The history of Skinny Puppy began in the summer of 1983 when Cevin Key (distorted synts, metallic percussion) and Nivek Ogre (vocals and horn treatments) discovered a similar taste for the bizarre and mutant in music and joined forces to record the Back & Forth cassette.
In october 1985, with synthesist Wilhelm Schroeder added to the ranks, Skinny Puppy released its debut LP, Bites. Bites quickly received critical acclaim in North America and Europe and charted higher than any other Canadian independent release had on the indie charts.
In 1986 Wilhelm Schroeder left the band to pursue solo work (Frontline Assembly) and was replaced by Dwayne R.Goettel, formerly of the Edmonton-based Psyche.
In September, 1986 Skinny Puppy's second LP, Mind: The perpetual Intercourse was released. Boiling over with fresh sounds and rythms, Mind: The perpetual Intercourse is an expedition into a nether world of sonic, seething emotion. The singles, Dig It and Stairs and Flowers again assaulted the indie charts.
Cleanse Fold and Manipulate marked a crossover of sorts for Skinny Puppy. The public was finally coming around to Skinny Puppy's nightmarish world on a larger scale. They could no longer be dismissed as a cult phenomenon. And when People magazine reviewed the LP, their popularity was undeniably confirmed. Even the ever-fickle British press succumbed to praise Skinny Puppy's aural onslaught.
VIVIsectVI, released in october, 1988, was the long awaited follow up. The LP and the first single, Censor (alternately titled Dogshit), were characterized by both brutal, relentless rhythms and strangely accessible melodic lines. Testure, the next single, was the band's most approachable song since Dig It and so many people's surprise, it cracked the Billboard Dance Chart Top 20. In support of the LP, Skinny Puppy undertook their most ambitious tour date.
November 1989, marked the release or Rabies, Skinny Puppy's fifth full length recording project. From the first listen, it's obvious that Rabies is hardern heavier and more fully realized than anything that has come before it. Massive guitars, relentless, armour-plated beats and vocals from the edge of madness all combine to create a collection of songs that are typified by the electro biker-grunge of the first single Tin omen.
Skinny Puppy remained as rabidly intense and tenacious in all aspects of their art. Their video for Rabies track Worlock was banned for its high-speed montage of violent imagery. They were even banned and, on one occasion in Cincinnati, arrested for their on-stage extremities. Still, it's wasn't a gore-for-gore's sake affair. Skinny Puppy was bent on attacking the chinks in our mental armor not merely to shock, but to challenge and provoke.
Why the use of such violent imagery, such painful shock theatre ? "Because nothing else really drives itself home, "Nivek Ogre stated." The sick thing is that violence really is a big part of our lives, and all we do is suppress it, not deal with it. It completely motivates our behaviour, yet we never seem to admit that to ourdelves. You know the world's not good to drink but you keep drinking it anyway. I'm not at all a violent person, but I think it's important to confront people and shock them into dealing with the truths they're too afraid to deal with."
In october 1990, Too Dark Park continued in that direction, talking their sound to ends of pure claustrophobia offering frightful lyrical visions of a diseased, decayed planet. Too Dark Park is a tense, seething urgency that grabs hold of your gut with no intention of letting go. You realize at once that this is a living, breathing entity. It surpassed and redefined what the ignorant still term as "industrial".
Last Rights, Skinny Puppy's eighth album, was the shudder of total collapse .. the sound of dark, unmanageable horrors and one man's breakdown on all levels. "It's a document of delusion", said Nivek Ogre . "Basically, it's a version of Rimbaud's Season In Hell. The end of a certain period in my life seen smack dab in the middle of a lot of pain and confusion."
Last Rights is a seething, enigmatic work. It was the most harrowing aural sculpture the group had wrought to date and was a privotal release in Skinny Puppy's nine years of audio-exorcisms and exercices in servere discomfort. "It's still just as unforgiving and I'm not really too interested in giving people the hits want, "said Dwayne R.Goettel. "I'm pretty proud of how uncompromising it really is."
The title led people to believe that it would be the Puppy's last gasp .. a eulogy to their years of lurking beyond the shadows. In calling the album Last Rights, it was not the burial of the band that the band was getting at. It was something a lot more personal. "It's the product of being near death, of being read those 'last rites.' This was my reality." declared Nivek Ogre. "In retrospect, it wasn't so much reality as it was partial delusion with bits and pieces of reality thrown in. That reality I can't really even talk about. It's just too 'out there'."
After releasing Last Rights on Nettwerk, Skinny Puppy signed to L.A.-based American Recordings and started working on their next album. The Process.
After two years of working on that record and finally completing it Nivek Ogre departed the band and American decided to drop them. However, the label committed to releasing the new record, and the process was released in Noth America in february 1996.
Sadly, after completing The Process, Dwayne R.Goettel died at his home in Edmonton in august 1995. He will be dearly missed. As Nivek Ogre said at the time, "He was the littleknow genius behind the curtaun of Skinny Puppy."
There were releases but it only contained already recorded material.
Nivek Ogre & Cevin Key were busy with their own bands and projects. (Download, The Tear Garden, ohGr, etc......)
There were many posts in forums that gossiped about Skinny Puppy getting together again.
Nivek Ogre & Cevin Key had plans to do a reunion gig in Dresden (Germany), fans around the world responded enthousiasticly and of course hoped for more gigs.
So in 2000 they played at the Doomsday Festival,but there were no more events to see SP live,was SP back together or not?...Silence!!!
Immediately after the Dresden appearance the gossip started to hit the web,SKINNY PUPPY WILL BRAP ON...
In an interview Nivek Ogre said that the Dresden gig was the trigger to continue with SP,yet it took four more years to see another new SP release.
With a worldwide release of The Greater Wrong of the Right may 24 2004 SP finally did what thousands of fans were waiting for.
In 2005 Skinny Puppy does another tour,and a second live DVD hits the shelves.
At the end of the song DaddyuWarbash Nivek Ogre's dog "Hero" starts barking, Nivek Ogre barks along ending with the word: "ENOUGH".
...enough barking or enough Puppy...
BRAP ON
New album due 29th of januari 2007,followed by a march world tour (tbc).