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Skinny Puppy is a prominent industrial band, which formed in Vancouver, BC, Canada in 1982.
Sound and Style Inspired by the music of Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, et. al. Skinny Puppy experimented with electronic recording techniques and methods, composing multi-layered music generally with synthesizers, found sounds, drum machines, manual percussion, tape-splices, traditional instruments, distortion, and samplers. Whereas many contemporary remixes and re-edits of songs were created in order to make a song more suitable for dancing or different radio formats, Skinny Puppy approached remixing and re-editing as an artistic process of reinterpreting compositions, often using remixes to push their sound into styles of ambient, dub and techno. Skinny Puppy has been widely noted for their bizarre and confrontational live performances, for which every concert was designed to challenge the notions and beliefs of all who attended. Their music has had some acceptance in dance clubs because of its danceable beats, but has had little play on commercial radio. The band had very little commercial success outside of Canada, but their influence on industrial and electronic music in general is immense. Early Formation & Band Members Skinny Puppy formed in 1982 out of the partnership of cEvin Key (Kevin Crompton; instruments) and Nivek Ogre (Kevin Ogilvie; voices) in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Key was dissatisfied with the direction of his then-current band Images in Vogue, and began Skinny Puppy with the intention of doing something "raw" and "real". Initially Key had planned Puppy to be a side project while he continued his work in Images, however, when Images in Vogue decided to relocate to Toronto Key made Skinny Puppy his full time project. Key has repeatedly commented on how the name was based on the concept of a "dog's eye view" of the world. Key had already created the name before Ogre joined the band and it was from this concept of "seeing through the keyhole" that Ogre penned the song K-9 (originally from Back and Forth) and voiced it in a rough growl that resembled that of a small talking beast. With engineer/producer Dave "Rave" Ogilvie (with no relation to the vocalist), Skinny Puppy began recording their first EP Back and Forth, which was self-released in 1983. The album drew the attention of Nettwerk Records, who signed the band in 1984. Key brought in Wilhelm Schroeder (a pseudonym of Bill Leeb) to play bass synth and background vocals in 1985, but by 1987 Schroeder had left the band to form Front Line Assembly. His departure was attributed to his lack of involvement and loss of interest in touring, as well as a desire to create his own project. Schroeder's departure allowed for the entry of Dwayne Goettel (synthesizers and samplers), who was classically trained and highly skilled as a pianist/keyboardist. Remission - Cleanse Fold... The dark electro-pop styles of their debut EP Remission (1984) and first album Bites (1985) earned the band a fan base. As their audience expanded with a distribution deal with Capitol Records/EMI, their production values continued to improve with the addition of Goettel on Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse (1986) and Cleanse Fold and Manipulate (1987). MTPI's Dig It received a fair amount of airplay on Toronto's CFNY. VIVIsectVI - Rabies They eventually became outspoken advocates for animal rights, and used the "Head Trauma" Tour (1987) and VIVIsectVI tour (1988) to expose concert attendees to videos of experimentation of animals. The title of the LP VIVIsectVI (1988) was a pun intended to associate vivisection with Satanism. The lyrics on the LP were explicit, outspoken criticism of pollution (Hospital Waste), chemical warfare (VX Gas Attack), cocaine addiction (Harsh Stone White), deforestation (Human Disease (S.K.U.M.M.)), rape (Who's Laughing Now?) and promotion of sexual abstinence to stop the spread of AIDS/HIV (State Aid). The centerpiece of VIVIsectVI, Testure—which lyrically insinuated that vivisection was a Holocaust of animals and was motivated by a common greed of medical scientists—appeared on Billboards Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in 1989. During the late 1980s, the band members began working on various side projects, including Doubting Thomas, platEAU and aDuck. For Rabies (1989), Ogre brought Ministry's Al Jourgensen to produce with Rave. Prominently featuring Jourgensen and Rave playing electric guitar, Rabies was Skinny Puppy's first venture into heavy metal. This made it their most controversial and poorly reviewed album up to that time, owing to disagreement among listeners over whether the expansion of their sound into rock music made for effective artistic statements and whether they were deliberately making their sound more accessible and more mainstream. Jourgensen's presence did more to help divide the band than it did to keep it together, as they didn't tour to support Rabies while Ogre toured as an additional vocalist for Ministry. Key and Goettel were alienated from Ogre, who they felt was more interested in other projects than on keeping the band together. Creative differences also caused them difficulty working together. Too Dark Park - Last Rights
The Process and Dissolution Ogre, Key, and Goettel signed a contract with American Recordings and traveled to Malibu, California, in 1993 to begin recording The Process, a concept album inspired by 1960s cult The Process Church of the Final Judgement, with Roli Mosimann producing. Deciding that Mosimann's style was too inactive, they eventually replaced him with Martin Atkins. Atkins's presence only heightened their frustrations, but for different reasons: Key and Goettel felt that Atkins was trying to pry Ogre away from Skinny Puppy so that Ogre could devote himself fully to Atkins' projects. They switched from Atkins to Mark Walk by 1995. The band's bickering and excessive drug use made the recording process take so long, and thus cost so much money, that American Recordings reduced Skinny Puppy's contract from three albums to one. Key would later tell the press that their creativity at the time was also badly affected by the company's pressure on them to create music that was similar to and as commercially acceptable as that of contemporaries like Nine Inch Nails. In 1995, Ogre quit Skinny Puppy to pursue other musical projects, which effectively ended Skinny Puppy. Goettel then fled back to Vancouver with the master tapes of the recordings. Days later, he was found dead of a heroin overdose in his parents' home. Ogre, Key and Rave completed The Process in his memory; and it was released in 1996. Key continued his musical efforts in the bands Download and Tear Garden, Doubting Thomas, Music for Cats, as well as performing solo. Ogre collaborated with major rock acts KMFDM and Pigface, and since 1996 was mainly involved with ohGr, his collaboration with Mark Walk. Dresden Reunion - Greater Wrong... In 2000, Ogre and Key performed as Skinny Puppy at the Doomsday Festival in Dresden, and then toured together in 2001 to support Ogre's solo project, ohGr. In 2003 Ogre, Key, Mark Walk and various guests including Danny Carey of Tool recorded the new full-length Skinny Puppy album, entitled The Greater Wrong of the Right, which was released on May 25, 2004. Skinny Puppy toured in support of "The Greater Wrong of the Right" twice in 2004, during which several shows were filmed for Greater Wrong of the Right LIVE, which was released in September 2005. This live show became controversial due to content critical of President George W. Bush. A pro-Bush site called PABAAH (an acronym for Patriotic Americans Boycotting Anti-American Hollywood) attempted to boycott college radio stations that played Skinny Puppy's music. In a recent interview, Ogre claimed that the boycott actually increased record sales and radio airplay. Discography Main article: Skinny Puppy discography | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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