At the ripe old age of 24, Jack Skuller reaches an impressive milestone this month, marking the 10th anniversary of his debut single on Bar/None Records, “Love Is a Drum.”
The adorable tween who wrote and recorded that song has grown into a handsome, talented young man, a graduate of Weehawken High School and the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken (where he majored in the school’s Music & Technology program). He supports himself as half of The Everly Set, a duo that tours the country performing a tribute to the Everly Brothers, as well as front man of The Skullers, a local rock trio that mixes an aggressive, modern sound with classic blues and rockabilly.
The public celebration of Jack’s anniversary has been postponed until life returns to normal after the COVID-19 lockdown, but Jack shared a few reminiscences about his decade in music by phone.
He grew up in a musical family. His dad, Eddie Skuller, spent the ’80s fronting the moody art-rock combo Moot and later performed as a solo vocalist, joining Manhattan’s prestigious Loser’s Lounge ensemble.
But it wasn’t his father’s music that made an impression on little Jack.
“I got into ’50s music because of the Beatles,” Skuller said. “I heard those early rockabilly and rock ‘n’ roll songs they did and just got obsessed. And then I just started going backwards and discovered all the ’50s musicians who had influenced the Beatles. My parents didn’t expect it because they weren’t rockabilly historians, they were from the punk scene.”
By the time Jack turned 13, he was playing guitar and writing his own songs.
“I remember that I was given a choice between having a bar mitzvah or going to record the three songs I had written at that point as demos,” Skuller said. “And I remember thinking, eh, a birthday party’s not that cool anymore, and I love this songwriting thing, so let’s try that.”
Jack’s father booked studio time with Daniel Rey, the producer who had worked with the Ramones, Ronnie Spector, and the Misfits, with Jack on guitar, Rey on bass, and Ira Elliot (of Nada Surf) on drums.
“I had never been in a studio, I knew nothing about the process at that point, so what I thought would be these silly demos turned out really good, it was all radio ready,” Skuller recalled. “So I remember being 13, and walking into Bar/None’s office, which was in Weehawken at the time, with my 1964 Dan Electro guitar. For some reason, I thought bringing an unplugged electric guitar into what was basically an audition would be a good idea. So I played the song for Glenn Morrow, and I remember being so nervous, and everything was so new. I just knew that I had written these songs and Glenn was somebody who had such a rich history in creating this scene and helping people evolve in their careers. He liked me and agreed to put out ‘Love Is A Drum.’”
By the time the single (with “Magical Girl” on the B-side) came out, Jack had turned 14 and had started high school.
“All of this was happening at what I considered to be the peak crossover point of social media,” Jack said. “For decades, there had been one formula for how to market and sell music, and now there were all these new formulas every day. I had a record out and I had algebra homework, that was my life. And, eventually I realized that there is no formula, it’s just about you and the work, and knowing where you came from, and knowing where you were going.”
The encouragement and, most of all, music industry knowledge that he received from his father proved invaluable.
“Especially at that age, your support system is everything,” the younger Skuller said. “My whole family was fantastic, but I also had a middle school principal who’d let me tour and miss a few school days here and there. There was support that you wouldn’t normally think you’d need, but it was there. There was one time when I sang the national anthem at Weehawken Stadium because I was playing high school baseball and they let me sing the anthem before the game.”
For a time, he wasn’t sure if music would be his livelihood.
“I actually wanted to be a doctor, too, when I was in middle school,” he said. “I was always kinda preparing for both.”
The pendulum swung toward music when Skuller won a spot in the Disney Channel’s “NBT (Next Big Thing),” a nationwide talent show that provided the opportunity to spend dozens of weekends touring the country performing at county fairs and small festivals.
“At one show, I got to open for Santa Claus,” Skuller said. “It was crazy, right before Christmas and thousands of people standing outside in the freezing cold waiting to see this drunken guy in a Santa suit do a performance. I really didn’t understand it, but I was there, with that same Dan Electro.”
Disney would book the shows and pay for Jack and his dad to fly out to cities across the country.
“That Disney tour was huge, such a focal point,” Skuller said. “And the best thing is that I got to bypass the usual experience of driving around in a dirty van, not doing laundry for weeks and living on peanut butter. That was unique. I got the touring part in, but I was still balancing school so it was just the weekends and I skipped the rigors of a long tour.”
Since then, he’s been able to tour quite a bit with his partner Sean Altman in The Everly Set.
“It’s been an amazing experience because I got to spend time in dozens of major cities and hundreds of small towns across the U.S.,” Skuller said. “It gave me a sense of all the different kinds of people you need to connect with as a musician. And obviously if you love people, you can stomach the physical demands of touring and performing every night. It’s been the most wonderful thing.”
The wealth of knowledge he’s gleaned from the Everlys’ songbook has paid off when pursuing his own compositions in The Skullers.
“I think that understanding the history of rockabilly and early rock ‘n’ roll, my biggest influences, was instrumental in helping me learn to use that nostalgia for old records in a really productive way,” Skuller said. “It’s just such a key these days when you’re in a studio, because you have to know what modern sounds there are. But you still have to hold on to the ideas and feelings that made those old songs what they are.”
As he started spending more time managing Jack’s career, as well as balancing a family and business career, Eddie Skuller decided to retire from performing almost a decade ago; but as often happens, it didn’t stick. These days, Eddie and Jack often perform together at the Loser’s Lounge tribute shows, and Jack helped his father write a song that’s currently being recorded for release as a single.
“I wrote a song and Jack re-wrote some of the lyrics, making them much better,” the elder Skuller said. “The producer is Jim the Boss, a reggae dub mixer producer in Secaucus. I’m going for an authentic reggae sound on the track.”
It was as a member of the Loser’s Lounge that Jack met, Sean Altman, who eventually became his partner in The Everly Set.
“We were often paired together at Loser’s Lounge because our voices are kind of similar,” Jack explained. “We wound up becoming friends. I actually knew a lot more about the Everly Brothers than he did. We put one show together for a friend-and-family kind of thing, and we just kept doing it.
“I think the disparity between playing with The Skullers and doing an Everly Brothers tribute band has expanded me a lot because while I’ve been on the road with the Everlys, I’ve had all this creative energy, writing a ton of songs. I’ve always believed that when music is in your head, you gotta get it out. It’s when you can use what you know without being held hostage by it that you can bloom, and I have all these new songs now that kind of live outside what The Skullers are and sounds like, so I’m starting a new solo project called The Trolley Valhalla. It’s named after a real place I found in Weird New Jersey magazine.”
While Jack writes for The Trolley Valhalla and waits for the day when The Skullers and The Everly Set can perform in public again, he’s launched a new business: “I’m delighted to announce my new quarantine business venture -- PERSONALIZED SONG PORTRAITS,” Jack announced on his Facebook page. “They can be a gift for yourself, someone you know in isolation who could use a pick-me-up, or a birthday/anniversary/Passover/Easter/Mother’s day/Father’s day present.”
For information, visit facebook.com/jackskuller.