Two types of people are easy to find in downtown Phoenix: people who play punk rock and people who listen to punk rock. However, when the two are combined to form a family punk band comprised of a 9-year-old and her dad, there is only one duo in our locale that can fit the peculiar description.
The concept of Sugar Skull Explosion is not one that could easily be paralleled with any other acts, even with the abundance of quirky local musicians in Phoenix.
They sing about mice eating rabbits and deadly operations, between endearing giggles and kid-friendly banter. They wear skull-shaped masks, complete with painted cracks, winged eye sockets and prominent canines. These help protect their secret identities, as do their aliases: E-Skull and J-Skull.
The next couple of months will provide the band with several opportunities to establish itself in the local music scene. Following a five-song performance at the third annual Indie 500 in late April, Sugar Skull Explosion will return to the Trunk Space on May 5 for one of the venue’s final shows. E-Skull, the band’s young drummer and vocalist, promises “skull-tastic” music for this show, as she opens for one of her musical influences, Minneapolis punk band Kitten Forever.
On June 24, the band will release a new album called “Zombie Party” through Casa Butthole Records.
With massively positive reactions to the band, since the late December release of their first EP, “Father Daughter Dance,” E-Skull has the confidence to call Sugar Skull Explosion “the most popular band in Arizona.” Whether or not they are, one thing is for sure: The duo is eye-catching and the loud punk that comes from it never fails to captivate listeners.
While the band didn’t play its first show until March 5, the idea had been forming since June 2015. This was when rock duo Dog Party — including female drummer Lucy Giles — played at the Trunk Space and provided E-Skull with strong musical inspiration.
“The drummer was the person that made me want to play drums,” E-Skull said. “So I started playing the drums. Then, in December, I suggested to J-Skull that we start a band and then it just all came together.”
For both members, selecting the genre for the band was an easy choice. E-Skull’s main influences are punk rockers, whereas J-Skull (the duo’s bassist and vocalist) already has musical roots embedded in punk.
The band notes that punk is more than just an appropriate genre for Sugar Skull Explosion to play. It is a performance style that breeds free thinkers, those who are willing to freely express themselves and those who are willing to let others do the same. Citing a Taylor Swift concert as an opposing example, the duo also said that punk allows the band to be on equal ground with listeners.
“She is on a huge elevated stage, while you are sitting in a seat watching and you probably can’t even see the performance,” E-Skull said. “With punk, the space isn’t as small and the performer usually isn’t on a huge stage.”
With relatively dark song lyrics in the “Father Daughter Dance” EP — ranging from “everybody’s gonna die” to “can’t escape the evil inside of me” — Sugar Skull Explosion still doesn’t quite fit the popular American image of a happy-go-lucky kid with a father dressed in a business suit. This breaking of a long-established mold is a strong part of what makes the band so intriguing, and even inspiring, for creative adults and imaginative children.
“Kids are full of energy and ideas and question everything, so I don’t know how any kids wouldn’t naturally like punk music,” J-Skull said. “It’s only after being beaten down by the world’s ideas of what they’re supposed to be that they turn into boring adults. That’s why kids need punk.”
While the world of punk and the music scene as a whole can be rough for females, not to mention a 9-year-old, J-Skull said that Sugar Skull Explosion has been able to consistently surround their performances with safe atmospheres.
“This band only plays sober spaces,” J-Skull said. “We’ve been playing our first shows at the Trunk Space, and feel lucky that we formed our band in time to play the original location. There are other alcohol-free spaces, but they’re definitely few and far between. But we’ll make it work.”
Playing at the Trunk Space encouraged the band to continue its music from the start.
“It’s such a creative and empowering place,” J-Skull said. “I feel like it gave both of us the courage to perform our original songs, and has had that effect on countless others too.”
Even with music at the roots of the duo’s close connection, E-Skull and J-Skull share several other interests that certainly set them apart from the average family: prank calls, sorcery and comic books.
With the latter interest in mind, Sugar Skull Explosion isn’t stopping at a mere album release. The duo is currently working on a new comic book, “Atomic Allies,” to supplement their already evident artistic entrepreneurship as a whole.
“We’re going to get rich off of those things to have a house made of gold,” J-Skull said.
Contact the columnist at Emily.Liu@asu.edu
