Skyler Acord: “I feel like, within the next few singles, people are going to really understand what I’m trying to do…”

For former Issues bassist Skyler Acord, the last twelve months have been a journey of discovery. Following the chaotic break-up of the highly-rated R&B metal crew to the release of his first solo material, to his first tour as a solo artist, the musician is using every one of these experiences to shape his music, and his career.

In our latest Cover Story, Skyler talks to us about the end of Issues, what he took from those experiences into his solo career and how he is now only just starting to discover who he is as an artist…

Thanks for your time Skyler, how’s life treating you at the moment.

“Apart from sorting out a toxic mold problem in my apartment which, honestly, is pretty much what life is right now, I had a really busy summer and I have a bunch of music’s coming out. Seven Hours after Violet, Shav from System of A Down’s band, he just put out a song that I co-wrote with them and then Arrows In Action are putting out stuff that I co-wrote with them. I just did a bunch of stuff with another band as well that’s going to come out soon. A lot of stuff I’m really excited about.”

The last six months has been quite busy and the summer has been even busier with the Don Broco tour. Going back to when Issues ended, your first single came out in July. That’s a fairly quick turnaround from the ending the band. Where did your plans start following that whole situation and restarting your solo career?

“Well, ending the band was… we didn’t want to end the band, we wanted to keep it going, but it just turned into me doing basically everything and trying to get people to show up. It’s one of those things where you’re in a relationship and you can just tell it’s not being reciprocated a hundred percent like not everybody believes in it. You can either cut it off and stay friends or you can hang out and stay and try to make it work and probably end up resenting each other.

“We didn’t want to end the band, we wanted to keep it going, but it just turned into me doing basically everything and trying to get people to show up.”

So, for me personally. The former is a better option and, you know, I miss playing in Issues. I wanted Issues to still be around but it should not be a solo project, that’s what it was turning into. I wanted Issues to happen in conjunction with with my solo music but, basically, this year, as far as my stuff goes, the idea was to put out all this stuff from the second EP True Vanity which supposed to be like a little more pop-oriented, a little more R and B and gothy and stuff. More to flex my muscle and stay sharp, have fun making it.

Now that Issues is no more, I don’t have an outlet for anything aggressive, so I’m almost thinking about just switching gears and going to my third EP, which was gonna be True Violence, and it’s gonna be more aggressive. I’m still doing sessions. I’m still writing songs somehow, and, just because I’m pissed off I have to deal with this mold situation, it’s just coming out heavier.”

Have your plans changed over the last 12 months?

“I believe so. I’m still just starting really so I don’t have, for better or worse, I don’t have a ton of organization. I’ll write a song. I’ll like it and I’ll put it out. That is how it’s been this year but, for True Violence, I really want to, and this is a very recent epiphany I’ve had, I want to really take this holiday season and flesh it out. Get all the songs done and have it all ready to go with songs coming out every month and a half. Do the whole thing because I’m sick of cramming which is what I typically do.”

At the end of Issues, did you sit and take stock of that whole journey, and especially the last few months of that? If you did what did you take from those experiences?

“I feel like I am I’m just getting to that now. Of the three songs that I put out this year, the first one which was “White Lace,” was pretty quick after the Issues shows. I had written that years ago and had finally gotten it done so I was just excited to put it out. The second one is “You That I’m Missing” was literally just the next one that was done. I wrote it and then put it out a month later. The third one, same kind of vibe.

I haven’t had a chance to really process my artistic trajectory since the end of Issues until right now when I’ve been forced to because of this my home situation. I’m actually getting a lot out of it. I think that with a little distance I can really understand what makes Issues special and what I miss about playing Issues and performing Issues. I don’t get that outlet anymore so now I’m really realizing what I am as a musician, as opposed to what I am in Issues.”

Recently you did your first solo tour with Don Broco. What were the differences between doing that as you, the artist, and you, the member of Issues?

“The biggest difference, honestly, is just how much money there is… or isn’t. With Issues, we had a crew, we had a bus, and just little things you take for granted. With my solo stuff, it was just me and two other people. It was my brother on drums and a guitar player, Nick Barron, who I met through Home Team.

As it was just three people in total, and it was my tour, I felt a ton of responsibility as it’s my name on the flyer. I was driving a lot of the time, at least a third of it. I was selling merch. I was setting my own stuff up. I was meeting people, doing the whole schmoozing thing and trying to hang out and be on tour at the same time. Honestly, it was exhausting. I can’t tour like that again. That’s part of the reason why I’m trying to go so hard on my music this next year. It’s because I need something to pop so I can afford to tour again. I need people to show up and care and buy the shirts. It was fun getting the experience but I need a little help.”

V13 Cover Story – Issue 74 – Skyler Acord

You put out an EP in 2023. Where did the seeds get planted for you to do a solo project?

