mean is it just me or is this just common sense written

down by a five-year-old you know it's just it seems that they just take the most obvious most commonsensical most logical functional thing to say whittle them down by process of sieve the sieves get smaller and smaller and smaller until they can find four or five words that are supposed to, like, sum up everything that they're supposed to do. So here you go. I've got, I actually researched this and just picked out my favourites, right, my favourites. Your past does not equal your future. I mean, what the cunting fuck is that? Can I swear on this thing?

Yeah, of course, yeah. I can't. What is that? Your past does not equal your future. Well, no, it isn't, is it? Because every year you're a year closer to death. So I don't think anyone's past is going to, it's just this kind of like, you're supposed to read that and go, oh, like this worldwide thing. Here's another one. If you can't, you if you must you can i mean this is nursery rhyme stuff yeah yeah for you know and you're supposed to break that down and think that you know you can't you

need someone i mean this is a guy that has tears of um like he has the tears of finances that you need to have to be able to go to do his stuff and see his stuff so for instance to go and see him um at uh at one of his big stadium things the closer you get is the more money you get like a normal concert but you know you can pay four thousand pounds for like a you know a couple of front row seats for someone to say to you um you don't have a reason to feel good. You're alive. You can feel good for no reason at all. Why live an ordinary life when you can live an extraordinary one? I mean, and then if you actually get to have a one-to-one meeting with him, that's going to cost you a million dollars.

Man, yeah. For an hour. It's crazy, isn't it? Because I think with all these people that they're standing there sort of talking about their secrets to why they're successful and it's like no one points out the fact that everyone's paying thousands of dollars to be there it's a pyramid scheme and the closer you create this mystique about all the stuff that you know and then it's a pyramid scheme to get closer i I mean, it's just like it's been happening for thousands of years, you know, just behaving like gods and pharaohs.

And just I find that telling you just really basic, obvious stuff, you know, that if you actually sat down and thought about your life and worked it out, especially in lockdown, I think people just have time to do that themselves. So I just I just think it's a con. So I'd say he's probably um right up there yeah definitely i mean i was going to say a lot of those things that you say like you know when he's sort of on stage delivering it with lots of power and presence and everything right you know it's one thing but when you just sort of say them out loud and read them off a piece of paper it's like you can just equally imagine them just kind of on one of those sort of cheesy posters of like a beach that's what they are yeah i mean that's that's his marketing you know that's what they are that's what and there's

no difference to me between a politician does that um tony rogers does that a lot of gurus like that so do um you know indian gurus and other people like that who at least have some like years centuries old you know wisdom behind it um and um priests and and uh evangelical people they do the same kind of thing yeah you know and it's and he also says the thing i'm not jesus you're treating me like i'm jesus not jesus it's like well stop behaving like one and then you know stop behaving like you are the answer to everybody's problems in the world because actually you know especially this whole idea that everything you do in your life it's yes it's all down to you and you can change a lot of your life and some people are be able are able to be in the worst situations and

can dig themselves out of it but there's also a lot of luck involved in that you know when you hear those like success stories of someone that was born in a slum in Calcutta you know having this 15 billion pound business that's that there's a lot of luck in there right time right place right idea right people you know it's kind of like the evolution of man you know the reason why we're here is because we basically killed everybody else and there was the dinosaurs died and you know that's why the planets here everything went along at perfect amount of time and I think that that's

not something that everybody can can achieve to that's why we have charities you know to look after everybody that's why we have national health system all that so i am i just think this idea that you know where everybody's always responsible for everything that they're in yes there is a certain way that you can get out of it but you know there's a million myriad of people who've tried their whole life to do stuff and get tried and they just haven't had that luck or haven't been in the right place right time yeah it's very easy to to it's very easy to blame the individual and not the system that the individuals are in yeah and also it's kind of you know there's probably people who follow him and have spent so much money like trying to get to this level where

they're as successful as him and then when it goes wrong they're just like oh you know like what is it about me that yeah i couldn't well maybe i didn't recite my mantras enough every day or like you know maybe i didn't visualize the goal or you know something that's that's how it works so if it doesn't work it's also your fault yeah you know if you can follow it to the hill but if it's something about you you know oh you know it's actually you could say well you could say it just doesn't work for everybody i mean the ex who gave me the book that followed this actually turned out to be a really fucking nasty cow but of all of my exes and i'm friends with most of them this is the only one that i regret every second i was in that relationship with you know um you know it was there's a myriad of things that were going on behind my back that

i didn't know about that i was not sure about and this is the one telling me that i should be listening to it's like you're searching for your thing but the reason that you're in a situation is because you're a shitty person and just just change that about yourself yeah yeah and you don't need to have a tommy robbins book to do that and then you know things might go all right for you you know so um that's my that's my i guess my number one especially in a lockdown you know you hear all these cliches and it's like you know what it's really hard for everybody right now and the last thing they need to hear is it's their fault. Yeah, exactly. And just can you imagine being stuck on an island with the guy as well,

with that sort of mentality as well? Oh, God. I couldn't catch a fish today. It's like, oh, here's why, you know. I think you need to really drill down into like, you know, your approach. Yeah. What is it about that fish that you didn't want to catch it? I love it. When I saw the title i cracked so i thought oh my god this is the show for me i could be here for hours you're nailing it so far okay so who's going to join you and tony robbins on the island then well do you know i'm gonna do a heavy one and i'm gonna do like okay because given this i really want to avoid

