Mark Richardson (Skunk Anansie) talks to BeatIt, Pt. 1
One of iconic rock outfits of the 90s, which Skunk Anansie undoubtedly are, at least in Europe, came to Poland in late February this year to play four club gigs. On Feb 20, they performed at the Teatr Łaźnia Nowa in Krakow, on the 21st, they were at the Stodoła club in Warsaw, on the 22nd, they continued at B90 in Gdańsk and followed it all up with a gig at Centrum Kultury Zamek in Poznań. The beatit.tv team attended the latter show to interview the band’s drummer – Mark Richardson.
In the first part of this interesting conversation, our guest shares his impressions of this year’s tour of Poland with Skunk Anansie. We also talk about how hard-working a band they actually are:
“This tour has been largely sold out. One or two show didn’t sell out but the rest have. We did a lot of work in the summer. We did a lot of festivals across Europe. A lot of people say a lot of things about Skunk Anansie and everyone’s entitled to their opinion. One thing nobody can take away from us is that we work really hard. We tour quite a lot at a level which is very difficult to sustain. It is paying off.”
Mark goes back to his first contact with a drum and rhythm, his initial drum heroes, the first drum kit he had and his own way of learning to play the drums:
“I had these massive headphones. I had a big tennis band around these enormous headphones. I had this tiny little cassette player and would play along to the songs as best I could. I’m still self-taught. I still do that sometimes, although I have different headphones.”
Our guest also discusses his admiration for Ringo Starra as well as the goal he sets for himself when playing the drums:
“The thing that always intrigued me about Ringo in particular was that everybody said he was rubbish and I never thought he was rubbish because I always thought those songs sounded incredible. How can a song sound incredible if the drummer is rubbish? We all know what a rubbish drummer sounds like and he is not it. That always fascinated me so I looked into Ringo a lot and I found…”.
You’ll find out the rest by watching this episode of the interview. Drummers and Drummerettes! Here is Skunk Anansie drummer, Mark Richardson, in the first part of an exclusive interview for beatit.tv!