“It really started with trying to write stuff for Issues and then realizing my voice and Tyler Carter’s voice were just very different. Some of the stuff I would write would work for Issues and some of it really wouldn’t, but I’d still like it and think it’s a good song. I started to build up a catalogue of ideas and then I realized…

In 2018/19, I started getting way more into dream pop and shoegaze and the goth world of music. Growing up I missed out on anything under the punk umbrella. I was like pure metal, all I cared about was metal. No clean singing and then like R and B, but anything that would count as punk, like post-punk, even shoegaze. I totally missed it. I then had a period of really intense music discovery and it just inspired me to try new sounds, try new things, use the bass in different ways especially because the bass is so important to post-punk and that whole thing.

The combination of discovering that whole tree of music that I truly, truly loved and having songs that I wanted to write and were just sitting around just naturally developed into a thing where I was doing my own sound. Then the pandemic came and I had two years to sit on my ass and figure it out.”

“Some of the stuff I would write would work for Issues and some of it really wouldn’t, but I’d still like it and think it’s a good song.”

Did that two years give you a chance to develop the project and did it change from your original vision?

“It definitely gave me a chance to develop and it did change but I feel like it’s always changing. I started it in the same way that we started Issues almost like a whiteboard where I just wrote stuff that I wanted to do. I didn’t know how it was going to match or how the pie chart was going to happen. I knew I wanted to combine Dream Pop, Extreme Metal, so like black metal kind of sounds, and R& B but I had no idea where that was going to go.

Even then it’s almost drifted and drifted. Growing up, I played a lot of funk, so there’s more funk than I initially intended going on, but that’s never a bad thing. Over the pandemic, it just developed. I feel like True Violence is going to be a true fusion but, up until now, it’s been like, “Okay, this song is a little more over that way. This song is a little more that… a little more post punk, a little more goth, a little more metal, a little more of this or that or whatever.” I feel like now I’m finally coming to like a centre point to where this is what I sound like.”

Dream Pop to Black Metal is quite a spectrum. Who does that make your audience?

“That’s hard. I’m still working on that. If I could snap my fingers and just end up on tour with somebody, I’d love to tour with somebody like Mk.Gee. I love his work. Some of the classics as well… I love The Cure. I love Cocteau Twins, but that’s just not going to happen. Then there is the metal side of things, there’s a lot of blackgaze happening that world… That’s my background as far as metal goes because I grew up in Washington and we just had a lot of it.”

Given the broad range of influences, are there any people you would like to collaborate with?

“Totally. There’s somebody, we’re acquaintances, I think I’m a bigger fan of him than he is me maybe, but his name is Devin Morrison and he does a real niche of R and B which he calls Dream Soul. It’s like Dream Pop but really musical… wavy, I guess? I’d love to work with him. We’ve talked about it, but just hadn’t gotten to it. We were going to do an Issues song together, but Issues collapsed before that happened.

I’d love to work with Mk.Gee or Dijon or there’s somebody who I play with sometimes his name’s Brad Oberhofer. He’s in that world too. He’s more of a straight up indie kid. We started one, but we never finished it. I’d love to finish that.”

As for your own music, lyrically it seems quite personal. How much of that has been inspired by the last few years?

“That’s the thing is a lot of the lyrics… I realized this is an ADHD thing, but I don’t really listen to the lyrics unless I like really focus on them. So, when I was going through my discovery of the punk genre, the punk world I guess, I realized how important lyrics were to it and that’s probably why it never resonated with me before. I’m really resonating with the lyrics that Bjork would write, or the lyrics that Robert Smith or even some of the nonsense stuff like Cocteau Twins would write.

All that stuff inspired me, or actually Siouxsie and the Banshees is a great, great example, because a lot of times when they would write, they’d get so specific that it was disorienting. It’s not like they’re writing big ideas or looking for general amorphous kind of sounds or words to put together. They’re not just looking for that. It just kind of happens because they’re literally describing what’s in front of them.

Like if I were to describe what’s in front of me, a blank white wall, sun radiating off the chandelier or something… what are you fucking talking about? Then I turn it into like a mold song or something because I’m in an empty apartment, it’s that kind of observational writing. Just writing about what’s actually going on. It’s always been a challenge for me. I just like doing it because it’s hard and it’s fun.”

“When I was going through my discovery of the punk genre, the punk world I guess, I realized how important lyrics were to it…”

Going back to Issues then. At the end of that period, you’ve talked about it as being quite chaotic and compared it to a relationship going wrong. What did it feel like coming out of the other side of that?

“It was depressing and happy at the same time. The farewell shows were insane. We’d play LA and then that night we’d go to the airport, sleep on the floor, fly to Chicago, play Chicago the next day then fly home and then do the same thing the next weekend. It was a whole fucking thing. Anytime there’s a lot of pressure on stuff like that, like last shows ever, then everybody comes out of the woodwork to hang out. I saw a lot of friends and it was just kind of a blur.

The one thing I wish I could have done because I was still driving the ship, building the tracks, organizing a lot, I wish… I think about the us at the end of the Beautiful Oblivion tour or at the end of a Warped tour when we are playing tight as fuck, like just ridiculous, and the only thing I wish is it could have been a real tour because we couldn’t really get into a flow. Yes, it sounded good but, to me and my standards, I want it to be like the end of Warped Tour, you know?”

