Uncle Skunk is an independent five-piece rock band based in New York City that aims to supplement inventive, melodic songwriting with intricate soundscapes that draw on diverse influences from folk to metal. The band was formed in 2018 when Otis Streeter (guitar/lead vocals) invited friends Sam Benezra (guitar) and Henry Pearson (guitar) to develop some of his home recordings for live performance. Robert Kim (bass) and Teddy Sidiropoulos (drums) joined as permanent members in 2021. Uncle Skunk has since been one of the most active bands in New York City’s local circuit, gaining a reputation as a “mammoth live act” (Look at My Records) built upon a dynamic rhythm section, dual lead guitars, and Streeter’s spirited vocal performance.

I love the name Uncle Skunk. There’s a bit of internal rhyme, and it sounds like the name of the host of an off-brand early-morning kids’ show from a bygone era. What does the name mean to you, and how does it relate to the music you make?

Otis: Uncle Skunk is quite literally my Uncle! This story may be a bit apocryphal at this point, but the name for the band came about after Henry heard me talking about something having to do with this uncle and the two agreed “this is a good name!”  Uncle Skunk the person (who’s name shall remain a secret for his own security) and I are very close and has always been a guiding light in my artistic pursuits. He’s a fun-loving, weird, goofy, sweet guy who’s seemingly forever stuck with a childlike creative sensibility. So I see the name Uncle Skunk as a bit of an ethos flowing from this living human being — I’m, not sure if any of the other guys in the band know that, but that’s how I have come to think of it (although that was certainly not the intention).

Sam: It’s a fun name, Uncle Skunk. It has a nice rhythmic cadence and is fun to chant, perhaps by hordes of screaming fans. I do find it very playful and I like your description as reminiscent of an off-brand kids show host. And yet it also conjures something dark in my mind. I think the combination of playful and dark is sort of befitting of our music so it works.  

Speaking of bygone eras, your website has a cool Geocities look that reminds me of the early days of the internet. Are you going for a retro vibe in terms of the band’s overall aesthetic—both visually and musically?

Otis: Visually we are certainly trying to recreate some sort of glitched out, almost broken seeming early internet sort of thing for our website… I had actually forgotten about Geocities but that is a great comparison. For a little while, Skunkweb.net was quite literally a broken website. I’m sure there are parts of it that still don’t work. Our original goal was to create a sort of mysterious experience that did a lot more than the standard band site would do while still remaining accessible. Skunkweb’s crown jewel, an infinite radio show of original content both musical and non-musical called Skunk FM, is still in development and will launch on June 17th, alongside our new  EP “II”. This idea was inspired by the They Might Be Giants website from the early 2000s that I used to go on all the time— it had a dot com version of their “Dial a Song” project (which you should look up if you haven’t heard of) that I thought was endlessly entertaining as a kid. I suppose this does link back to a general retro sensibility that permeates the band… I think we are, for better or for worse, a backwards looking group of guys who are trying to tastefully romanticize a time we sort of lived at the end of in the music we make. 

Henry: I can’t take any credit for the website but it looks sweet. Robert handled the web design component and Otis made the art for it. 

I think Skunk FM is a cool fusion between Otis’s Dial a Song inspiration and Robert’s vision for an infinite loop YouTube show sorta thing. I haven’t heard of another current band doing anything remotely similar for whatever that’s worth.

Sam: I would add to the above that our band has a pretty DIY ethic when it comes to most things- we’ve made some of our own music videos, we always track our music ourselves, and to this point we have designed all of our artwork. We also built the website (or rather Otis and Bob did). As a result some of it looks feels and sounds rough around the edges and I think that’s by design. I often like things a little rough and experimental. 

The band started when you asked a couple of friends, Sam Benezra and Henry Pearson, to help you adapt your solo home recordings to a live set. What were those recordings like, and how did adapting them for a live audience transform them?

Otis: The early recordings were, in retrospect, very focused on the recordings… which I’ve always thought to be odd considering that with a lot of groups it runs the opposite way. At least in my experience, bands generally start with the recording being a bit of an afterthought. But the more they play, the more important the process of recording becomes. That isn’t to say that the first recordings we made were technically great but there was a very intense focus on producing things to sound a certain way. When it came to putting these early songs together, things sort of fell apart! For me, I realized I couldn’t really sing the way I wanted to or could on recordings (which, to this day, is very frustrating). I realized I really had no idea how to play guitar. In general, things that worked well in the comfort of the home recording environment, felt really horrible live. So, off the bat, I think we definitely had a confused period. But over time I feel like I’ve leaned into the frustrations I have and accept that live Skunk and recorded Skunk will always be at least a little different. Live Skunk is certainly more chaotic. Some people have complained that when they come to see us live they’re seeing a different band… but I think that is a strength and true of some of my favorite bands. Ultimately, I think that adapting Skunk from a sort of creaky bedroom/indie band to a more raucous live act has created an interesting feedback situation where some of live elements are creeping into “the studio”. We still record everything ourselves so the meticulous approach to building out a song texturally is still very much at the core of our process but it has been really exciting to see some of the more noisy, thrashy components of our concerts popping up on our new EP “II”. 

Henry: The OG Otis demos are awesome. And that’s definitely still a core part of our sound. But when we first got together we really sucked for a while. But it’s been cool watching the progress over time… bouncing back and forth from recordings to live ideas then back to recordings and to new live ideas. The songs start taking on a life of their own. 

