Skot Stover

SNN Exclusive. Wed, May 3 2006.

Skot Stover was never born. He was excised in 1974 and became the world's first intelligent self-sustaining tumor. He continued to grow and learn until one day some 30 years later, all of his cells divided into four parts, with Skot remaining the dominant one. Already recognized by many cats as the world's first guitar playing tumor, Skot realized the potential and decided to start a band with them. He named them and assigned them instruments to play. They are: Jubil Foster on lead guitar; Hester Freeman on bass; and Huey Packard on drums.

In late 2004, they recorded and released "Metal For Idiots", a 12 song tour de force with blistering tracks (well, not quite blistering, but some could cause itching, redness and irritation. Call your doctor today to see if Vivanthum is right for you.) covering a range of metal from slow to fast and all points in between.

In 2006, the band completed work on their second CD, titled "Journey Of A Thousand Miles", another deadly dozen featuring such instant classics as "Staring Up The Ass Of Death" and "Toxic Sphincter Binkie", a thrashy one-two punch guaranteed to make any hair-metaller cringe. The rest of the CD is less hectic, but no less powerful with lush harmonies, downtuned crunch and even a piano or two. Overall, a very respectable effort and a fitting "next chapter" in the musical storybook of the one-man band with multiple personality disorder.

Since the Journey of A Thousand Miles came to an end, Skot has been a very busy boy. In 2008, the band began working on their third CD "Fury", a thirteen song collection of songs, including re-recordings of some older material and some brand new tunes. Fury took three years to finish, having been put on the back burner while Skot got divorced, hooked up with has high-school sweetheart and worked on a couple of side projects. One was the short lived "Schizophrenetic" with female metal vocalist R.K. Veneble, and one is called "Wicked Trouble" with his girlfriend Frances. So far, they have finished two CDs, 2009's "Playing With My Insanity" and the yet to be released "Broken Reflections." "She's the poet, I'm the songsmith. She tells me what style she wants for a particular song, and I bring it to life. She even does some of the singing. We work very well together" he says.

Skot also spent part of this time writing and recording "My Heart Shaped World", a collection of rocked-out love songs, most of which were written for Frances, but including a couple of covers. "I used to write sappy, 'Oh, baby' songs, but to me now, there's nothing more satisfying than driving the point home and saying 'Dammit, I love you' instead of putting her to sleep with it." Skot has also recorded a collection of metallized 80s covers titled "Cover Me", which include Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" and Prince's "Kiss". Says Skot, "I kept hearing these songs from the 80s, and thinking, 'you know, there are some really good songs there. Too bad they're disguised as pop songs with all those synthesizers.' "

"I'm gonna try to get all these loose ends tied up before doing too much more," says Skot about the future. "The next Wicked Trouble CD already has a couple of songs written, and I have a couple of my own for the next Skot CD, but things seem to have slowed down a bit. That's how it goes though. I usually have lots of activity followed by long periods of letting my musical batteries recharge. Five and a half albums in three years is pretty crazy considering I only put out two myself from 2004 to 2008."

Stay tuned for more news as it gets fabricated.

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Every time I pick up my guitar, I play live. It's usually at home. I love it, and I consider special moments as when I come up with a new song where there was nothing a few minutes before.

Metallica, Black Sabbath, The Beatles, Slipknot, King's X, Megadeth, Steve Vai, Ralph Macchio, Fear Factory, Albert Fish, Disturbed, Darth Vader, Jesus.

I love my Ibanez guitars. I have an RG 370DX, an RG550, an Ibanez acoustic-electric and a 1984 Destroyer. There's an acrylic BC Rich Warlock and a couple of custom guitars I kinda rebuilt. A no-name 5 string bass, and a Zoom 707II effects pedal. Software-wise, I use Audacity and a cool drum program for the computer.

I love cats, guitars and my beautiful girlfriend. Not in that order (Hi, Baby! :)