Prague four-piece Skywalker are back with their new album Late Eternity, proving they’re ones to watch with their unique blend of post-hardcore, metalcore, electro, new wave and skate punk. We caught up with vocalist Jay Kucera following the release to discuss the band’s formation, influences, his first musical memory and more.
Firstly, tell us a bit about yourself and your band.
Hey! My name’s Jay and I sing in Skywalker. We’re a four-piece band from Prague, the very heart of Europe, the mother of all cities, as we call her. Our music is a mixture of various sounds and genres, we like to call it post-hardcore as that’s a great umbrella term, but you’ll find elements as varied as metalcore, elecro, new wave, or skate punk in our music.
How did the band form and how long have you been together?
We formed from a bunch of punk rock bands we were all in during our high school years. We all met each other through punk rock shows and at a certain point we all simultaneously realised we were no longer inspired by the sound or the scene at the time. We also became much more interested in heavy music, and so we left our original bands and decided to form our own group, aimed at exploring new sounds. We’ve been together for such a long time because we’d known each other even before Skywalker, more than a decade now!
Can you remember the first time you realised you wanted to make music?
I think for all of us it was around the time we really got into Blink-182. Obviously, we’d been listening to music for years before that, but I think it wasn’t until Blink happened that we realised that we actually wanted to do this too. That would be when we were maybe 13 or 14. I think the story goes the same for all of us, which is really cool.
Who and what are the band’s main influences?
So definitely Blink in terms of why we even are active musicians, but it’s easy to hear we’ve got really far from their sound. However, as the band we are nowadays, I think the most influential band regarding both our sound and how we view creativity within modern day metal/alternative rock, would be Deftones.
What do you aim to achieve as a band?
I’m not sure how to answer this. We don’t really have goals, we prefer aims in the form of a path that we continue to walk. We seem to really have found a place sonically and lyrically where we feel comfortable in terms of authenticity, genuinity and expression. I think we mainly just wanna carry on doing what we already do. Of course we want to get our music in front of as many people as possible. We’re really itching to get back on stage, because touring is really where we shine and thrive. I think we really wanna see the world and showcase our music to anyone who’s got ears to listen. We know we’re always going to be an underground band, but we always get feedback relative to the life changing experiences our music has offered to people, and that’s simply astounding. So if we can keep it up and grow with it, we’re bound to have attained our personal nirvana, haha!
For those who are yet to see you live, what can they expect from a Skywalker show?
Carnage! Seriously, we’re typically not the heaviest band on a metal bill but often by far the heaviest on a rock bill, so that makes it both tricky and challenging in a good way. You can always expect a real connection if you’re open to it. We aspire to be professional but we always wanna have fun, too. We never take ourselves too seriously so expect childish, silly, out-of-place jokes in between really dark songs. We love that balance.
What’s next for Skywalker?
Of course, it’s incredibly hard to tell now but we’re working on a really, really cool project following the release of Late Eternity, which you’re gonna hear about very soon. We aim to stay very active. We’ll keep on writing new music for the follow-up release, but we’re also gonna keep on working with Late Eternity and once touring resumes, we’re gonna go hard on stage. We’re not going anywhere fast!
Skywalker‘s new album Late Eternity is out now via Pale Chord, available to stream or purchase HERE.
