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Rock Music artist from Prairie Grove, AR. New songs free to stream. Add to your playlist now.

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Skirt

Prairie Grove, AR  USA
August 18, 2000
244 plays
5,729 views
We are, and will always be SKIRT
Band/artist history
The group got together in 1995 while Jeremy Digby, Dustin Bartholomew and two pals were still in high school. They basically learned to play their instruments while performing at coffeehouses and parties. Inspired originally by the whole Seattle thing, according to Dustin, they saved up some money and did some recording. One of the friends dropped out and Dustin jumped behind the kit.The naiveté of youth coupled with self-confidence in their burgeoning songwriting ability, had the band sending unsolicited tapes to labels in 1998. Somehow the tape made its way up the chain at Sire Records to president Seymour Stein. He flew out to Arkansas to see the then trio. That was great. It was pretty much our first club show when he came down to see us play. It was almost overwhelming, Dustin says.Next thing you know, Skirt has a record deal and is in the studio recording their debut album, Faith Loves You, after picking up Tim and Matthew. Released in April on Egg Records in conjunction with Sire and last year online via Emusic.com, the album is the sound of young men questioning the ways of the world. Opening with the squealing guitars and thudding rhythms of Lazy, the band seems powered by youth, but the piano-based ballads that crop of towards the end of the album (Fisher and Perfect) show that these four know the power of dynamics. Belt, from which the albums title comes, combines an almost-funky bass line with crunching guitars and a wide-open hook. Then theres the near emo-core tension of Daddy, where chiming chords counterpoint chopping guitars and Jeremy sounds world-weary and sad beyond his years. Consistently, Jeremys lyrics are deeply personal, but connect to the larger world with universal truths and themes. The power of Faith is a testament to the power of the group.We recorded it pretty much live, we had to overdub some guitars and the vocals, but the basic tracks were done live, says Dustin. For as young as we arewereweve done quite a bit of recording. For the album we were in the studio for 20 days or something.The obvious question though is whats there to do in Arkansas?Not much, Dustin laughs. Theres not much else to do, know what I mean? Theres not a whole lot going on.Why stay then? Were pretty centrally located for touring actually. Were five hours from Dallas, five hours to Memphis, four hours to Kansas City, five hours to St. Louis and close to a lot of big cities, so it works out really well. Driving is really easy.The band is friends with artists, musicians and poetsas well as artists of the digital age. Friends of the band designed and did the artwork for the enhanced portion of the CD, for free of course. Of course, Fayettevilles arts community is centered around the university. This is the biggest one in Arkansas. (Laughs) Its not huge though, says Dustin. Still, this is the cultural center of Arkansas.At first, being a non-mainstream sounding band in that town was pretty weird, Dustin admits. Everyone thought we were pretty weird. But theyve come around, making the quartet the kings of Fayetteville, thanks in no small part because of the charismatic passion of Jeremy as a front person. He breathes life and fire into his lyrics, igniting songs onstage. Of course, it doesnt hurt that the guys are kind of cute. Maybe thats why they draw nearly as many females as males to their concerts or maybe its simply the strength of the songs. Either way, Skirt is in it for the long haul. Skirt has performed with bands such as ECONOLINE CRUSH, FROGPOND, RADISH, THE GRAND ST. CRYERS and many more. Their song Counting was recently featured on the original soundtrack to the New Line Cinema film Drop Dead Gorgeous.
Have you performed in front of an audience?
we're currently on tour. check our tour dates at www.eggrecords.com
Your musical influences
weezer, Mxpx, wilco, elvis costello, pearl jam
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Prairie Grove, AR  USA
August 18, 2000
244 plays
5,729 views