political figures because to be quite honest there's just a myriad i'm sure you have one every week that's like that guy's a tosser but right now i'm gonna just whittle it down to the reason why i'm in this situation in england kind of starts off with nigel farage okay good um and i just feel like that poster you know that he did with all the kind of Syrian posters, the hundreds of thousands of people, that image that he did, that racist anti-immigration rhetoric, that pressing people's buttons, that same old thing that as a black by people like me and syrians and all gonna just be taking money off the national health service and they're all going to be like making your taxes higher and then they're not lazy they just want to get you know and that mentality is why we're in this shit now with brexit you know it's like we have no leverage we've no you know we're not getting anything we want to do want to do what people voted for they're not getting any of it, none of it. And actually,

economically, we've just made ourselves a much less attractive situation, and a much less attractive place to be and a much less attractive place for intelligent, you know, the greatest minds in the world. You know, it's not so attractive to come to London anymore, because now you've got all these things you've got to worry about um and if i talk about on a personal level you know my my partner and myself we have i mean it sounds a bit like first class problems i one of the best things i did with my money was i bought a place in spain in ibiza in the middle of the countryside because life is hectic for me i've lived a loud life and it's hectic and i at a certain point in my life i needed to have um and it's not an expensive place at all i was lucky i bought a really nice cheap place that i've just you know developed over the

space of 14 years and now i can't go there you know i can only go there three months a year you know um and it's kind of like as a musician like orchestra for instance you know none of our orchestras are getting any work because we don't there's no situation no visas there's it's too uncertain so european orchestras are now getting all that work because it's so tricky to get an orchestra to go from one country to another and so as a touring musician you know it's just made our lives so much harder and i think that echoes through all of the artists not just you know i've got a book out and know, the idea of touring it and doing all this, it's just all so much more complicated.

And I'm like, well, how does that make Britain more attractive? And so it's like, I'm seeing the repercussions of a horrendous mistake. The biggest mistake this country has made in decades. And I think that it all started from Nigel Farage using fear tactics and racism and Boris Johnson leaped onto it because he saw a way to being Prime Minister or he saw a way to becoming more popular. And now we're in a situation three years later and it's just a mess it's an absolute mess and we're hemorrhaging talent we're hemorrhaging companies we're hemorrhaging economically and nobody wants to

admit it and we're not going to be a better country you know being a less diverse country is not a better country yeah we are good because we are so open and you know the kind of exaggeratedness of what people from other countries are doing. You know, when people come from other countries to England, that's a good thing. You know, that's a wonderful thing. You know, we learn so much and we gain so much. So Nigel Farage, I would say, you know, fucked up the country, then ran away to help fuck up America. Yeah. I mean, it's just such a weird thing, isn't it?

Just to sort of like think that you're going to be better off by having a narrower field of vision in in so many ways it's like you know yeah to kind of look inward all the time and just sort of be more and more scared and isolationist and sort of and it's like we had a like a really good thing going where we you know we were sort of all pals a bit I mean I'm sure we were like a pain in the arse at the dinner table but it's like it felt like you know you had like a teamwork thing going with a big group of countries it's like it's kind of isn't like why is that bad i don't know i think that we had a i'm not saying it was all perfect i'm saying that we were in much stronger position threatening to leave and threatening to have a um referendum that's a stronger position threatening to leave and threatening to have a referendum. That's

a stronger position to be in because that makes everyone else's ears pick up and go, oh God, if England leaves, now we've left and it's been three years, they're used to us now, they don't really need us, they don't really care. And I think the mistake that Cameron made was listening to Farage and putting himself under pressure to have a referendum, that shouldn't have happened anyway. And especially how it was based around immigration. And anyone who says it wasn't is talking bullshit because the message was loud and clear. We all saw it.

We all saw the dog whistles. And now, you know, I think that immigration is what's made this country great, you know, and that's why England is amazing. And that's why we have the best music scene in the world, because we all have all that lovely diversity. Yeah. So, you know, it's like us, New York, you know, there's reasons why.

And it's because of that continuing influx of talent and ideas and openness to ideas and mixing all up. That's what we do. That's what we do really well in England, in London especially. Yeah, exactly. And, yeah, I just sort of think think one thing as well with farage it's like he's obviously an awful awful person but it's something about the way he just sort of pops up now and again and then just fucks off again and you're like it's not like you're even there all the time being a pain in the ass you're like right i've done my bit for now i've sort of steered this

ship in the direction i want i I'm going to sod off again. But didn't see it through, you know? And the point of it is, is that, you know, he is not, he's very, he's a very good speaker and a very good orator and he's very intelligent in terms of, he knows what, you know, Middle England or the kind of people who are going to be aligned to his kind of view.

He knows what to say to those people to get those people on side. But what he's not managed to do is actually keep a political party in a strong position for more than a couple of years. You know, I mean, he's, you know, his whole idea is, oh, we've got Brexit now, I'm off to go and make money doing a speak. It's like, no, you haven't. That's not what it's about. It's like, my knowledge is like

you know you spend years trying to get signed you get signed you don't just go and sit on the couch and watch it all happen do you know what i mean you have to actually make the record see it through do all the work and blah blah blah and you know this attitude of like oh we've got the referendums happen now i can just go off and just make you know make go and have eat hamburgers and mcdonald's with trump or you know whatever whatever he's going to do and I thought okay it's been decided maybe Royce Johnson

at least he's going to be the one if he's going to get any joy out of this he's going to be the one to do it and I think I'm bitterly disappointed with the awful job that they've done this arrogance of thinking that they're in this great position when they've left when they've left yeah it's like you walk out the door and you say yeah and i want that tv in there and you're like well you know i've changed the

