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Inspired by the music of Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, and others, Skinny Puppy experimented with electronic recording techniques and methods, composing multi-layered music generally with synthesizers, found sounds, drum machines, manual percussion, tape-splices, traditional instruments, distortion, and samplers. Whereas many contemporary remixes and re-edits of songs were created in order to make a song more suitable for dancing or different radio formats, Skinny Puppy approached remixing and re-editing as an artistic process of reinterpreting compositions, often using remixes to push their sound into styles of ambient, dub and techno.
Skinny Puppy has been widely noted for their bizarre and confrontational live performances, for which every concert was designed to challenge the notions and beliefs of all who attended. Their music has had some acceptance in dance clubs because of its danceable beats, but has had little play on commercial radio. The band had very little commercial success outside of Canada, but their influence on industrial and electronic music in general is immense.
Skinny Puppy formed in 1982 out of the partnership of cEvin Key (Kevin Crompton; instruments) and Nivek Ogre (Kevin Ogilvie; voices) in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Key was dissatisfied with the direction of his then-current band Images in Vogue, and began Skinny Puppy with the intention of doing something "raw" and "real". Initially Key had planned Puppy to be a side project while he continued his work in Images, however, when Images in Vogue decided to relocate to Toronto [1] Key made Skinny Puppy his full time project.
An unconfirmed rumor has it that the band's name was derived from the skinny dog in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion attraction[citation needed]. Key has repeatedly commented on how the name was based on the concept of a "dog's eye view" of the world. Key had already created the name before Ogre joined the band and it was from this concept of "seeing through the keyhole" that Ogre penned the song K-9 (originally from Back and Forth) and voiced it in a rough growl that resembled that of a small talking beast. With engineer/producer Dave "Rave" Ogilvie (with no relation to the vocalist), Skinny Puppy began recording their first EP Back and Forth, which was self-released in 1983. The album drew the attention of Nettwerk Records, who signed the band in 1984. Key brought in Wilhelm Schroeder (a pseudonym of Bill Leeb) to play bass synth and background vocals in 1985, but by 1987 Schroeder had left the band to form Front Line Assembly. His departure was attributed to his lack of involvement and loss of interest in touring, as well as a desire to create his own project. Schroeder's departure allowed for the entry of Dwayne Goettel (synthesizers and samplers), who was classically trained and highly skilled as a pianist/keyboardist.
The dark electro-pop styles of their debut EP Remission (1984) and first album Bites (1985) earned the band a fan base. As their audience expanded with a distribution deal with Capitol Records/EMI, their production values continued to improve with the addition of Goettel on Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse (1986) and Cleanse Fold and Manipulate (1987). MTPI's Dig It received a fair amount of airplay on Toronto's CFNY.
They eventually became outspoken advocates for animal rights, and used the "Head Trauma" Tour (1987) and VIVIsectVI tour (1988) to expose concert attendees to videos of experimentation of animals. The title of the LP VIVIsectVI (1988) was a pun intended to associate vivisection with Satanism. The lyricson the LP were explicit, outspoken criticism of pollution (Hospital Waste), chemical warfare (VX Gas Attack), cocaine addiction (Harsh Stone White), deforestation (Human Disease (S.K.U.M.M.)), rape (Who's Laughing Now?) and promotion of sexual abstinence to stop the spread of AIDS/HIV (State Aid). The centerpiece of VIVIsectVI, Testure—which lyrically insinuated that vivisection was a Holocaust of animals and was motivated by a common greed of medical scientists—appeared on Billboard's Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in 1989.
During the late 1980s, the band members began working on various side projects, including Doubting Thomas, platEAU and aDuck. For Rabies (1989), Ogre brought Ministry's Al Jourgensen to produce with Rave. Prominently featuring Jourgensen and Rave playing electric guitar, Rabies was Skinny Puppy's first venture into heavy metal. This made it their most controversial and poorly reviewed album up to that time, owing to disagreement among listeners over whether the expansion of their sound into rock music made for effective artistic statements and whether they were deliberately making their sound more accessible and more mainstream. Jourgensen's presence did more to help divide the band than it did to keep it together, as they didn't tour to support Rabies while Ogre toured as an additional vocalist for Ministry. Key and Goettel were alienated from Ogre, who they felt was more interested in other projects than on keeping the band together. Creative differences also caused them difficulty working together.
Too Dark Park (1990) combined the harsh electronic rock of previous albums with waves of samples, layers upon layers of electronic instrumentation, and the most menacing ambience yet heard from the band, producing a dense, claustrophobic, suffocating album. The record Last Rights (1992) was arguably their instrumental, compositional and artistic masterpiece. Due to confusion and conflicts over the copyright to a talk by Dr. Timothy Leary used in the song, "Left Handshake" was excluded from Last Rights.
Ogre, Key, and Goettel signed a contract with American Recordings and traveled to Malibu, California, in 1993 to begin recording The Process.
Sadly, after completing The Process, Dwayne R.Goettel died at his home in Edmonton in august 1995. He will be dearly missed. As Nivek Ogre said at the time, "He was the littleknow genius behind the curtaun of Skinny Puppy."
1996-2000 There was no Skinny Puppy.
Nivek Ogre & Cevin Key were busy with their own bands and projects. (Download, The Tear Garden, ohGr, etc......)
In 2000, Ogre and Key performed as Skinny Puppy at the Doomsday Festival in Dresden, and then toured together in 2001 to support Ogre's solo project, ohGr. In 2003 Ogre, Key, Mark Walk and various guests including Danny Carey of Tool recorded the new full-length Skinny Puppy album, entitled The Greater Wrong of the Right, which was released on May 25, 2004. Skinny Puppy toured in support of "The Greater Wrong of the Right" twice in 2004, during which several shows were filmed for Greater Wrong of the Right LIVE, which was released in September 2005.
ADDICTION (live 1987)
GLASS HOUSES video
WORLOCK video
ASSIMILATE (LIVE 1988 - VIVISECT-VI TOUR)
STAIRS AND FLOWERS video
SPASMOLYTIC video
