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Artist of the Moment: Rob Skipper
Written by Jimmy
Rob is the bassist and plays this role brilliantly. That’s it. We don’t really need to say more, because anyone who has ever been in a good band, knows what a brilliant bassist is and does. Okay, for the rest of you, here is the essence of Rob.
There are, I suppose, four things you need to know about Rob:
1. He never wastes a note or a second Never. This is how song writing works with Rob. Jimmy has some lyrics and a basic idea of a song. He sings it to Andy early in morning. Andy then creates a chord structure and Jimmy and Andy sing through the song together until they’ve got a structure. Band arrives. Andy plays song through a couple of times. Rob listens. Mike starts drumming. Rob listens. Andy plays some more and now Ed and Martyn join with guitars, throwing in ideas. Rob listens. We play the song again. Rob turns to Jimmy and says, ‘I’m in.’ He plays a bass part. Half the time he then says he’s done. The other half of the time he says he’s not happy and plays it again. He rarely, if ever, plays ith through more than three times. Then he unplugs the bass and watches the rest of us faff about for two hours. He often takes pictures. But he doesn’t waste a note. Doesn’t waste a second.
2. He is Paul, Disco Paul. Yes, he’s McCartney. His bass drives the band, but it is also its own melody. The bass lines that Rob delivers are gorgeous. Listen to Big Old Bird, Roadside Comedy, and Box of Yellow Roses. Beautiful bass lines. Listen to Invading London. He ‘runs out of neck.’ When Andy and I mix, we spend most of our time bringing Rob’s bass up in the mix. Because it is so cool. And then there’s Disco Rob. He brought the clav to Brad and Janet’s Oldest Daughter Frankie and the Latin rhythm to Coins of Love.
3. He is the backbone of the music and the band. Rob is the grand dad of the band . No older than the rest of us, but just wiser, with more experience in music, more access to a broader set of influences. We don’t finish a song until Rob says it is done. We don’t add something unless Rob says it needs something. And Rob doesn’t like to add things. He’s a minimalist and controls our tendencies to layer. And he quietly says when things are rubbish. It is mostly in his body language. When he sits up and makes faces that look like he’s smelling one of Lewie’s ‘bad moments’ that means what we are doing is rubbish. When he puts the bass down and starts taking pictures, then we know it is okay.
4. He is a cat. We all know cats. They don’t want to be the centre of attention. They just want to be in the middle of everything. Rob’s purr is ‘honk honk.’ Rob suffers from FOMO. In our summer 2010 Spanish Jam we started this honk honk thing – when someone accidently uses double entredre some one else says honk honk. Quite juvenile, but seemed quite mature at time relative to the Space Monkeys. Rob is the best at honk honk and for long periods of time that is all he will say. But it makes us laugh. We also introduced FOMO – Fear of Missing Out. Sophie’s term. So Rob is always where the action is. Quietly. Saying nothing but an occasional honk honk. But making the band laugh.
So that’s Rob. Keeps us together musically and socially. The cat in the room. The honk honk.