GUITARIST MIKEY DEMUS ON SPLICING REGGAE WITH METAL AND CREATING SOUNDS THAT CROSS BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES
By Amit Sharma
WHEN IT COMES to his day job as the six-string protagonist in Welsh reggae metal quartet Skindred, Mikey Demus admits he’s been incredibly fortunate. Most guitar players get to hone in on one or two styles in any given project. With Skindred, who are releasing their eighth full-length, Smile, this year, he gets to wear all sorts of different hats and showcase a variety of musical personalities. “That’s a good way of putting it, actually — playing these different characters,” he tells GW. “I get to cover a lot of ground, from how I play to the sounds I dial in and the gear I use. It’s a lucky coincidence.”
On their latest recordings, songs like “Our Religion” and “If I Could” document his love for high-gain metal tones while elsewhere, on tracks like “L.O.V.E. (Smile Please),” “This Appointed Love” and “Mama,” he dials in cleaner sounds for rhythms that delve heavily into the world of dancehall and ska. Obsessing over artists as diverse as Jamiroquai, Rage Against the Machine, the Specials and Bob Marley throughout his teen years led to developing an extremely well-rounded musical palette and the ability to seamlessly chop and change through a smorgasbord of influences.
“The guitar seems to have a different role in a lot of Jamaican music,” he says. “It’s almost more about what you
