Bloody Death Skull

Some article highlights:

“The two (Gerard & Daiana) met in the creative writing program and connected over their shared love of the 1950s, monsters, and psych-rock pioneer Roky Erickson. After weekly jam sessions, with Olson strumming his ukulele and Feuer making up words on the spot, and a few drunken karaoke nights at the Smog Cutter in East Hollywood, a band emerged: Bloody Death Skull, whose name is far more intimidating than its deconstructed doo-wop sound.

At first, Bloody Death Skull was just the two of them onstage: Olson playing his uke, Feuer playing a keg with a stick, or a monster truck toy she slid around on the ground, making vroom, vroom sounds. Eventually, though, Feuer borrowed Olson’s ukulele and learned to play it — upside-down, since he’s a lefty. He moved on to play guitar and keyboards, and the duo brought in Beth McSelf, also in the creative writing program at CalArts, to play percussion. Her ensemble includes a toy whale, which she uses as a shaker, a crystal ball, and string shakers, which are actually just piles of yarn. (“They don’t make noise, but I really go for it,” McSelf says. “I mean, the string does stuff you wouldn’t believe.”)

“The writing program we met through at CalArts is an experimental program, which means we have weird ideas about art,” Feuer says with a laugh.

Today, Bloody Death Skull has expanded to almost 20 rotating members. At any given time onstage, there could be a bass, drum set, ukulele, guitar, two keyboards, a glockenspiel, an Omnichord, a synthesizer, a tap dancer, horns, yarn, and lots and lots of toys played by Donna Bummer, who — along with Feuer, Olson and McSelf — rounds out the core of the ever-changing symphony.

They’ve become renowned for their off-the-wall performances; one of their first shows was called “Cinco de Mayonnaise” and involved mayonnaise wrestling. Today, their shows often are characterized by coordinated costumes and Feuer interacting with the audience in unexpected ways, from dumping out a woman’s purse to kissing everyone in the room to pouring liquor into people’s mouths onstage.” - L.A. Weekly

in their own, adorable way, Bloody Death Skull are as freaky as they come.

Musically, BDS aren’t all that weird, at least not in a hit-you-over-the-head way. Their songs are shaggy and shambling and cutened up by head Skull Daiana Feuer’s jangling ukulele and guileless, girlish vocals. Lyrically they can get pretty dark, with songs about death and prostitutes and drowning Mormons in swimming pools, but the grim subject matter is always served up with a wink. (Actually, depending on your point of view, I guess a song about drowning Mormons in swimming pools could be right up there with Pharrell’s “Happy.”) They cover lots of old murder ballads and doo wop love songs, which makes sense, and Ying Yang Twins, which doesn’t, but somehow works anyway.

Their live shows delight in the unexpected. They plays shows at strip clubs and former zoo animal enclosures. They dress up in elaborate costumes with inscrutable themes. When I saw them opening for Bob Log III, the theme was “things you might encounter in the forest,” which in Bloody Death Skull’s world includes alien princesses, soldiers in gas masks and a woman in a head-to-toe burqa representing “darkness.”

They have four core members—besides Feuer, there’s Donna Suppipat, Beth McSelf and Gerard Olson—but their live incarnation can have as many as 10 people onstage, many of them sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by xylophones and toy pianos and various things to bang on. The effect is both childlike and somehow psychedelic—by which I mean, they kinda look and sound like a bunch of people on heavy doses of psychedelics. Like, “Mind if I sit? ‘Cause my legs seem to have stopped working” doses.

(For the record: I’m pretty sure no one in the band is actually high. When they were done with their Bob Log III opening set, they all stood up and left the stage in a very orderly fashion, fastidiously picking up their giant collection of instruments as they went. But they sure do a convincing job of seeming out of their gourds during their set—except Feuer, who presides over the chaos with the wry charm and patience of a den mother for a particularly low-functioning Girl Scout troop.) - Weirdest Band In The World

Q: Was the reason you went with such a dark name to mess with everyone?

Daiana: We were sitting on my living room floor trying to comprehend the essence of existence. What’s beneath everything? What truth hides behind the masks we wear, the words we speak, the nebulous container of our imagination? What moves and contains all life? And the words came out: BLOODY…DEATH…SKULL.

Beth: “Bloody” isn’t necessarily a dark color, unless you mean dark red, but we were kinda thinking oxygenated blood or maybe even blue blood. “Death” is a part of life. Our cat just died and then our friend had a baby. They’re the same exact thing. “Skulls” are relics, white historical bone canvasses to project light and sound and love onto.

