### _Backstage with Progressive Alt-Rockers The Skins_
Just moments after a bone chilling performance inside the halls of the historic Belasco Theatre in Los Angeles, The Skins lead vocalist, Bayli, sits backstage with the rest of the quintet eating a fistful of blueberries while describing the band’s sound as, “genre bending.”
“So many people ask us what genre we fit into and we’ve just started to say ‘Genre Z,” The Skin’s guitarist, Daisy Spencer adds. “We’re not trying to do just pop music or just rock music or just X, Y, and Z…we’re trying to do it all.”
Hailing from the concrete jungles of Brooklyn, New York, The Skins provide a live performance that is just as eccentric, inclusive and non-conforming as the members of this 21st century renaissance band portray themselves to be.“The city has had a tremendous influence on the music we create and who we are as human beings,” band vocalist, bass player and Bayli’s sister, Kaya Nico said. “You can see \[Brooklyn\] in the music, the fashion, in everything.”
The Skins is currently touring the release of their latest EP “Still Sleep” as the opening act for LA based funk band, DNCE. Their performance at the Belasco was “pleasantly surprising,” first time Skins listener, Sabrina Kadrie said. “I hadn’t heard of them before tonight but I’m definitely going to look up their songs when I get home,” Kadrie said. “Their styles are all very unique but they look really good together, not too manufactured.”
A diverse look and sound is something The Skins band members take an enormous amount of pride in. “We work very collaboratively but we’re also all super individual,” Bayli said. “We each have our own individual taste, super different personalities and we just try to meld that into one.” Bayli says the overarching message she and the rest of The Skins hope their music conveys to their listeners is to simply, “be you”.
“Everything is Do It Yourself (DIY) with us. Everything is about taking initiative, not waiting around for someone to say, “its okay to do this,” Bayli explains. “We just want our listeners to feel welcomed into this world and we’re all about inclusiveness and universality. Even the word fans is weird to us, we refer to people who enjoy our music as friends, as family.”
Bayli admits the bands reason for picking the name “Skins” was superficial: “Our mom is from England so a skin there is a hottie, like a bad bitch and originally that’s why we picked it but as time goes on, people have given us meaning and we’ve really grown into the name” she said, “in a way, the name chose us.”
The Skins are [touring until early Feb](http://www.theskins.com/).
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Written by Eva Barragan
Photographed by Ryan Jay
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