locks you're not coming in so yeah that's my um second person no i agree and i mean crikey i mean the arguments you're going to end up having if you're on the island with him as well can you imagine that and like he's going to try fencing a bit of it off for himself or like talking about how the island used to be and things like that it's just well you know you're going to be sitting there next to him realizing that all he's really looking for is you know he's a politician and that smile means he'll smile in my face and shake my hand and pretend that we're having a great time and if a ship comes along and only one person can fit he'll probably strangle me on the beach and bury me and swim off you know it's like whatever he needs to do to to get where he needs to get you know he just strikes him as one of those yeah i mean i

think you know i think he's probably he's a very charming man he's a, he's a great orator. But so is Hitler. In the beginning, anyway. I just, yeah, it's just, yeah, I mean, you put it all so beautifully, I can't really add much more to it other than I think already you're off to such a great start with a really shitty collection of people on this island. So let's find out who's the third person going to be joining you. Well, do you know,

this is controversial, but it's not that I think these, I couldn't decide which one, but it's not that I think these are horrible people. I just want to be stuck on an island with them.

Okay. You know, because, and I'm going for Lee Francis, you know, Bo Selector, or Vicky Gervais.

I'm not sure which one. But I think that after a point, there's a humour there that is kind of based around just kind of cutting you in half. And I think after a few weeks being on an island with it, you probably want to hit him in the head at night time with a coconut, you know? It's like, you know, especially Lee Francis, I think, tips that a bit more. I think there's that annoying side to it, you know? And, you know, I remember that Craig David thing.

I just, oh God, if I heard that one more time, I didn't want to slit my wrist. And I think if I was Craig Davis, I would just be distraught. And I think he was quite distraught about that whole... Yeah, because I think he did leave the country for a while. And I don't know how much of it was to do with that. But I've heard that it didn't... He was really horribly negative.

It killed his career at the time. It killed his career. And he was really badly affected to it. And it just seemed that Lee Francis was always taking the piss out of, like, black legends. You know, Sam and Dave and, you know, people like that. So that just niggled me at the time. But I just think they...

I think that they... Like, I do like Ricky Gervais' humour when I see it. I think he's absolutely hilarious. And I used to love when he'd be on... What station would he just wander in and out of different studios coming in and just cracking jokes? Oh, so on XFM? On XFM, yeah. I love that. And he'd just wander into people's shows

and just crack jokes. But then I've definitely seen outtakes on the show that he was the guy that runs around the world just being put in dumb situations. Oh, Carl Pilkington. Yeah, and I've seen the long... I watched the CD and the DVD. Watched the CD.

Watched the DVD and at the end there's this long place when they were just talking and I just thought, hmm, don't know what's wrong with being Ireland with him. Yeah him yeah yeah I definitely want to go and have a two-hour dinner but being on there an island with him for the rest of my life I think I might um might spend like a year crafting the perfect weapon and wait to the perfect time and when it all came too much I'd be stabbed in the heart with a bamboo stick yeah he's a difficult one to sort of figure out isn't he because he's obviously really bright and would have some quite interesting things to say but i kind of i feel like scratch the surface there might be some quite dark stuff there you know i think he gets a lot of enjoyment from

people's uncomfortability yeah and i think if you're watching it it's funny, if you are there's a certain aspect of bullying with that kind of humour that I'm like, you know, I can see it like, ooh, it's great if you're in on the joke and you want to be laughed at like Cole Pinkerton but I think there's a dark side to that that I always see and I'm like

you know, I think it's a perfect person that you would not want to be stuck on an island for for like months on end well I think yeah the first time he kind of goes oh skin watch this I'm going to really wind up Tony Robbins with this thing and you go oh yeah he's not going to like that that's quite funny after a while when you have to deal with the fallout of Tony being like what is it with this Ricky guy he just doesn't understand my whole like success uh and like you know what i'm trying to really teach him on this island you know and you'd have to have the back and you're sitting in the middle yeah and you have the back that's ricky's fucked off down the other end of the island and you're like oh god there was this friend i had at um university

his name was martin and he was we're a group of us and he was the funniest it's from ireland and he was the funniest humor and the funniest guy that you'd ever seen. And after a year, this was when I was at uni, and after a year we just realised that it was all against the same person. And for the next two years, we spent the next two years saying, why don't you leave him alone? God, you're all just... And then years later he confessed, oh yeah, I was in love with him. And so there's a certain bullying aspect there that you know that i i can see in those characters yeah and i think

i i make a face i could last a lot longer with ricky's my face and i could really france okay yeah i think the lee francis thing once he sort of got a bit in his head that would just be it whereas i think you could probably yeah allow ricky gervais to go into different areas and have more normal conversations but i think i think i think yeah i think ricky gervais has got definitely a soft sense of a sense of suicide that he worries about things yeah yeah well do you know what because i'm having such a lovely time and i think you're making great argument i'm gonna let you put i'm gonna break convention i'm gonna let you put both of them and then then, and then,

you know, I almost persuaded myself it should be Lee and not Ricky, actually. Okay. Well, I'm going to do that. I'm going to go for Lee. I was going to say,

