Round The Twist was the best thing on TV, Bob Hawke was our PM, and Billy Ray Cyrus’ Achy-Breaky Heart was atop the ARIA charts. The year was 1992, the same year legendary funk and rock pioneers Skunkhour were born. 

Having first formed a year earlier as Skunk, the name change coincided with vocalists and brothers Aya and Del Larkin coming on board. Their music wasn’t something we heard much of on the radio — their first album bringing a mix of funk, rock, rap, hip hop, ska, and jazz. It’s what’s kept them evergreen and still finding fans three decades on. 

Having made a name for themselves on the local live stage, it was in 1993 that Skunkhour made their recorded debut with their impressive self-titled record. As Aya Larkin remembers, it was a record that drew upon the group’s myriad influences.

“It was rooted in our love of older funk music,” Aya recalls. “And it's quite coherently presented sonically from that first album. Funk is really important to us, but so is new wave, so is hip hop, so is rock. The Beatles, Joy Division, Randy Newman, you know, anything. There's all kinds of stuff out there.

“As we started to create more music, we felt we wanted to get away from this heavily retro sounding scene that we'd sprung out of in Sydney, and it was a great scene. Like back in ‘92 we had these bands like D.I.G., Swoop, and Juice all doing their variations on funk”

“We were getting lumped as an acid jazz band, it was a kind of thing that a lot of the Aussie press used,” he continues. “We went to naturally start to bring in our other influences, to get away from that name and that movement having its natural crest and then dip. We didn't want to be associated with a fad, because we weren't just about that stuff.”

This era coincided with a radio wave — bands like Skunkhour forged their way in the world when it was a major player in the industry. Before a time when any song was at our fingertips, music fans found new stuff through the wireless. Airplay could get you record deals, sold out gigs, and much more. 

Skunkhour found their way onto triple j a number of times, with their music becoming a staple of the annual Hottest 100 countdown throughout the latter half of the ‘90s.

“Whenever we had the chance to come across our stuff on the radio, it was a little buzz,” Aya remembers. “And it was a similar thing for friends and family. But we were fortunate enough to have our moments in the sun with triple j with each of our albums. I think we've got album of the week with each of them.

“We were constantly touring through the ‘90s. We played more uni shows and universities than any other band. So you're in the van and you're listening to triple j. It was the place to get alternative overseas music.”

A couple of years after their self-titled debut, fans were gifted with the follow up, 1995’s Feed. This featured the hit Up To Our Necks In It, which the band will be celebrating 30 years of in an upcoming tour. 

The song was born when guitarist Warwick Scott brought a bare-bones track to the rest of the band. 

“I remember being taken aback by the series of guitar parts he had that he put in front of us,” Aya recalls vividly. “They formed this linked chain of complementary parts that had their own movement individually.

“Del had been sitting on this idea of a spoken word thing that didn't rhyme, which suited the mood of what Warwick had, and then the big riff in the middle of it, it keeps repeating. That thing came pretty quickly from Dean (Sutherland, bass).

Up To Our Necks In It was released in April 1995, the same month that Feed hit the shelves. Both ended up being some of the band’s major successes. While the album would reach No. 21 on the ARIA charts, the single would reach No. 56 – just four spots lower than their career peak experienced by 1994’s Mc Skunk EP.

“It all came quickly as a group in the same session,” Aya remembers. “I was challenged to come back with something, and I didn't want to come back with just some repetitive, melodic thing. So I similarly, just waited until inspiration kind of got me over the next few weeks, and found these open ended melodies, with no rhyme within it as well. 

“The bulk of it came on that day, and it was a good day. We weren't getting ahead of ourselves, thinking we unlocked some key to Narnia or some shit, but yeah, we were happy that it was happening.”

With the group bringing decades of tracks to the live stage later this year, it’s clear that 30 years on from the release of the track that changed the band’s trajectory, taking a musical step back in time in the rehearsal process is still a resonant, meaningful experience.

“Whenever we rehearse it, it feels kind of ritualistic,” Aya explains. “It starts in such a calm, kind of pensive manner, before it takes off and gathers its momentum and opens out.

“It always kind of strikes us in a little bit of a spiritual way when we start rehearsing it, which is really cool, and then live it always surprises us, how much people connect to it. It's always somewhat electrifying whenever we play it live.”

This month, Skunkhour are hitting the road for their aptly-titled Up To Our Necks In It (For 30 Years) tour. 

Trekking across the east coast over a few weeks, the band have promised "plenty of energy and good vibes" for their audiences, alongside "an emphasis on the more well known, dynamic funky side of our catalogue, sprinkled with some reworks, a few of our own faves, as well as some of the recent releases from the past couple of years."

For Skunkhour, it’s a chance to revisit the past and reclaim the energy that has followed them for all these years.

“It's an exciting time, but whenever you start to crank the machinery up again to get out on the road, it takes a bit of resources and a bit of time,” Aya notes. 

“We're really pleased with the kind of response we've been getting around commemorating that song so that's kind of giving us a bit of a shot of energy.”

It’s not all looking back in the Skunkhour world though, 2022 saw the group drop their brand new Parts Of The Sun EP. Time may have passed, and the band’s line-up may have shifted over the years, but the enjoyment of making music together still remains. 

“The biggest challenge was carving out the time with adult lives based in a different world, whereas previously we were full time musicians, and you could just lock yourself in the studio for weeks on end, and people would walk in and out and in,” Aya explains.

“It was fun, though. To get immersed in the musical ether and let things start to kind of happen. When we recorded, we rehearsed for a while, jammed for a while, and then took a short list and whittled it down.

“Then we had the subsequent weeks of recording and mixing, I'd been still doing a lot of that down through the years, so it wasn't like a completely foreign environment for me,” he adds. “And we all tended to work together quite well and remembered how not to annoy the shit out of each other.”

Tickets to Skunkhour’s upcoming tour are on sale now.

Skunkhour – Up To Our Necks In It (For 30 Years) Tour

Friday, October 24th – Everglades, Woy Woy, NSW

Saturday, October 25th – King Street Bandroom, Newcastle, NSW

Thursday, October 30th – The Northern, Byron Bay, NSW

Friday, October 31st – Burleigh Town Hotel, Burleigh Heads, QLD

Saturday, November 1st – The Triffid, Brisbane, QLD

Thursday, November 13th – Pelly Bar, Frankston, VIC

Friday, November 14th – Corner Hotel, Melbourne, VIC

Saturday, November 15th – The Gov, Adelaide, SA