Revolver has teamed with Ho99o9 for an exclusive violet vinyl colorway of their new album, SKIN, limited to 200. Order it — along with our Spring 2022 issue featuring Ho99o9 with Travis Barker on the cover — at our shop.
Travis Barker knows he's a workaholic. The longtime blink-182 drummer still whips his kit, but he's likewise is in the midst of a hectic renaissance as the producer behind chart-toppers like Machine Gun Kelly, as well as up-and-coming rappers like Jasiah or folkier artists like Jack Kays. When Revolver catches Barker on the phone, he's taking a quick breather from a Good Morning America video shoot with Avril Lavigne, who is currently signed to Barker's DTA Records. On the other end of the spectrum, his label has just delivered SKIN, the hip-hop-and-hardcore-splicing new album from Los Angeles duo Ho99o9. It all makes for a wild cross-section of styles, but Barker is beaming about the eclectic clutch of artists he's working with these days. "I just work on things I'm passionate about," he confirms proudly.
That same free-for-all spirit thrives throughout SKIN, where band members theOGM and Yeti Bones can lyrically connect the dots between Napalm Death and rap music mogul Suge Knight ("Nuge Snight"), or pivot between auto-tuned balladry, drum-and-bass paranoia and viscera-splattered hardcore breakdowns ("Battery Not Included").
Speaking with Revolver, Barker got into a bit of SKIN's aural chaos, growing up listening to Sinatra and Slayer, and the weird time when the internet — including former Cannibal Corpse growler Chris Barnes — freaked out when his fiancée Kourtney Kardashian wore one of his death-metal shirts.
HOW WERE YOU FIRST INTRODUCED TO THE MUSIC OF HO99O9?
I don't really know how it happened to begin with, but I came across their music. I was a fan from day one. We [started] chopping it up, going back and forth on Instagram. Then we got [into the studio] with no real motive or itinerary and started making music. The next thing we knew, we had a dozen songs.
WHAT WAS YOUR IMPRESSION OF YETI AND THEOGM ONCE YOU GOT TO KNOW THEM?
They were just the sweetest, most musical, and most respectful [collaborators]. We were like-minded on the music we liked — everything from UGK to DOOM, to Cannibal Corpse, to Outkast. We had so many of the same influences. I knew I wouldn't have to tippy-toe around anything, or walk on eggshells with ideas. We could just make experimental music. I could say, "This part should be thrash," or "this part should be beautiful, vocally, like an a capella." We had so much fun. It was such an experimental project. They're both so talented.
THOSE GUYS TOLD US THAT THE BEAT TO "NUGE SNIGHT" — WHICH YOU'D CREATED BEFORE YOU MET UP — WAS WHAT CONVINCED THEM TO WORK WITH YOU. WHAT HAD YOU CONSIDERED WHILE PUTTING THAT TOGETHER, AS A STARTING POINT FOR WORKING WITH HO99O9?
I made that beat at my house one day, and I thought to myself, "There is not one artist that could get on this, outside of Ho99o9." I don't think I even played it for anyone else.
ARE THERE THINGS YOU KEEP IN MIND WHEN WORKING WITH ARTISTS LIKE HO99O9, AS OPPOSED TO MACHINE GUN KELLY OR AVRIL. IS THERE A DIFFERENT SET OF RULES?
No rules, ever. I don't even like preparing anything for anyone before they get in [the studio, but] I had just made this masterpiece of noise, chaos and destruction, and it made so much sense for [Ho99o9]. I had big ideas. I was also working with Jasiah, who is featured on their album, and Nascar Aloe ... some other stuff that also could fit with Ho99o9.
I'm good at balancing a lot of things, and completely different styles of music. I don't just work on Avril's album and nothing else. I'm at my best when I'm working with theOGM and Yeti in between those days, or working with an artist like Jack Kays, who's almost like a folk artist. I grew up so confused, loving everything. It's just a good slush.
YOU HAVE SO MANY OF THESE DIFFERENT TASTES, BUT LIKE YOU SAID, YOU BONDED WITH HO99O9 OVER YOUR LOVE OF CANNIBAL CORPSE. HOW FAR BACK DOES YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH EXTREME MUSIC AND METAL GO?
I grew up loving D.R.I., Minor Threat, King Diamond and Slayer, but at the same time I loved Beastie Boys and Ice T. I loved UGK and the Pharcyde, Descendents, Frank Sinatra — I've always been all over the place.