because once you've been stuck on the island with both of them for a while, then you'll really be able to make your decision and whittle it down to his days. But you'd probably kill the more annoying one and it wouldn't quite work. But okay. So we're going to go with Lee Francis then. Yeah. Let's go with Lee Francis.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's hard to know what there is behind all this thing. Like with a lot of that sort of humour, it's like, you know, it's quite all right at the beginning and then you're just like, oh God, this is all there is. And like, he'd just sort of, yeah, just slip it. You wouldn't know where he stops and the characters begin and you're like. Yeah, and I think there's a lot of repetition of certain phrases that would wind me up yeah you know he'd start doing impressions of you when he felt like he knew you well enough

he'd like go oh look this is you hey oh this is what skin does you know oh please don't show me what i do oh god really come on now because this whole thing's about crappy impressions isn't it yeah and just doing like bad impressions of your song can you imagine being stuck on island someone like doing bad yeah doing that just because you feel good but changing what feels good finding different things that feels good that right that works with the song yeah we do enough of that we do enough of that in our own band fair enough okay well that's the people dealt with You're a podcast listener and this is a podcast ad. Reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lipson Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lipson Ads.

Go to LipsonAds.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N ads.com. Now, Skin, mercifully, amongst the wreckage of the plane, there was some food and drink left over. Unfortunately for you, it's your least favourite food and drink in the world. What are they and why are they so bad? Oh, this is controversial. Food is just easy. easy just easy it would be pineapple really okay you know let's just break this down

right pineapple you look at it and it says don't eat me it says don't eat me I look like shit I look like

kind of hippo shit that's been dried in the sun and someone's wiped it around you know a melon or something like that and then sat on it so it's squashed and then it's got like stuff growing out of it

Which means it's rotten because it's still growing, you know When it's like an onion when there's like a shoot going at the top it's off You know you throw it in the bin and the pineapples got this big bush coming at the top. So it's like I'm rotten I look like shit Don't eat me and then you go to touch it. It's spiky. It says yeah, didn't I shit, don't eat me. And then you go to touch it, it's spiky. It says, yeah, didn't I not say don't eat me? Did I say, did I not say don't touch? And still, so you get the gloves on and you need a big old machete

to cut the skin off, right? And then you see it's yellow inside, which is just pea-coloured. So it's shit on the outside, it's pea-coloured on the inside, right? And then you, you know, and it's so hard to peel. You're like, it's like screaming at you. Can you not, can you not understand what I'm saying to you? I do not want to be eaten. I don't taste good. And then you get it down to it and then you've, you know, it's been so many years since I've touched a pineapple. So this is from memory and from seeing glimpses on television and then this fruit from my memory as a child is like stringy gets in between your teeth it's all squashy it's kind of a weird sweetness like you know in Iceland you know the national

dish is fish that like whale, whale meat, basically. Back in the day, they used to catch a whale. They used to dig a massive hole, and all the men, fishermen, would stand around the hole and pee into it. Oh, I've heard about this, yeah. Yeah, and then they'd cover it up, and then a year later, they'd dig up the meat, this rancid meat, and that's the national dish of Iceland. I'm sorry, Iceland, but, you know, it's not that appetising sounding.

Even though they don't pee on it anymore, anymore just tastes like it's been dipped in chlorine and then basically so the pineapple is a bit like that it's a bit like well it was off anyway it was wrapped in shit someone peed on it it's stringy and then you're the sweetness is like, kind of like dead cats that have been found. The smell of dead cats have been like the snake tome we bought and they couldn't get out. Not that I've ever tasted it, but it's that sweet. You know, like when a policeman has walked into a room where 15 people have been murdered and chopped to bits and they did it. It happened four or five days ago. And so that's why I just don't get why people like pineapple.

And then they put it on pizza. Yeah, that's pretty weird, yeah. Why would you put, like, pizza's one of the best foods in the world. Why would you put pineapple on it? And when you see that in Italy, they will literally throw that in your face if you do it in Napoli.

They'll be like, no. And they'll kick you out of the fucking place they'll be like do not come in here with your shit ideas and your pineapple pizza pizza to them is two pipes of pizzas it's um uh with tomato and cheese and with um pepperoni and that's it nothing else is pizza that's it so that's and I've yeah I, I mean, people say, it's really good for you. It's really good for you. Yeah, well, so is cocaine. You know? I've never met someone with, like, such a strong aversion to pineapple.

But, I mean, all your arguments make total sense. I mean, I feel like I bought a couple, like, a while at the beginning of lockdown. And I find with pineapple, every time I eat it, I'm like, after all couple like a while at the beginning of lockdown and I find with pineapple every time I eat it I'm like after all the faff of getting into it and wondering like why there's like more mess than there is actual food I'm always like this is great god I love pineapple maybe it's my favorite fruit why don't I eat these more and then I eat enough of it that I get like chest pains and then I can't eat it again I'm just like oh yeah fuck pineapple it's sort of it's got that like real acidic sort of like because it's not oh yeah fuck pineapple it's got that like real acidic

sort of like because it's not a citrus fruit but it's got that acid to it yeah it's your stomach saying fuck off your stomach's like fuck off you piece of shit why did you put this in here I could have had a burger

I could have had something else horrible or I could have had that Chinese place around the have had something else horrible or, you know, I could have had, you know, that Chinese place around the corner that's got the rails and the thing and, you know, you know that it's like luminous neon red. I could have had that and it would taste better and I would have enjoyed it, I would have loved it. But, you know, pineapple is the devil's food. Okay, good.

And I imagine, I mean, it's quite a suitable kind of food for a desert island, I suppose. So, you know, it's every likelihood you'll get them there. And then also, you know, on a desert island, trying to hack up a pineapple neatly with your little kind of sharpened stones and whatever, you know. Yeah, and if you haven't got anything, it's like you can go and just pick an orange and peel it.