Skyler Acord “The End of Everything” EP Artwork

Even though it was chaotic at the end, to look back and have those incredible memories it must make it all worthwhile?

“Totally.”

How do you think you’ve changed from all of those experiences… the good and the bad and how differently do you think you’ll approach things as a solo artist?

“I think the biggest thing that I learned a lot of this from touring with Twenty-One Pilots, honestly, is just being able to make a decision and stick to it. A big part of the reason Issues is Issues and sounds like Issues is because we used to waffle so much and have a hard time picking something and then like committing to it. It used to drive me batshit crazy because I was living with it but the music turned out the way it did because of that and I think it’s awesome. I feel like good bands are like that.

Really good bands are about chemistry and the compromise and what everybody can agree on but I feel like great solo artists are ones that make a goddamn decision. What’s the color palette? Like, does everybody on stage have a certain type of pants or what kind of outfit are you wearing? What are you calling your fans What are the lights doing on the show? An example, there’s this band Cigarettes After Sex, and I remember seeing them on the live feed at Lollapalooza when I was in South America with Twenty-One Pilots and it was funny because we were all texting the group chat saying this is insane how little there is going on and how everybody’s fucking loving it. They’re just standing there not moving at all, just doing their thing, listening to the music, that’s exactly what you want.

At the end of the set one thing happens, a disco ball comes down, that’s it, and everybody lost their goddamn minds. So, even that is decision after decision after decision to literally not do anything on stage and then just have the one piece of production which is a disco ball, just being able to not phone that in. Anything you make a decision about can be an extension of your art form so the more you can actively make decisions about the more you can express yourself.”

Do you feel it’s easier given what you said about your personality, that you fit more as a solo artist then?

“No, I definitely fit more in a band, but that’s just because I have way more experience doing that. Also part of the allure for me of being a solo artist is because it’s so hard for me. I love a challenge.”

Going back to what you said then about being in a band, how different was it in Twenty-One Pilots? How different was that compared to Issues? The production was just next level. What was it like stepping into that world?

“It was a shock for sure. I think immediately the thing that blew my mind was just the scale and the professionalism. It’s very clear Josh and Tyler run the show. The decisions get made from there and then trickle down. It was just a very well run company and organization and it has to be because of how big the crew is. The crew is like 60, 70 people so then playing, it was really calm.

Something would go wrong or if something went wrong, then there was a dedicated sort of contingency plan that had already been gone over. Everybody knew exactly what they were supposed to do. It was like business as usual, which is so comforting because that means I can just play the show. I can just focus on the music and performing and I can count on everybody to do their jobs. It was honestly very liberating and so much easier.”

“I think immediately the thing that blew my mind was just the scale and the professionalism. It’s very clear Josh and Tyler run the show.”

Do you watch and learn from people at that level? You’ve talked about the professionalism, the tightness of the show. What do you take away from that to put into your own work?

“The biggest thing, especially from Twenty-One Pilots is how they really focus on developing a culture and doing things on stage that will sell. With Iissues, we put together a show that was always really tight musically but, as far as the actual show and building out visually, that was almost an afterthought. We put it together near the end of our process. With Twenty-One Pilots, everything was thought about visually, even the music so they would go from a verse and a chorus of this song to a chorus of this song to a metal section.

They would go through a lot of music really quickly in certain sections of the set and the whole point of that was first of all to give all the O.G. fans something that they want. Second of all, it felt like a very visual experience like you’re going from scene to scene, to scene, to scene. It’s just captivating and I think, in my solo music, I’m just thinking about writing music from the perspective of performing live and then visually how it is experienced which has been really eye-opening after going on a tour like that.”

So, if you were to sit and write down your thoughts for a visual live show, what would it be?

“For me and my music, I’m realizing that I really enjoy epicness and larger than life, grandiose kind of vibes.”

Do you see it as the disco ball vibe or do you see it as somebody throwing a petrol bomb into a car, which I’ve seen Twenty-Pilots do?

“More the latter. What I want eventually is to be like a metal as fuck solo artist. Rap has already done that right? The Ghostmane’s and the Suicide Boys and all that. The edge is there but not really the production like that unless you’re at the very top level. I’m talking… what’s that fucking band… The joke band? The movie with the Stonehenge?”

Oh, Spinal Tap.

“Yeah, I’m talking like Spinal Tap levels or Rammstein levels, right? Obviously, they have a shit ton more money than I do but just the epicness is just so sick to me.”

Just to wrap up, the last year has seen quite a lot of changes for you. Where do you see yourself now and where is this journey going to take you?

“I feel like I’m still in the discovery phase. I feel like I’m in a period of extreme transition which is scary, but it’s also fun. As far as my career goes, I’m biding my time to really display what I want to display… to really put out the music I want to put out. The transition from band guy to solo guy, that’s hard for other people to swallow.

People who’ve been following me, they’re like, “Wait, the bass player for Issues is doing like some like goth pop star shit. What is he even, what the fuck is that?” I understand that because I’m trying to figure it out myself and I feel like within the next few singles, people are going to really understand what I’m trying to do because only now do I understand it.”