Photo Credit: Travis Trautt
Skating Polly
It’s been five long years since hybrid punks Skating Polly have released a new album, but they are about to make up for that and then some. Chaos County Line, the band’s fifth full-length release, is due out on Friday, and conveniently, the band will be returning to Milwaukee on the release date at X-Ray Arcade. The new project is a double album, with 18 tracks full of emotion and experimentation, all of which carried out by siblings Kelli and Kurtis Mayo as well as Peyton Bighorse. Ahead of the pseudo-release show, we talked with guitarist and vocalist Kelli Mayo about what went into the record, touring in the wake of the pandemic and making the most of the time between releases.
It's been a little over a year since you’ve played in our part of the country. What has your experience been so far with Milwaukee?
Oh man, yeah this last time we played Cudahy, we had just got off tour with Together Pangea, and so it was like a headlining set for us. I remember feeling really bad, being late to the venue for that show. It's a great venue, though. And it's definitely one of the more unique ones, I think, that you probably run across on the road, with all the arcade games and stuff.
You happen to be here on the release date of Chaos County Line. Tell us a little about the record.
So it's a double record. It's been a long time in the making. It's been freaking five years since our last record and honestly some of the songs are even older than the last record. So I'm incredibly stoked. It's funny, I'll catch myself being nervous about it but then I'm like, “what am I nervous about?” I really like this record. There's nothing really to be nervous about. I think that I'm just so excited.
I'm so ready for it to get out that like, my body doesn't know how to feel. It's crazy that the day is actually approaching, because there were a lot of delays. The pandemic was a delay in its own right. But during the pandemic, I had surgery on my voice. So that really slowed things down. I wasn't able to use my voice in a singing capacity for at least a year and a half. It was like on and off of vocal rest. Then Brad Wood, our producer, had a health issue that he had to go and be there for, and that pushed back recording, and then we had a tour in spring of 2022 that we didn't know if it actually would happen because it was our first tour after the pandemic. I think the record is the best of Skating Polly’s so far. I really think we showcase all of our sides that we've showcased before and more. I feel like we've just dove deeper into places we've never gone before.
Was the intention always to make a double album?
Yeah. I mean, honestly, like in 2021, we had decided by then, like “OK, next thing we do, it needs to be at least a double album.” We have so many things piling up, and also I felt like the fans deserved it, because I kept being like “okay, now i'm gonna come to you.” We've made five albums now, and I felt like the pressure of making a double out of it, all 18 songs really good, like was like a new challenge. It was something that we needed. I think it was a really good way to jump back into like, “oh my gosh, yeah, we are a band.” We can do this, you know?
The way people consume music now has certainly changed. Do you prefer that people listen to the album start to finish, or with this much content, piecemeal it as they go along?
I mean, I'm expecting people to break it up into pieces, because it is a lot. I mean I would love for people to listen to it all at once and stuff, but I think it's a lot to take in. I think every track kind of has the potential to be a different person's favorite. There's songs that are probably going to be growers for people, that on first listen like didn't strike them but then if they come back to it at a later point in their life or at the right time of day or in the car with the right person that it might really hit. We're gonna try to make just keep making videos to kind of highlight certain songs after the record is out because that always helps, too. When the band puts emphasis and kind of tells another visual story with the songs, then that can kind of help you realize how you feel about the songs, too, and gives it more attention.
It sounds like with this much material, there wasn’t a lot off that was limits when it comes to production. Was that the case?
This one really felt like we just kept trying things and honestly, we would do things that we thought were cool. Like, a horn on the record, like we've never had that before. I don't know that i have anything that i would completely say was off limits. I think that one of our only rules was that nothing can be too smart, and nothing too clean. I like the right amount of mistakes and want the right amount of humanity in music. That's something that I'm always going to hold true to. I mean, that's the essence of ugly pop. I don't want to just follow the song rulebook for what you think a song should be.
So what does the immediate future hold for Skating Polly after the record is out?
I mean, I don’t really know. Lots of traveling and more writing. Like I'm already writing other stuff. We were talking about recording some like fun, unique covers, I don't know. There's always a lot on the Skating Polly list, but I think we just want to do a lot of touring and we're going to make a lot of videos.
Skating Polly returns to X-Ray Arcade on Friday, June 23. Click here for more information.