Melon, you can crack it over, you know, and it's lovely, beautiful fruit and it's luscious and it's sexual and everything and melon just to me is just like the dry up dried up person in the corner that nobody wants to speak to you know that keeps talking it's kind of like the fruit equivalent of like one of those like lizards that's like bright colors so it's like don't fuck with me because i'm giving you all the warning signs yes it does take a lot of getting into it's like it's like don't fuck with me because I'm giving you all the warning signs. Yeah, it does take a lot of getting into. It's like a kimono dragon. It bites you on the ankle and then just follows you till you die

and then eats you. It's like awful. Yeah, it's playing the long game. It's playing the long game, yeah. Just licking itself, you know. I'd be like, go for Lee Francis over there. He hates you more. Yeah, he did a really bad

impression of the Komodo dragon over there. Exactly. And what would your drink choice be? Do you know, obviously pineapple juice, but that's obvious. I am going to go for something that you're just not going to agree with and you're going to tell me i'm mad but i'm going to go for um beer okay yeah yeah we have i mean it does come up a bit i mean i think it's i've said before like i think because in this country we like idolize it to such a point it's almost like you're not allowed to not like it do you know i mean it's sort of like do you want a beer no do you not drink or something yeah it's just other things yeah it's like you know that oh and it you know i was trying to enable all this stuff about beer beer beer beer and then i actually

wrote a song about it called beer and olives because you know there's certain things that you like as a child that you don't like as a child that you grow into you know and so for me it was beer and olives you know as a child i tasted olives but then i love olives now and i get them all the time and beer i'm always just sipping people's beer because i'm thinking one day i'm gonna find a beer that i absolutely love it's not gonna be in england it might be in germany but the thing about the beer thing is the the taste is not great but it's the quantity that you have to have to get any kind of a buzz you know especially october october um you know fair with the october fest october fest especially and i have these two and i'm like well that's the size of my whole body

if i and you know the thing this is a girl thing right when you drink beer it means you have to go to the toilet a lot more and that's really annoying for girls because toilets are always horrible in pubs and they're all shitty and they're always like you know especially in clubs you just don't have to go and wait in the queue because girls are always there's always a queue for girls and if you drink beer if you drink shots you're great but if you drink beer then you're gonna have to go every hour and that's like half an hour in an hour so that means you're on the dance floor or you're with your friend half an hour out of each hour you know so it's functionality a time issue too but yeah i just um i just don't like the taste i'm a wine drinker and i'm a champagne drinker i'm not a spirits

drinker and i hate tequila but the reason why I don't I didn't go on about tequila is because I hate it because I just had too much one time and 25 years ago and now I just think it all smells like shit I mean tequila I think is the hardest drink to ever come back from I've done the same thing to myself and like I used to like I could drink it fast sip it I loved it and you know and I was like I remember being at uni it's quite a cool thing to like you know it's like tequila sounds great you know you get the accessories but yeah i mean once you've fucked yourself over with that you it's very hard to climb back up i was i went to mexico three years ago about three years ago and i um you know you've got to have tequila you're in mexico i'm like i really can't and so they pour me mescal

i said okay i'll have that and that is not it's delicious and i had three of them and i was i could literally just wobbly legs all the way back to the the taxi um and that that changed my view slightly it's been 30 years since i was at union to that time i got drunk and also on the first kind of tour, actually. And it is a hard drink to come back with, but I didn't put it because I do love mezcal, so I'm slowly... I don't think I'm ever going to enjoy tequila again,

and I think you're exactly right. There's something within the smell that just reminds you of vomit in the mouth, once you've had that five-day tequila thing and you just can't go near it but um i would say um i'm still i'm still waiting to um to light beer and i i'll keep tasting it and the joke that my friends have is like do you want to taste skin so that you know you can just make a face and say how disgusting it is and i'm like yeah i think go on then it's

just loaded with expectation you know like i remember going on the stag do to germany and we were drinking those big steins you know the two pint yeah i mean it was cold outside so they weren't getting as warm as they would in other situations but it's like i'm so full like can we just i'm really up for getting as shit-faced as possible on this stag do as is the tradition but can i do it via another means like why is this the only thing i'm allowed to drink like yeah why are we having a discussion can't i have like a vodka tonic or like anything else rather than like two liters of alcohol and can you imagine the toilets you know it's just people just swimming in piss because no toilet can deal with that amount of men drinking beer for that much.

I mean, you think about it, though, practically speaking, if you had, like, a vodka in something, like, or a gin in something, you know, you'd have a couple, you'd get a nice little buzz on, you know? You'd be like, yeah, I'm enjoying this, having a chat with my mates. But drinking beer, then you've got to chug them down in certain amounts of time or you're, like, not manly enough or something. I mean, it's just something the boys would always go. And they'd come back and they were like,

you guys aren't even drunk. We'd get drunker backstage with two shots than you are now. So much alcohol to get the same buzz. Yeah. And also on a desert island, even if you don't like the drink, you're going to want to get pissed eventually, given your company. So when you've just had a blazing row with Nigel Farage and then it's going to take you like

five or six pints rather than just like five or six shots you're like this is like I'm really like this is my purgatory so I can get a bit pissed so I can wake up hung over with Farage yeah you'd be like hunting around the island trying to find something that can ferment what can I make how can I get something to ferment? You know, sea water or something. Fair enough. OK, now, Skim, fortunately, you won't be without entertainment on the island. The plane's entertainment system continues to work, but just your luck, it only has two working settings. One is your least favourite film of all time and the other is your least favourite song. What are they and why? Least favourite film is really difficult because there's a whole genre of film

that I just will not watch. And that's horror. And I remember being a kid and loving them because they all looked like... I just didn't believe it. You could see that that was not a real head hanging off that string. And I think that that was kind of fun, you know, because you didn't believe it, you were a kid.

