Five minutes with Stankid

Hey, thanks for chatting to Forte. First up can you introduce yourself to our readers and tell us a bit about your music?
Hey! No, thank you. I’m Stankid, I’m a 23 year old singer/songwriter currently based in Geelong.
When it comes to my own music, each song I write is different – in genre, in feel, and in spirit – as music is an important part of my life and writing is genuinely how I express my thoughts and feelings.
Congratulations on your debut EP Inner Child that was released earlier this year. Can you tell us a bit about the recording process? How long were you working on this for?
Thank you! We recorded Inner Child in the studio, which was a whole new experience for me. When I was choosing the songs for the EP I was really indecisive, and I ended up doing scratch tracks for eight songs which we inevitably had to nail down to four. The drum tracks were recorded first in May courtesy of Jake Pickering, which I believe only took a day, what a beast! Then in July, we all started piecing it all together and after five days of creative tennis in the studio, Inner Child was completed. I’d been working on the content for a while, two of the songs I wrote back when I was 17-18 years old. I just had them sitting in the vault until one day in 2016 I heard them at Oxygen College with the sound of a full band and never looked back. The other two I had only been playing for a year prior to recording…
Where did you draw your main inspirations and influences from for the four tracks?
My inspiration came from two places – the first being my own thoughts, feelings and emotions. The lyrical content in a song like, ‘Crazy Maybe’, for example, which draws inspiration from the feeling of “maybe I’m not doing enough with my life”. The content to me felt angsty and thrashy, thus leading to the music having a Punk-ier vibe.
A song like ‘Early Morning’, which is about day to day life dealing with mental illness, lead me in the direction of a more vulnerable and almost somber feel.
I was also influenced a lot by other artists, I grew up listening to heaps of different genres of music, influenced by different people. Everything from Aus Rock, 70’s Punk, and classic old Rock n Roll from my father, 90’s-2000’s Punk & Rnb from my brothers and Pop from my mother. But my two biggest influential artists would have to be Jason Mraz, (which most people seem surprised by) and the band Sublime. They both really envelope the beachy combination of Blues and Reggae that I was influenced by. All these different blends of music have subconsciously shaped, who I am as an artist and a creator.
You’ve also recently graduated from Oxygen College last year. What led you to study Music Industry?
When I first started playing guitar and writing songs, it was more or less as a hobby, with a very basic knowledge of music. But my passion to take it further spiked when I picked up this hitch-hiker on the way home to my Mum’s house in Queensland. He was from Melbourne and we got along like a house on fire. I ended up hitch-hiking with him up the East Coast of QLD with our guitars, busking pretty much any chance we got. When I returned to my mother’s after three months of being on the road, he kept telling me “the music scene in Melbourne is huge” so on New Years Eve of 2014/2015, I told my brother that I was going to hitch-hike to Melbourne and see what it’s about. My brother, who is also a musician, told me to pack the van. Then we left and drove to Geelong. My brother actually found out about Oxygen College through a friend. He applied, and told me to do the same, which I’ll never regret. Oxygen not only opened my mind to a lot of new concepts and theories, but it gave me the necessary tools to further develop myself as an artist and as a business (like how to prepare for this Q & A).
You’re originally from QLD. How do you find the Geelong music scene compares?
To be honest, I grew up on Bribie Island, where the only real music scene was created by the locals, and it was called “Locals Only.” It was where anyone of any age could book in to play, they held a monthly gig down at the pub and it’d run all afternoon. So I can’t really comment on the likes of Brisbane or the bigger cities, because I didn’t really experience it.
But the Geelong music scene is really groovy, I was immediately exposed to a new world of live performance and a variety of styles, like Hip-Hip, Metal, Punk, Indie and even a little Country. Going out for a drink and watching firsthand what I had just learnt about that week at school was a great chance to connect with such a broad musical scene.
Where are you most at home with your music – on stage performing or home/studio creating the music?
That’s an interesting question, they both have their pros. I like the raw, uncut creative side of playing guitar at home, don’t get me wrong, but overall I prefer the energy of playing on stage. Something about having people hear my songs excites me.
What’s next for Stankid?
I’m interested in collaborating with other local artist, especially those with a different genre to me. It’s really cool to create with people whose influences are different to yours, because that’s how you find new influences too, which is never a bad thing. But right now I’m actually in the process of returning to my roots for a while, stripping it all back to just acoustic and creating new material whilst searching for inspiration in everyday life.
Check him out at www.facebook.com/Stankidmusic/