At this point, Uncle Skunk has been around since 2018, which, for a band, is a decent stretch of time. How do you keep your momentum going?

Otis: It is not always easy. I think we’ve made it this far without throwing in the towel because we share an undying love and level of respect for making art and collaborating with each other. Despite the inevitable frustrations of working on a fairly complicated, time consuming project for very little money, this mutual feeling always wins out. But organization and communication are also key. Much like a little fledgling nation or, perhaps more aptly, a recreational softball team, we’ve created our own sort of constitution and attempted to create a framework of rules, responsibilities and expectations that keep the ship moving without making the whole thing an insufferable, unfun bureaucracy. 

Henry: I totally agree. It’s a long game and I think we all deeply understand that. Otherwise we wouldn’t still be playing together. 

Sam: It’s a labor of love and it’s a lot of work and in many senses a totally ludicrous thing to engage in. But I kind of think that’s what’s awesome. We all really love the music and love what we can produce together, and ultimately the band is built on our friendship. I think when you focus on the product and the work you can create something interesting, and there’s few things as worthwhile as making something interesting with your boys. 

MP3 Hugger praised your first album, Uncle Skunk I, for its infectious dissonance. How does dissonance factor into your approach to music making? What do you like about it?

Uncle Skunk I is dissonant not necessarily by design but perhaps because we didn’t really know what we were doing. Henry and I used to half jokingly talk about how we really screwed the pooch on that song “Never Knew Ya”. The two of us recorded and mixed the whole EP together and for that song in particular we were aiming for some sort of pop song. Obviously, we fell short but the poppy idea was still embedded in there and I think the tension between that and a bunch of garbled chaos, poorly mixed together created a very unique product that I am quite proud of to this day. Dissonance in general is not something I’m ever striving for but when I stumble into it under the pretense of a nice sounding idea, I can dig it. 

I wasn’t on skunk I but the crazy noise and shit on that album sounds incredible – Sam

You’ve been compared to both My Bloody Valentine and the Replacements. Who else should might your music remind listeners of? Who are some of your influences?

Last year was personally a very odd year for me and I (unfortunately) basically exclusively listened to Paul Westerberg solo albums. I really admire the way he plays guitar and that has certainly crept into the way that I try to play. I would hope that people listen to Skunk and think of Paul. Beyond that, I listened to a bunch of The Pastels who I think also do a lot of the crappy sounding nice pop song sort of thing. Similarly, I am a huge fan of Alex Chilton’s particularly haphazardly thrown together kind of stuff. 

Henry: I feel like who our influences are vs who our music reminds people of get pretty different answers, especially with all our different music tastes in the mix (that was a dumb pun sorry). If people said to me “yo you sound like Paul Westerberg and Metallica had a baby that Neil Young delivered and baptized” I would be pretty stoked. But I mostly hear people say we sound like Alex G. I don’t know, maybe he likes the same bands. 

Sam: I just saw Neil Young at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium and he’s still wailing on his guitar out there. What beefy TONE! I think we all like a crazy mix of musical styles and bands but there’s some common thread that I can’t quite put my finger on. Personally, I do love the Replacements and MBV though. We’ll be releasing a Spotify playlist with music we like soon including some excellent local bands and close friends so keep an eye out for that! 

Your new EP is called Uncle Skunk II, which ostensibly makes sense because your first EP was 2019’s Uncle Skunk I. Complicating matters, however, is the existence of another EP, 2022’s Heaven River. What’s going on there? Do the self-titled albums hold different significance than the others? 

Otis: The plan, as far as I can remember, was that after “I” we would do “III” and then “II” sort of a la Star Wars but at some point “III” became “Heaven River” for some reason. I don’t think there is any significance further than trying to a little funny… I do think that if we do another EP it’ll be called “IV” or maybe even “V”. Time shall tell! 

Sam: You’re very right, Heaven River does complicate matters…

Along similar lines, how would you describe the new standard for excellence in rock and roll that you’re trying to set? How does the new album set that standard, and how is it at odds with the output of the American recording industry? 

Sam: That’s basically a comedically boastful way of saying that we’re trying to make some unique and really good rock and roll music. Maybe even THE BEST rock music. I don’t know. I don’t think we really have pretentions beyond that. But I do think we all want to make timeless, excellent music. And fuck it, I’ll say it. We make some good fuckin music!

Otis: Yeah, I agree with Sam… I’m not sure if setting “a new standard of excellence” in the larger world of music making is something we are capable of doing. However, for ourselves, I think this will mean staying true to our songwriterly, recording/craft-focused roots and discipline.

What’s on the horizon for Uncle Skunk?  

Otis: Up next, hopefully coming soon, is our first LP which we shall release on Cropsey Records. We’ve already started putting together some sketches for it and have a huge backlog of material (check out the Undercooked demo albums on bandcamp if you’d like to see about a quarter of the quarter baked Skunk ideas that are kinda in the oven). Last year was a crazy year for us as a live band. We played a lot, learned a lot and have all decided that we need to spend more time recording. The trade off there is that I think we will be playing live a bit less. But we will certainly be focusing more on getting back in the “studio”, creating new stuff and of course developing our neglected careers.

Sam: Keeping the train rolling. I think we’re all eager to get this music out there and to start building the next collection of songs. When everybody’s got lives and jobs it takes a while to cook up new material as a group. I think we’re all excited to get back to that part of the process.