And as I think time and technology has progressed, now you have film, and I would say the film Saw, and I would say probably, I think, what are they up to? Six or seven? Something like that, yeah. And it's just, for me, I just find that just, you know, there's images in those films that you have to, that just go around in your head. And I think, how are you going to sleep at night

watching a film like Saw? I mean, I don't like, I like thrillers, so I like to get out. I thought that was hilarious. But when it's just gratuitous, violent, disgusting horror, that is just literally just horror. That genre, when there's no story, there's nothing, it's just how evil and how horrible can I make this person die? They're usually young females, whatever. And I just think that the film saw... i think if i was on a move if i was on an island and that was a film showing i think after a while

i would just want to just go in and drown i'd probably try and swim to africa and just drown halfway i think that would be i just i just wouldn't want to live anymore because i think you just have nightmares and yeah you just get those images. I'm the same. I find it like, there's a point, you know, when there's like a thriller and it's suspenseful and you're like, I'm scared because of what's not happening, you know, and things like The Shining

or like some of the Japanese ones where you're like... Yeah, your mind doing it, the horror for you is more interesting. Yeah, but with these, I'm just like, did no one like take the person who wrote this aside and have a word because like surely there's a point where you're writing such fucked up things like someone in the position of authority needs to take you aside and have a word because it's like where does like we're getting quite close to snuff at some point it's like it's getting like it's one step away from it isn't it something yeah you know like um as part of my job

i often have to make sort of trailers for things like that and i remember doing it for like it was something like saw or some other horror film and even just like watching the small trailer i had to take clips from to use was like that's horrible i can't and i don't i guess it's something about being scared but knowing you're safe but like i can feel as safe as i want in my house i'm still gonna be paranoid of shadows and stuff afterwards yeah and if you try i always try and break it down i mean i i hang out with a lot of boys and they love films like that my guitarist ace loves that you know he loves it loves it and i'm like but what is it and he does yeah i think it's funny and it's just so gross you know and i think that i know i mean also and i talked about

my house in the before i i do have a house in the countryside all alone with nobody around and no one can hear me scream i mean i literally live in a house like that you know so that was i think i started watching a film like that the third night i was there and i got into 10 minutes i was like oh hold on a minute this This is exactly my situation. And that was the end. Blair Witch was the last horror film I watched. That was the last truly. That scared the absolute bejesus out of me.

I mean, I was just that spun around in my stomach and my head for about three years afterwards. And that finished me after that. I'm like, I'm done with this genre strangely though i do love asian extreme movies which are also incredibly violent but there's class to it there's skin and there's class to it you know you're not just getting a hacksaw and pulling it through someone's stomach and watching their intestines go in circles you know asian extreme is storylines it's a lot of violence but it's class and skill and all these martial arts and I love that you know that's exciting to me yeah if there's a bit of something else like oh yeah well you're also like a great martial artist or something it's not

just like you're a total psychopath with like yeah many scalpels yeah and I have to watch exactly what you do and like yeah like are the human centipede ones and things like that. I'm not talking about all of these things just from hearsay because I've never seen any of these. Do you know what? The boys were talking about it and they were going on about it. And I was like, what's a human centipede? And they're like, they just cracked up and said, don't tell her, don't tell her.

And then they literally refused to tell me for like 24 hours. They said, it's just too disgusting for you. And I'm like, I've got three brothers and I've been hanging out with you for 25 years what's too disgusting and they showed it to me and i literally peeped in the corner i was like how and i said then they made another two or something it's just like who paid for that i know it's mad isn't it and like i remember seeing an interview with the director he's like oh you got to see what we're up to in the third one. It's so sick. And you're like, should it be?

Just because you can, should you? Yeah, I mean. I mean, it sounds like a Tony Robbins quote, like gone backwards. Like, just because you can, maybe you shouldn't. Maybe you shouldn't. You know, I'm going to put that over a poster of a beach in Thailand and just be like, just leave it sometimes. Just leave it.

Sometimes, just fuck off and leave it there. Okay. just leave it sometimes just leave it yeah just leave it sometimes just fuck off and leave it yeah okay okay so we're going to put in some kind of extreme horror then on onto the island with you so we'll say something from like a box set you know like the saw human centipede kind of over and uh and what's your song choice it's always interesting hearing like a musician's uh least favorite music oh gosh song song choice do you know the songs that I like most genres of music but there's things there's genres obviously that I like more, I'm not so much into rap

so first I went for looking for rap songs like what songs do I really hate and then I was like I don't hate you enough and then do you know the song that kept coming back to me was one of the best artists in the world which tends to happen you know the greatest artists also get to a to me was one of the best artists in the world, which tends to happen. You know, the greatest artists also get to a point in their career where they just make the worst music.

