Fantastic Spikes Through Balloon was nominated for a Grammy for its artwork -- "Best Packaging" I believe it was. How did that make you feel to be recognized on that level?

Erik: Boy, that was obviously very flattering. I mean, I think if we were nominated for a Grammy that had anything to do with our music I'd be concerned, because either the world's gone nuts or we've gone really straight!

The artwork was a collaboration between myself Stefan Sagmeister -- who had been nominated before. It was funny because Danny Elfman was also nominated that year for a film score [Men In Black], which was the first year [the Academy] did that. I went to meet him at his hotel because we were going to go cruising around to all the parties. I knocked on his hotel door and he opened it up, stuck out his hand, and said, "We both lost!"

[Being nominated] did make me feel some pressure, some responsibility, when putting together the artwork for Obtainium.

It seems like that you'd have given a lot of attention to that, regardless. The packaging for your self-titled debut EP was done with the same level of consideration, and the artwork on your albums is something I always look forward to.

Erik: Well, thank you. The EP was also a collaboration between myself and Stefan. Obtainium I had to do all by myself, which was a little scary.

You've collaborated with Yoko Ono and John Cale, among others. What did those collaborations consist of?

Erik: With Yoko, I was just getting hired to be a bass player, which was basically writing my own stuff for a single show that ultimately got turned into a record [Blueprint for a Sunrise]. Cale, I had been playing with for six years. It's been really exciting lately because somebody finally got it through his noggin' that he should take notice of what's going on with the rest of the world musically. He's got a beautiful voice, but he's been stuck in this balladeer role for a long time where he just kinda sits at the piano and sings songs about sad ballerinas. Now he's doing this record with a lot of rhythmic stuff -- rhythmic loops and found sounds. I was very excited to learn that some of the rhythm beds were being provided by Brian Eno. I'm a co-writer -- not a credited co-writer -- but we work the songs up together, and currently we're working on something that I hope proves to be exciting.

I'm curious to who your influences are as both a bass player and a songwriter?

Erik: You know who I think is an amazing bass player? John Wetton, who played in King Crimson in the early '70s. Who else? Paul McCartney -- he reinvented what the bass could do. Obviously, I'm much more interested in trying to get at the emotions in all of that. I'm more interested in making somebody sweat and laugh than I am in making them think, so the bass parts are there to support the songs rather than draw attention to themselves. I don't really think of it so much in terms of the playing part of it, I guess.

I started playing bass by sheer coincidence. My older brother was playing guitar when we were kids (now he's a film composer). So I thought that being a bass player was the logical thing to do. Over the years I've grown to love it so much and have a lot of respect for it, and it's kind of suited my personality. Playing bass is a low ego-gratification kind of gig, where you stand in the background but know that you're providing something really essential to the music.

Mike Watt once said that the bass player is there to make the rest of the band look good.

Erik: Exactly. I look at it like being the catcher on a baseball team, or the goalie on a hockey team. You kinda stay in your place and from that position you have a lot of control over how the whole game is going on in front of you. And you get to wear the cool looking masks.

Have you been affected at all by the recent deaths of John Entwistle, Dee Dee Ramone, and jazz bassist Ray Brown? All very influential bass players (and with Dee Dee and Brown, influential songwriters).

Erik: I didn't know Ray Brown had died?

Yeah. He went out and played a round of golf one afternoon before a gig, went back to his hotel to take a nap...

Erik: And never woke up.

Yup. Sad -- great bassist and a very nice man.

Erik: See, the problem wasn't the bass playing, it was the golf.

Exactly. Do you have any plans to tour behind the new album?

Erik: We're trying. Unfortunately, since we got dropped by Capitol we're just beginning our resurrection and we don't have a booking agent right now. I was hoping that Obtainium would garner some attention in the press, and that we'd be able to get something put together. I was hoping to start [touring] in September, but it's already late for booking shows then. So, nothing firm yet -- a couple of shows here and there, but we're hoping to get out and play more in the fall.

Is Chris Maxwell still going to be participating in future recordings? Will he have any role in the band?

Erik: I don't know. He'll always be around in some capacity. He actually just moved into the building right next to mine, so we're neighbors. I just read a review today of Obtainium, which said that Skeleton Key is more of a "collective" now -- something that I was a little disturbed by initially, but something which I guess is kind of true.

There's a core to a band, and I'll always do anything and everything with Rick Lee because I love playing with him. I've always wanted Skeleton Key to be an umbrella under which people could do a lot of different things -- an umbrella in that we're unified by an aesthetic. In that respect, people will come in and out of it and leave their mark. As for Chris, I dunno... I'm sure we'll work together again in the future in some capacity, but I'm not sure what it will be.

What does the future hold for the band?

Erik: Since we've been sitting around waiting for so long, I almost have enough songs to start recording the next record, which I'm really eager to do. I don't there to be another five years sitting around waiting. And now that I've found a really happy home with Ipecac, I will get to work on that.

If I'm not mistaken, you have your own home studio called the Hiss Factory.

Erik: It would be pretty generous to call it a "studio" -- it's literally an ADAT. Danny Elfman gave me Pro Tools as a gift, but I have trouble off the bat just turning the computer on, so it's a bit over my head at the moment. He should've given me "My First Pro Tools," the Mattel version of the program. So I sorta have a studio...

But you recorded all of your solo album at home, and some of Obtainium there as well.

Erik: Actually, just two songs off of Obtainium: the last song ["Say Goodnight"], a broken nursery ballad kinda song which is actually just a four-track cassette; and "The Barker of the Dupes," which started at home and then I took to a different studio to put it all the ingredients together.

This Hiss Factory is my studio, and the Bleak House is my brother's.

When your solo album came out last year, Jetset Records had a contest on their website where the winner would receive "a personalized rendition of [Sanko's] favorite joke." Did anyone win? And would you mind sharing that joke?

Erik: I'd be happy to! I never got to share it with anybody from the contest because Jetset never told me if anybody won!

How awful! Well, the contest is still up on their site, so even though it's a year late there's still an opportunity for someone to win.

Erik: Oh! [Laughs] I guess nobody's answered yet. Um... I have a couple of different ones. Here's a good New York joke: There are four men walking down the street: a Korean, a Russian, a Saudi Arabian, and a New Yorker. A news reporter runs up to them with a microphone and says, "Excuse me, gentlemen. Could you please give me your opinion on the current meat shortage?" The Saudi Arabian says, "Shortage? What's a shortage?" The Korean says, "Opinion? What's an opinion?" The Russian says, "Meat? What's meat?" And the New Yorker says, "Excuse me? What's excuse me?"

Ouch!

Erik: Okay, here's another one. It's my all-time favorite very simple joke: Two cannibals are eating a clown and one turns to the other and says, "Does this taste funny to you?"

Ba da bump!

Erik: Thank you! All week folks, right here!

Thank you, thankyouverymuch! Okay... anything else we missed along the way?

Erik: Just that I'm super-excited to have a new record out, and I hope that everybody hasn't forgotten about us. Against the best wishes of the major label record industry, Skeleton Key is still kicking.

It's hard to watch artists with talent and creativity go through the major label thresher and come out broken. So I, for one, am very happy Skeleton Key is alive and well!

Erik: Well, thank you! I'm just very happy to be back and have something out that people enjoy, because I can't wait to start playing!

On the web:
Skeleton Key (official site)

Inside Earpollution:
Obtainium album review
Enon High Society album review