You've been the only constant member in The Skies Revolt since starting the band. At this point, how much does The Skies Revolt feel like it’s just your project, or how much does it feel like it’s a new band? Dave Prindle: Weirdly enough it's always been my project for the most part. It's never actually ever had a steady line up, at certain times though, there have been members that lasted longer and contributed more. But people get tired of the road, or get married or offered a good job that won’t line up. I think that is a big part of what's made it mine, is I've always been willing to fight and keep it going. The point it felt most like a new band was when Skelletones closed. That was our main venue, and the only constant the band knew. Around that time Nate (only other long lasting member) also decided to move on. So that was when it felt the most like a new band. We have been getting told more and more though, not to discount past members, musically and live show wise, this current lineup is our best lineup.
How many people have come and gone from The Skies Revolt? How did the band’s current lineup come together? This gets complicated. The band has had five drummers, seven bass players, three guitar players and multiple fill-ins. We've had returning and revolving members too. Adam, our original guitar player, was our second drummer. Jarred our fourth drummer has come back as a guitar player. We have had members commute from Kentucky, Missouri and Indiana. Currently the lineup is me, Rusty Vining (bass/vocals), Nate Smith (drums/vocals), Bobby Dowell (guitar/vocals, from Kentucky) and Jarred Irby (guitar/vocals, from Missouri). Basically I needed to find a group of people that was willing to go on the road more and live with nothing. So I found Rusty and Nate and we went out touring as a three-piece. On one of those tours we ran into Bobby who had played guitar in a different band we had toured with and he jumped on board. Believe it or not though, this is one of the longest lasting lineups and seems that it will be for a long time. I did have to eventually accept that the band was me and whoever wanted to go along on the adventure for a little period of time.
How did you approach the new album, Some Kind of Cosmonaut differently from any of your previous albums? How long did you end up working on the new album? This album is definitely our biggest undertaking. It started off with fourteen songs and then narrowed down to twelve. There is more melody and more dynamics in this album. I wanted to write something that was something people could have fun with live and sing along to. I wanted to take it to a more positive place, so had to push myself to write different style lyrics than I have in the past. We recorded it at The Foxboro with Mike Cervantes and spent over a month in the studio with him working on it.
What would you say are some of the biggest differences in how the album sounds? This album has much more melody. It’s fun writing heavy stuff, but once it’s been written I don’t feel the need to write it again.
Is Some Kind of Cosmonaut something of a reference to the title of your EP Some Sort of War? How did you decide on the album title? It’s not a reference. It’s a quote from one of the greatest stories of all time...Ghostbusters. When they head into the hotel elevator to go after Slimer, their first job, some guy looks at them and asks them what they are supposed to be, "Some kind of cosmonauts?" The decision to use it was because it also fits what we are trying to do with this album. We are trying to go places musically we’ve never gone before, we are pushing it harder than we’ve ever pushed an album before.
What song did you make your “Choose Your Own Adventure”-inspired music video for? How did you decide on that concept, and how did you end up working that into the video? It's actually two things. We made a music video for “It’s All In The Reflexes” that features a lot of claymation and construction paper. The “Choose Your Own Adventure” is a separate thing. We wanted to give people a reason to come to our Web site. “Choose Your Own Adventures” were fun books for kids, so we thought why not make a video based one for our Web site with us in it.
You guys are giving away a Super Nintendo as a prize for a contest. Are you all fans of old school gaming? I still think side the older simple games are the funnest of games. Being that we are still a DIY band we don’t have thousands of dollars to throw into contests, but we wanted to have a contest and we wanted it to be something fun. Super Nintendos are fun. We want people to send us in drawings of Action and Adventure – no talent required – to us at superdupernintendo@gmail.com. From there we will post them on our Facebook (facebook.com/theskiesrevolt) in an album. Whatever picture gets the most Likes wins the Super Nintendo. There will be prizes for second and third place to.
What’s the super secret project you guys are working on with the band Motion City Soundtrack? How long have you known those guys? That project we aren’t allowed to say much about until its release. We actually just met them, they were looking for bands to be part of this project and someone mentioned us to them. (MCS guitarist) Josh (Cain)liked us and contacted us. Then he brought us out to Philadelphia to record a seven-inch with him and (MCS vocalist/guitarist) Justin (Pierre) producing it. That’s about as much as we are allowed to say for now though.
You have all your previous releases available as free/pay what you want downloads on your Web site. Why did you decide to do that, and how do you feel that has worked out for you so far? Times are hard, not a lot of people have a lot of spare money these days, so we wanted people to be able to have our music regardless of money, but not have to find us on torrents or something like that. Since we started that, when we are out touring, there have been more people out at our shows. So it’s done something. This newest album however, won’t be included with those others. Not because we are greedy or anything like that. I don’t think there is anything greedy about wanting to sell the music you spent a lot of money to make. It’s more that if we make everything free, eventually it will become expected and we will start losing our value to people. It was never the plan to make every future album free, just the current ones we had. That way at least something is our there for people who want it.
In the years that you’ve been a band, how has the West Michigan music scene changed? What do you think about the scene right now? It’s changed a lot. When we started it was kind of in a growth phase. Still Remains had been signed to Roadrunner (Records) and people were starting to get excited about local underground music. Shows got bigger and bigger, people helped each other out, supported each other and it turned into one big community. The same people were coming out to punk, hardcore, metal, indie, ska, and rock shows. This older divide between the different scenes seemed to have disappeared. Everyone was getting along. I think Skelletones had a huge hand in that. It was a central venue that catered to the different underground scenes all in one building. That scene was built out of contributors though. What happened after that is another generation came into the age of going to shows, but they didn’t have to work to build it and therefore didn’t realize what they had been given. They didn’t understand needing to contribute to the scene. No one really thought to educate the next generation on how to keep a scene like that going. It became expected that there would always be good shows and crowds of people. As far as I can tell things fell away and split back into divided crowds. I do think that we are on another scene rise. I think that because the scene kind of died away, people have been forced back into having to work to build a scene. It’s just such a fragile thing, it takes so many elements coming together just right. Scenes always come in waves and I have a lot of hope right now for what’s to come.