SKINLAB's STEEV ESQUIVEL on new album coming, solo band announcement & the bands future!
Laughing Monkey with Shawn RatchesShow Notes
Skinlab is a San Francisco Bay Area heavy-metal band formed in 1994 by vocalist and bassist Steev Esquivel, guitarists Mike Roberts and Gary Wendt, and drummer Paul Hopkins. Emerging from the Bay Area’s thrash-metal tradition, the band built its identity around groove-heavy riffs, aggressive vocals, and a sound that resisted easy genre labels. After attracting attention with early demos, Skinlab signed with Century Media and released its debut album, Bound, Gagged and Blindfolded, in 1997. The record established the band as a hard-hitting new presence in American metal. It was followed by the Eyesore EP in 1998 and Disembody: The New Flesh in 1999, both of which expanded Skinlab’s reputation for intense, rhythm-driven songwriting. Lineup changes shaped the band’s next phase. Guitarists Steve “Snake” Green and Scott Sargeant joined after the departure of original members, while Glen Telford later entered the lineup. In 2002, Skinlab released ReVoltingRoom, produced by Steve Evetts, showing a somewhat broader and more melodic approach without losing its heaviness. The group split in 2003, but returned in 2007. Their reunion led to The Scars Between Us in 2009. After another quieter period, Skinlab re-formed in 2016, with Esquivel and Hopkins again central to the lineup. The band released Venomous in 2019 and later returned with the single “Flesh Wounds,” continuing its legacy of uncompromising Bay Area metal.
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