An Interview With... Birdskulls

The other day I asked a slightly drunk Jack from Birdskulls a few questions about his band and the South West's glowing music scene. Here are the results:

Who is in Birdskulls, how did you meet and what made you want to start the band?

Me and Rory are in Birdskulls. We met at Exeter College in 2008 on a stairwell going to lessons and bonded over a mutual love of the Foo Fighters and Smirnoff Ice (blue). We were in different bands before Birdskulls for a few years before, we spent a lot of time in the same friend circles and went to the same shows. I moved to Brighton and Rory went to Bournemouth. I wrote a load of songs in Brighton and decided to start another band; Rory was the first person I thought of to be in it.

Do you think being in the South West has influenced you as a band?

From the South West in the period 2006-2011 we spent a lot of our time at The Cavern in Exeter, which has always provided, from 91 when it opened, an amazing platform for local punk and indie bands. Ok Pilot, The Computers, The Cut Ups, Brothers, Dead City Stereo, New Years Evil, El Diego, The False Arrests and Resonate (old bands).

Are there any bands from the South West who you are particularly into at the moment?

There are some great bands from the south west for sure: Cereal, Muncie Girls, The Fairweather Band, Selfish Son, The Black Tambourines, The Red Cords to name a few!

Do you think outside of Bristol there is a lack of really good venues to attract bands to the area?

I don’t think its a lack of good venues at all, I think that a lot of the bigger bands don’t see a point in coming to the less populated south west when they could just play in London. Also, for the smaller bands it is hard to tour further into Devon and Cornwall because of the costs of getting back! The cavern is one of the most important venues in the UK because of its heritage and some bands don’t even know about it! NME’s fault.

Could you sum up the South West's music scene in one sentence?

Geddon you janner.