Q: When you were crafting your sound, was it more like anything goes because you guys do a lot, even play around with toys…

Daiana: When we started the band, I did not know how to play anything. But we wrote a few songs, picked a name, and played our first show. I was learning ukulele upside down because I borrowed Gerard’s and he’s a lefty. I would smack a keg with a stick. Beth would spill rocks on stage and shake balls of yarn that didn’t make a sound. Our bandmate Donna has an entire basement full of toys. It’s incredible. From the beginning we always played with toys and found objects. At the heart of things, it is an experimental approach to music; from how we write, what we say, how we present it, and what even qualifies as an instrument. To play, like a child in a sandbox, that’s our motto. As more people joined the band, they brought in new toys and instruments. People figure out the spirit of what we’re doing and dive in. They get to be free, and it’s fun. The result is our take on the whole “wall of sound” approach. It’s wonderful when we play as a 12-piece and everyone is in sync while completely engrossed in their own little world.

Beth: The sound is crafted in what some may refer to as the unconscious. That’s just a labeling of the space where intentional pours out from our cells rather than our minds.

Q: Your lyrics are often entertaining but can have a risque draw to them. What is the most suggestive lyric you’ve ever penned?

Gerard: “Let’s pee on the mormons?”

Beth: “It’s all about the money, do what you can. You gotta get paid, so you have to get laid all the time. At least ten times a day. A good day’s a little bit longer…”

Daiana: We are also drawn to covering the most risqué tunes, like “Whisper Song” by Ying Yang Twins or “Wreck My Body” by The Soul Sisters. Something about really dirty songs, I love them: “And if he’s ugly I don’t mind, he has a dick and I want to grind, I want to grind…” Singing that one in front of my dad was funny.

Q: Was there one you wrote that was just pushing it too far as far as naughty goes?

Daiana: Wieners, whisky, sex, prostitutes, ax murderers, eating bats…When you push the envelope so far, there’s really no boundary you can’t cross. But every BDS song has a positive message. I’m a nice person with a naughty sense of humor is all. I haven’t really talked enough about vaginas in my music yet, so that’s a naughty subject waiting to be breached. But my relationship to my vagina is so distant right now it’s like it’s left my body and gone on vacation to Iceland. Maybe that should be a song. “Where oh where has my vagina gone? Where oh where can it be?” Sing that to the tune of “Where Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone.” Which, by the way is about a poor little doggie that’s run off and been turned into sausage and bologna by the local butcher. Which might be a metaphor for my sex life.

Q: I’m not a big fan of The Cure, but I love the songwriting and appreciated your cover of “Just Like Heaven.” Was Robert Smith and Co. one of your musical idols growing up?

Daiana: The Cure circa “Staring At The Sea” is my favorite era of the band. I listened to those songs a lot. I was Robert Smith once for Halloween. My hair was awesome. That cover has a nice story. When I visited Big Bend National Park, I stayed in this cool, quiet ghost town called Terlingua. There was an old rickety abandoned church, with high ceilings and natural acoustics. It was hot and the sun was setting, casting this golden light through the windows and I sat on a pew with my boyfriend and we played the song together, recording it on my phone. And then we got romantic, if you know what I mean.

Q: What about Sky Ferreira, because you named a whole song after her?

Daiana: We sometimes use surrealist techniques to write. One method is tapping into the unconscious by way of automatic writing, which means letting whatever comes out of my mind spew forth. Another method is collage or cut-out, meaning I grab bits of text from different places to create a new text. That’s how “Sky Ferreira” came about. I was asked to create songs out of other people’s poems for a lit mag called Dum Dum Zine. I stared at these pages until words jumped out at me and I could hear a melody. I pulled them out of context but some sort of meaning brought them together. I didn’t know much about Sky Ferreira, but I do love her name. A name has poetry in itself. That song is about being young and seeking freedom and release and beauty, and what you do when you’re trying to navigate life, delving into the dark side, so I think actually it ended up making quite a bit of sense.

Q: When you play live, you have this sort of revolving door of people that come play with you, what’s that all about?

Gerard: What you call a revolving door, we call an immersive energy field that touches all and from which none can escape. Bloody Death Skull is not a band, it is the natural order of things. Everyone is a part. There are no band members, only beings who refuse to struggle against the truth that they are and have always been Bloody Death Skull. Someday all matter will succumb, and we will all ride into the golden future content with the knowledge that Bloody Death Skull is the only way, the only truth. - Coming Up Magazine

"Mock dirgy sock-hop…Imagine Wednesday Addams all grown up and kicking Kate Bush all over the lot.” —L.A. Record
"Unhinged psych-­pop provocateurs"—LA Weekly
"The effect is both childlike and somehow psychedelic."—Weirdest Band In The World
“Ramshackle, disorientingly dreamy folk”—Amoebablog
"Experimental neo-soul"—Eagle Rock Music Festival
"Tin pan Dali"—American Pancake
“Psychedelic folk anarchy”—Don Bolles, The Germs
“No-boundaries, experimental ukelele-enforced pop”—Indie Rock Reviews -