And I think my number one song, I would say, is Michael Jackson's Heal the World. OK, yeah, fair choice, yeah. Because it's just the most insipid, insincere, clichéd, obvious pile of turgid mess my ears have ever had. And when you consider my whole childhood was watching Michael Jackson like a lot of kids, black kids in Brixton. And he was the only poster I had on my wall my whole entire life. I never had any poster, I just had one poster of Michael Jackson

at ten with a big afro. And then he gets his point of career where he makes that and I think it's also just my pain about that song is also attached to the fact that he's just such a genius and he's just so amazing and he just got to the point where he was just doing what he thought the public would buy because that song just says sell sell sell all over it there is nothing genuine about that song that song all the melodies all the drum installations the chord changes the lyrics how the chorus comes in how the middle eight is every as a songwriter you listen to it and it's just so obvious you know what they're doing and you know they're trying to evoke tears out of people and be this like you know this messiah yeah let's let's just heal the world okay you know we've got plaster

big enough let's just put it on there then shall we i mean what does it mean what does it mean to say heal the world it's just such an awful cliche that should not have got past the 60s yeah you often sort of get this with like every sort of few years there'll be one. I suppose like the most recent one would be like that Black Eyed Peas, Where Is The Love? And it's a similar kind of thing. Like every now and again you get this song that goes, hey guys, what if like we didn't kill each other and stuff?

And you go, oh yeah, that's a good idea. Oh yeah, that's a good idea. I had no thing of that. It's like, what if we we didn't care about race? Yeah, black eyed peas, that is a good idea. Other people have pointed it out, but still, good idea. Do you know what I mean? I like that other marketer says it doesn't matter if you're black or white.

It's like, actually, it does matter if you're black or white. I have a colour. Don't pretend I don't have one. I love my colour and that's attached to my race and my heritage. I don't want to be colourless. I'd rather be a thing than I don't want to see a colour. It's like, no, I want. I love my colour and that's attached to my race and my heritage. I don't want to be colourless. You know, I'd rather be a thing than I don't want to see a colour.

It's like, no, I want you to see my colour. That's what's the one of the things that's great about me. It's like, you know, don't not see my colour.

Don't just see people as colours and all the same. We're not. You've got to love people for their differences. That's another one of his that annoy me for that reason. And I think it's just these people

who just become so detached from what they're actually trying to say from the message because they're just living in this fucking rich bubble where they lick gold for breakfast or something. And they just become so unaware of... You know, especially someone who's written a lot of political songs, you have to be aware of what you're actually, what are you actually saying, you know? What do you want people to do?

If you want to write an anti-racist song, or if you want to write a song about, you know, the climate, you know, hear the world doesn't say it, because that doesn't do anything or make people get up and do anything, you know? You know, it's like, you know, Free Nelson Mandela. That's an obvious thing to say, and it became an anthem for like, you know, Free Nelson Mandela. That's an obvious thing to say. It became an anthem for change, you know. So that song, it's just the insincerity and authenticity of it, the lack of authenticity of that song really winds me up.

From someone who can do so much, who used to be able to do so much better, you know, but God rest his soul, crossing myself as I speak. And so I just think he just got to this point where it's just all about selling records and that's the message he thought would sell records yeah and I suppose as well by the time he got to that point there's fewer and fewer people to actually sort of tell him that it's not a great idea like I'm just gonna go along with it but I think as well like having something

that kind of sickly sweet on an island to deal with that sort of saccharine kind of thing and like I mean Tony Robbins, that's got to be an anthem for him as well. It's like, well, you know, Skin, why don't you want to heal the world? Maybe that's just something about you. Exactly. It's all about you.

You know, what he's doing is offering a template that's like healing, you know, and you're turning your back on that. So what's wrong with you? What's going on inside, Skin? What's going on inside? And you'd have Lee Francis, when I did a great impression of you, didn't I?

Oh, God. Remember that? I forgot about that. Yeah, of course, yeah. Can you imagine? Heal the world, make it a better place for you and for me

and the entire human race. I mean, I know it off by heart. It's so obviously poppy, but what a shit lyric that is. Really. Oh, God. It feels like that um i mean it's not in a bucket and shit on it it's not that far away from that old coke advert is it that's what i'd like to teach the world to sing it's like basically the same kind of deal isn't it

yeah well you know a coke advert at least it's blatantly trying to sell you something yeah you know um you know it's like, I buy this Coca-Cola. I don't know, Michael Jackson trying to do his, like, cool kind of, you know, message about... Anyway, that's... Again, if it was me, imagine me, Lee Francis, doing his impression of Michael Jackson, doing that song.

Yeah. I mean, that's poison dart into the heart. You know what? I'm loving just thinking of the interplaying between all the characters and elements you're putting on this island it's very good now we're almost at the end but finally the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals which animal is it and why anaconda anaconda i have oh you know a snake shouldn't be that big yeah i mean very few things should be that big right i mean it's just you could never get a good night's sleep you know you just you'd have to

sleep with one eye open i mean i have a real fear of anacondas since I've I actually um I didn't study them a bit I just got obsessed about them um in my teenage years and I I'm one of these people who watches every um nature program there is I've seen everything David Attenborough's done every single program everything and I love all of those nature programs and whenever they talk about anacondas I just get a thing a chill going from the top of my head down my back of like imagine you're in a light Brazilian you get lost and you've gotten the wrong turn on the tour of something and then you are the nighttime in the Brazilian forest and you know you you're tired you've been walking for

days and you finally have to go to sleep and an anaconda because they don't bite you um they what they do is they curl around you and they squeeze you to death crush your bones and the worst thing is about it is they try and eat you but they cannot eat a human person and the reason is because their their jaw when they go to eat like a pig a cow or something like that their jaw dislocates so that they can spread their jaw out and then it kind of goes around like a ball if you imagine it dislocates goes around the basketball but human shoulder blades are too wide so it can't get round even if it did it long way it can't actually get around a grown-up human person's shoulder blades