I was happily confused as a child. It was the best thing to ever happen to me — I was never listening to one style of music. I mean, I would put on Paul's Boutique to try and learn the drum beats, but then I'd put on Reign in Blood and try to learn that.
HOW MUCH LIVE DRUMMING IS THERE ON SKIN?
I suck at programming. I've never learned Ableton, or anything like that. Everything I record, I actually play. I have a really small New Yorker DW kit that I'll use for a lot of that stuff. It sounds electronic once you put a mic on it and you smash the sounds.
I [also] have this Roland pad that's really cool. I can assign my favorite trap sounds [to the pads], and I play it. Even the stuff that sounds programmed — the hard drum-and-bass shit we do on the album — that's all being played [live]. "Slo Bread," the track with Bun B on it, is obviously programmed, but when I say programmed, I mean, I played trap drums and physically played them with drum sticks.
ONE OF THE HEAVIEST MOMENTS ON THE RECORD — MAYBE EVEN YOUR CAREER — IS THAT NASTY HARDCORE BREAKDOWN AT THE END OF "BATTERY NOT INCLUDED" ...
We had this idea to go in and make a song that was like nothing else [on the record] — a lot of breaks, a lot of scene changes. Me and my friend Nic Long, who has worked with Ho99o9 for forever, we just started jamming the part and the room lit up. We loved Frankenstein-ing these songs together. I feel like that's what you're supposed to do in the studio: You make the music you wish existed.
WELL BEFORE ANNOUNCING SKIN, YOU PERFORMED WITH HO99O9 AS PART OF THE BLACK POWER LIVE STREAMING BENEFIT IN 2020, WHERE YOU DID TWO HO99O9 SONGS AND A BAD BRAINS COVER. SCHEDULING IS PROBABLY QUITE COMPLICATED FOR YOU, BUT COULD YOU SEE YOURSELF DOING MORE LIVE WORK WITH HO99O9?
Absolutely. They didn't have to ask me twice [for that performance], I was there. Anything I've done in my life is something I've been passionate about. I'm not money motivated. It doesn't matter how popular something is. If I love it — if I fuck with it — I'm 110 per cent committed to it and want to help see it through.
WHAT ALL IS ON YOUR PLATE RIGHT NOW?
We're supposed to wrap this shoot, and then I have a session tonight. I'll try to work on other stuff that I have deadlines on, drive home, fall asleep, and do the same thing tomorrow and the following day. Without a doubt, I'm a workaholic. I'm better about it now. My fiancée is great at pulling me away from work. It's healthy! But I also thrive off creating stuff. I have a crazy schedule, but I wouldn't want it any other way.
IN A VERY ODD WAY, YOUR T-SHIRT COLLECTION — SPECIFICALLY A CANNIBAL CORPSE SHIRT OF YOURS THAT YOUR FIANCÉE WAS PHOTOGRAPHED WEARING — ENDED UP GETTING A LOT OF PRESS LAST YEAR ...
To speak on that, that's the lamest shit ever. Obviously my fiancée doesn't listen to Cannibal Corpse, but I do. I grew up loving them. For [someone] to mention that in a negative light — fucking lame, you know? She's wearing it because she's cold. She's not claiming she knows every song. But I do! I bought every album, and I learned how to play every album.
I grew up a punk-rock kid, [but] everything with punk rock — "I'm more punk than you" — just fuck all that. Be stoked that people are into music. Music is beautiful! It changes people's lives. It creates the best memories. Just celebrate it, you know?
But, yeah ... I have a gang of Cannibal Corpse T-shirts. [Laughs] I still love them. I have a gang of King Diamond T-shirts and rare Slayer shirts because I fucking love those bands. I grew up on them. Even though I'm, you know, whatever the world wants to view me as — "Oh, that's blink-182's drummer" — actually that guy was playing in a garage with a bunch of speed-metal kids listening to D.R.I. and S.O.D. I enjoyed every fucking minute of it.
GETTING BACK TO BUILDING MEMORIES WHILE MAKING MUSIC, WHAT STANDS OUT TO YOU WHEN YOU THINK BACK ON THESE SESSIONS WITH HO99O9?
[It was] the wildest, zero-restrictions, zero-boundaries [scenario]. It was an empty canvas every day. One of the best things about making music is you go to the studio, you have no idea what you're going to create, and then you leave with something that wasn't there before. That's just the coolest thing ever.
