Scowl have had one of the fastest rises and evolutions of any hardcore band in recent memory, but now original guitarist Malachi Greene has revealed that he’s no longer along for the ride. He left the band and started a new band called Skin Show, while he also remains busy as a tattoo artist in his new hometown of Salt Lake City, and he spoke about his departure in a new interview with No Echo:
I think what I’ve learned from being in a full-time band is that I gotta pace myself and just do stuff that makes me happy. If you’re in a full-time band, that’s your life. There is nothing besides that and if you try to have a life outside of it then it’s gonna be tough and you’ll feel pulled in two directions.
It came to a point where I was skipping tours a lot being caught between touring and learning how to tattoo. Scowl is a full-time touring band so it made sense to part ways, and honestly I’m stoked to see what they do next.
I love everyone in Scowl, and to be honest, they are tanks for touring how they do. I’m just stoked to tattoo and make music in a way that makes more sense for me. I don’t ever plan on stopping. I wouldn’t do anything different with that band, because we did such cool shit together except maybe take care of my health. I was kinda fried toward the end of my time with them. My back was torched. I could barely walk at one point and my mind was a mess. I had to take care of my health and I should have taken care of it years ago. Stepping away and finding a balance made it so I could enjoy playing music again. I’m happy to be healthier these days and taken care of myself. Now I can focus on doing cool stuff with music, art, and video stuff.
Skin Show’s debut four-song EP Come And See The… is out now, and it’s more of a straight-up hardcore EP compared to the melodic alt-rock leaning album that Scowl released this year. The lineup also includes Dirty Mike from Taste of Blood, Derek from xforever warx, and Ian from Mask (whose debut LP Aggressive Contempt comes out on Convulse Records this week), and Malachi cited The Rival Mob, Negative Approach, Sheer Terror, and Sonic Youth as influences in his interview with No Echo. Stream the EP below.
Meanwhile, we just caught Scowl in NYC at CBGB Fest. See pics.