so then it would kind of half choke and then it wouldn't be able to eat you and then it would just go off, so it tried to eat you it realised it couldn't, if it couldn't backtrack then it's going to die so it's either going to die eating you or realise it can't eat you but then you're dead, you're crushed to pieces

yeah, you're just sort of sticking out of an anaconda like a big tongue. Yeah, but you're still breathing unless one of your rib bones went into your lungs and that would kill you pretty quickly. So it's just... I mean, I've met them in these things and I've had snakes on me and stuff like that, but the idea of an anaconda,

whenever I see those, I'm like... Spiders and all that stuff, creepy crawlies, great. Anacondas. No chance. No. If that, I would just be on the beach the whole time. Cause they won't go, um, they don't go to salt water. I don't think.

No, but they, yeah, but they live in like in freshwater, don't they? Cause they live in freshwater and they live, they live in marshes. They live. So, you know, when you see those guys going through up to the thigh in marshes? That's where they are. And that's where you need to get your water source from as well. And if they go... If they grab hold of you, you can't...

They're too big to hack. You can't get loose. You can't undo it because they're too strong. So, once they've got your foot, you're done. Crocodiles are... The thing about crocodiles is they're dumb as fuck. So as long as you're behind them, or you can get away from a crocodile

because you know they're sitting under the water and they've got the size of a pea. Their brain is the size of a pea. Not the pea. Their brain is the size of a pea. The brain is not the size of a pea. Their brain is the size of a bee. The brain is not the size of a pee. Their brain is the size of a bee. They're really stupid.

And so you can... That's why I see people doing all kinds of stupid stuff with them. But anacondas, no. Yeah. I find it something a bit weird about... I don't know, like, crocodile makes sense. It belongs in water. Snakes in water, there's something...

Like, I'm not scared of snakes, but a snake in water makes it scarier somehow i don't know if it's because you can't see it or because it's suddenly it's got like an extra skill where you're like well now i can't even jump in the water to get rid of it or like faster yeah it's just it's like what what's your game like pick a side i don't like it i don't like this anaconda but yeah anacondas they... I feel like they're like a leftover from dinosaur times, you know, like crocodiles are. And I think that what happened when the asteroid hit the Earth

is they slunk into the deepest part of the Amazon that was so deep and wet they didn't get destroyed as badly and they just hung out there for a few million years and just ate each other and got bigger and bigger and bigger. And I feel like they're either bigger than they used to be or the same size you know and and it's just i just don't think that they're supposed to be that big on this earth yeah i think it's just a little mistake because i bet the sort of biggest thing they eat they could probably be a lot smaller to sort of take down the biggest thing that you know i also i always think when you see a snake eating it's like there's no joy there is there it's just like like putting your whole body slowly around an

antelope until it becomes part of you and then you're like well i can't move but i don't need to eat for another month so that's me done you're like you know i'm not expecting to pick up a knife and fork i mean obviously the lack of limbs negates the use of cutlery but like just just the way they just if they at least ate it quickly you'd be like oh you're enjoying that it's just like like an oyster or something yeah i mean it's like eating a loaf of bread really fast and just let it sit there really like going you know even a giant loaf of bread sitting there i mean and they basically just all the poisons and they just slowly it just slowly breaks down i mean what's the fun in that so then they just have to sit there because they can't, and they basically just, all the poisons, and they just slowly, it just slowly breaks down. I mean, what's the fun in that?

So then they just have to sit there because they can't move and they're very vulnerable. So if a lion or a tiger, you know, some kind of like beast comes along, you know, and just rips open and it's got two meals in one, it gets snake and whatever the snake ate. Yeah, nice, nice. Well, I think it's a very good addition to your island because I'd sort of forgotten about anacondas and how bloody massive and terrifying they are.

So yeah, yeah, good choice, good choice. Thank you. Look, Skin, you've done an amazing job picking a horrendous habitat for yourself to be stranded on for the rest of your days. And I'm sorry about that, but it has been very entertaining and it's

just been really fun talking to you so what are you up to at the minute for people who want to find out more about you? Oh well at the moment I'm like everybody else I've changed my life to adapt to lockdown scenario and just I think like a lot of artists you know we just adapt so we've like me a lot of my friends you know we've gone diy we've adapted we've got i built a new kind of studio set up that does zoom in and all that kind of stuff probably and is well lit and i can record here i've got my good i'm learning software um we're going on tour next year um and uh that's kind of probably given that the first person got you know the first vaccines are out now that's looking like it might happen.

So that's going to take up a lot of time next year. And just collaborations. I've got my radio show on Absolute Radio, which has been really fun. I've got a couple more of those to do. And just for the rest of December, just, I feel next year is going to be probably one of the craziest ever if things get going. So I'm kind of just going to enjoy the run up to Christmas and just have a really nice Christmas.

I think it's probably going to be mad for the next few years why everybody just kind of realised how much they took for granted. And everyone's just going to be out all the time and, you know, gigging non-stop. Trying to make up, trying to make up for the horrible year that we've had. So, yeah um i spend a lot of time you know the nice thing now is just having regularity i wake up i work out i have lunch um i come to my studio i have dinner and i watch netflix with my other half sounds like a pretty nice set up never had that in my whole life yeah nice good well thank you again for coming on it's been an absolute pleasure it's

been really fun thank you for asking me