SKATERS have a lot of surprises planned for their Artist To Watch Live event on October 21, one of which is pretty spooky. The guys told us they’ve recorded a Halloween-themed jam, “Let the Heads Roll,” which they might play at the Studio at Webster Hall next week. The show will stream live on MTVHive.com.
“We’ve just recorded a Halloween song and it’s about the zombie apocalypse,” guitarist Josh Hubbard told MTV News. “Not to do with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs track,” he added, referring to “Heads Will Roll,” off 2009’s It’s Blitz! “It’s more literal.”
According to the guys, they chose to go the undead route when selecting their creepy fodder because, as bassist Dan Burke said, “Your average werewolf or vampire doesn’t dance, usually.” And we know — from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” — that zombies can get down.
Drummer Noah Rubin adds that, given our culture’s obsession with the un- — or, rather the “Walking” — dead, the song will have staying power long past All Hallow’s Eve. “You can listen to it year-round,” he said.
SKATERS’ musical oeuvre extends far past the bounds of flesh-eating half-people, however. The guys — who all settled in New York in 2011 to form the band — recently signed with Warner Bros., and plan to release their debut, NYC-themed LP, MANHATTAN, on February 25, 2014.
“If you listen to the record from start to finish, you actually see the subject of the character kind of changing from someone who’s like shocked by the lights of the city and ending with someone who’s transformed into someone that feels like they belong here,” Rubin told MTV News of the record. He also said that the LP is an extension of the band’s debut EP, Schemers, which dealt with living in the Big Apple as well.
“Schemers was the five songs that … encapsulated what we had experienced in New York in that brief time that we had been there,” he said. “The songs were written about the city and when songs are written about New York, they’re very idiosyncratic to the New York thing. You can’t really escape it.”
To sample the band’s debut LP — and their zombified Halloween single — tune into MTVHive.com at 9:45 p.m. ET on Monday, October 21.
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