Victoria’s Chris Eriksen (working under the alias Skov.) is one of the hardest working musicians in town. When he isn’t making his own music, he’s producing music for other artists, a hired gun in other bands, and a Jack Black style School of Rock music teacher.
After our photo shoot on the hottest day in April we headed to the beach where Chris took a plunge into the ocean before opening up in an interview with Tyson Elder.
Rocktographers would like to thank our good friend and collaborator Adam Lee from Victoria Music Scene filming our shoot and interview with Chris Ericksen. That video can be found here (and below).
Tyson Elder: Welcome back to the Band of the Month club, Chris. This is, what, number three?
Chris Erkisen: Thank you. This is number three for me. After Mad Mona and Trophy Dad this is the first original one that I’m the leader of.
TE: Congratulations, it is well earned.
Chris: I appreciate it. It’s been a long haul to get here and it’s cool to to get this experience.
Skov. – Photo by Tyson Elder
TE: Your single for the Band of the Month is So Cold came out last March.
Chris: Yes. It came out in 2020, uh, on March 2nd after a hiccup in the release date. It’s been doing okay. I can’t say I’m the best at marketing online and then COVID hit basically right after that. The song didn’t get the kind of push it needed right off the start unfortunately.
TE: Well, it’s a ripper of a song and I thought it was going to be the song of the summer, but COVID kind of took away all the songs of the summer.
Chris: Yeah, we had some pretty high hopes for it. Malcom, my producer, engineer, and who’s a good friend of mine from Band of Rascals. Whenever we work together, he always wants me to work super hard on the Skov. stuff. He says “this stuff is great and different, and let’s try and get this out there.” Unfortunately there’s just hiccups most of the time. It’s a learning curve and not every time it lands.
TE: Well, it’s going to land now. So Cold is going to be on the radio. People are going to be raving about it, trust me. I thought quite highly of the song and I think other people will too.
Chris: Thank you. I think this is a good one for the radio too. It’s in that blues-rock, Nathaniel Rateliff sound that The Zone goes for. I hope people like it.
TE: It’s definitely a little more energetic than some of the Nathaniel Rateliff stuff, but it’s definitely got that blues roots rock sound that’s popular right now. It’s fantastic.
Skov. photo by webmeister Bud
TE: Can you tell me a little bit about the song itself?
Chris: I wrote So Cold a few years back. The main gist of the song is kind this love and lust, and trying to figure out the difference between that. In particularly this song about a past relationship between two people had a major falling out. Within the song you’re kind of unsure what you’re doing is right and/or wrong but feels great. You can’t really pull away from it. I don’t want to say necessarily like an affair or doing something illegal.
TE: It’s definitely scandalous.
Chris: It’s that scandalous feeling, that chill down your spine, that adrenaline rush. That’s the feeling of So Cold. You’re feeling it and you can’t help but love it.
Skov. – Photo by Tyson Elder
TE: You’ve only got a couple songs out there as Skov., right? You’ve been producing a lot of stuff lately and you’ve got the new song out with Madeline Daye.
Chris: Last year I started working a lot on electronic music on my computer and I was looking for female artists to work with. Madeline and I had worked in a band before for a number of years playing covers. I always thought that she never got the time of day to do what she really wanted to. Basically with that we wrote an album together. I wrote all the music for her and she wrote most of the lyrics. We showed it to a few people to which who said should do this album in a real studio with a whole band and everything. We hired a band and worked all the details to make sure that her record kind of landed exactly what she wanted it to. I think as a couple of days ago she’s hit 50,000 listens on her whole album.
Madeline Daye actually has a new song called Eggs that will be coming out May that I am actually the engineer, producer, and mixing engineer on. Malcom Owen Flood mastered it. Hopefully it’s pretty big tune for her.
I also have three releases coming up for Chris Ericksen as well.
Skov. photo by webmeister Bud
TE: Okay… what’s the difference between Chris Ericksen and Skov.?
Chris: We’ve finally decided this. So Skov. is going to be the band. The rock group. The one that can perform live and the songs that are kind of more related to being a band. Chris Ericksen is going to be trap, pop, electronic music and things not necessarily band directed. Now it’s going to have that divide instead of being straight down the middle. All of the stuff that I don’t think really fits under Skov. will be going under Chris Ericksen. It’s kinda hard to mix blues rock and trap into the same group.
TE: I think we live in a genreless society now. Like if you look at my Spotify it’s all over the place.
Chris: I had a ton of this back and forth being about what should I do with Skov. What should I release it under this? What should I do with that? Having the separation of Skov. and what this identity is because it felt like an identity crisis for awhile. I’m still kind of figuring it out but Chris Ericksen kind of takes away that aspect of it. Now I can release all this music.
TE: With the trap and the more electronic stuff you can almost release that at any time. Whereas with like the full band thing, you’ve kind of got to plan that whole big release for that.
Chris: Exactly. After a whole year of trying to do it for Skov. and watching some success and some not so much success. It really gets you scared to put music out there and watch it flop. Right?
TE: I think that has more to do with the time we live in now. It’s hard to get noticed with so much going on in the pandemic. People want familiar, right? People lean back into to what they’re comfortable with and I think cutting through that with new music has got to be one of the most difficult things. Unless you’re a Netflix show or on Disney+, a new thing doesn’t always cut through. With So Cold on The Zone I think you’re going to see what you were hoping for over the last year. People are going to be paying attention.
Chris: That’s kind of the hope. As much as radio and all these things have changed so much it is still a huge part of how find new music. Even just to get a slot for a month is a huge deal for anybody.
TE: Look at past Bands to the Month and every time there’s a new song from Jesse Roper or Band of Rascals or Carmanah or Jon & Roy, people listen.
Chris: Absolutely. Once you kind of get your foot in the door it seems like that the help from the Zone family.
TE: I also feel like Victoria really supports its own. A lot of people really support the local music scene and the bands in this town. It’s just getting your music to those people.
Chris: Absolutely. The other reason why I have the two names is because I’ve been doing a lot of producing and engineering and it’s really hard to tell people your professional name is Skov.. Chris Ericksen is my more professional side to promote myself as a producer and engineer. Whereas my Skov. stuff is definitely more my artistry and I enjoy it.
Skov. photo by webmeister Bud
TE: When things get back to normal should we going to expect a big Skov. show? Who’s going to be in the band? We know it’s Chris Ericksen but who else is in the band?
Chris: As things come back there will be a Skov. show for sure. What it is and who it will be I have no idea yet.
Chris: We’ve got some really groovy tunes coming. We have new song called Dark Ice that we have coming out in May.
Tyson: Is that when you Ice someone in the dark? [Laughs]
Chris:[Laughing] That be a pretty good Tik Tok trend though. Dark Ice has that sexy dark vibe that Skov. was going for for a while. Skov.’s sound is always changing. It’s always transitioning. I don’t really know what’s going to happen next with it. There’s lots coming out. There’s also another secret country project that we’ve been working on.
TE: You and your secret projects.
Chris: Oh, I love it. There’s a lot of music to be done, but it’s what we do. That’s that’s life for us.
Skov. – Photo by Tyson Elder
TE: No shortage of new music it seems.
Chris: Any musicians out there, basically whoever’s doing it right now is going to be the people that are going to have the success coming out of COVID. If you’re doing the work now and you think you have more music than you need then you probably don’t have enough. You can always have more and you can always have more marketing. You always have more publicity. You can make sure that you’re on top of your game all the time. It’s a never ending battle. It’s uphill all the way. There’s no real downhill until you feel unsuccessful or do something stupid.
TE: Thanks for chat, Chris. Looking forward to hearing you on The Zone this May.
Chris: My pleasure!
Skov. – Photo by Tyson Elder
Catch Skov. and his song, So Cold, on The Zone @ 91-3 all May 2021 long. You canfind the song as well as two more of his songs for on his Band of the Month page.
Rocktographers is a proud supporting sponsor of The Zone’s Band of the Month program.
