We recently found ourselves on a Skorts streak. Their dark, heavy, soaring, joyous blend of rock has New York City jumping. After seeing them four times in the span of a month all around town, we felt like we had to dive deeper and learn more about this incredible band and the fervent artists that bring it to life. After a packed out Wednesday night show at Brooklyn's Sultan Room we stuck around to talk. As of publishing they’ve released half a dozen dynamic singles, we’ve included references to them throughout this piece in reverse chronological order from newest to oldest. Below are edited excerpts from our conversation.

Let’s introduce ourselves to start. What’s your name and what do you play?

Alli: I’m Alli Walls and I play the guitar and sing vocals.

Char: My name is Char, I play the louder guitar and I don’t sing much.

Emma: My name’s Emma, I play bass and I sing backup vocals.

We’ve seen you three times at three cool shows before this. Punk Island, Mercury Lounge with Mary Shelley, and Tompkins Square Park when it rained cats and dogs.

Emma: Yeah that was a crazy day. Beautiful crazy day, really special.

Alli: We lucked out.

Emma: Yeah we weren’t supposed to play that gig, we got on it that morning, which was very Rock and Roll.

We were stoked. Somehow Ozzie printed a flier that was updated with your name on it.

Char: Shoutout Showbrain, doing great stuff around town.

One thing we love about your shows is that there are always people in the audience who at some point get this look of disbelief on their face. They turn to their friends with a jaw-dropped expression and mouth something along the lines of “HOLY SHIT!”. Even at Tompkins, there were dogs watching your set. The most dogs we’ve ever seen watch a show, and they were rocking.

Char: Dogs have exquisite taste, they know what’s best.

Alli: We play for the animals primarily, we finally got our audience at Tompkins.

Speaking of performances, you have a pretty busy show schedule.

Emma: June was particularly busy, we played every Saturday, and a Sunday.

Alli: I think we like it that way. I think that we do some of our best shows that way, in that energy of keeping on going. The months that are heavy in performances are always the fun ones. A little chaotic but it’s what we love.

Char: It’s a big city and I think people get a little prissy about over-playing but it’s like... there’s so many people in this town that you’ve not played to yet. There’s new people at every show, every time. I think the pace just feels natural and I don’t know what kind of band, any band, is, that doesn’t play live.

Alli: The city’s big enough to listen to us multiple times.

Emma: There’s different ways to do it but we’re a live band. There’s so many kinds of bands and live shows are a huge part of what we do, it’s shaping our sound.

Alli: It feeds our soul a little bit. It shapes the way we give ourselves up and surrender. I think it’s important to have those moments to see how you unleash yourself. When you practice and you practice and then what it comes down to in that critical moment.

Char: Critical.

Alli: Like, what are you really made of, right now, after all that practice.

Emma: We get together two to three times a week, too. We’re crazy. We make the time for it because it’s important to us.

We can tell, and we think a lot of the people that watch you can tell that you love to perform. We think that’s part of the magnetism that keeps drawing people back. Moving on to your sound, it’s a lot of different things. Sometimes it’s heavy. Sometimes it’s light. Sometimes it’s really bright, sometimes it’s really dark. What inspires a Skorts song?

Char: I think it comes from a lot of different places. It can come from Alli having a full idea and us just sprinkling bits over it. It can come from a guitar part. But I think it’s so diverse because...

Alli: And it can also be Emma's bassline.

Char: There’s no filter for a good idea in the band, it’s just whatever comes through that's worth elaborating on. I think us as individuals are inspired by a lot of different things.

Alli: Yeah I’m very happy but I’m very angry.

Emma: Optimistically dark.

Alli: There’s a lot of things that I need to say and this is the way that it gets said.

Emma: Alli’s voice is such a unifying element. We’ve definitely dipped our toes in a lot of places but Alli’s voice is so signature and all of us that joined the band were wowed by it in our own right, getting to watch it transform in all these places is so special.

Alli: And I get inspired to be able to sing in so many different worlds.

How did you get to playing together as a group? How did you all find each other?

Alli: I came to New York to find them. I wanted to start a band with some demos that I had. I walked around the city until I found Char.

Emma: At a guitar shop.

Alli: I was looking for a pedal that was pretty noisy and so I thought that maybe they would have it, and I played it.

Emma: Did you get a pedal that day?

Alli: Yeah

Emma: Which one?

Alli: I was playing in drop C. Absolute Destruction by Death By Audio

Char: Shout out to Death By Audio. It doesn’t make it onto the board anymore. But Alli came in. I don’t know what the fuck she was playing on guitar but it sounded cool. It was loud and it had a touch to it which is more than a lot of people can say about their guitar playing.

Alli: I remember calling my mom after leaving the guitar shop and being like “I just found my guitarist”. I was such a dork about it but I felt very confident... it was this very magical moment.

Emma: Before he worked at the guitar shop he worked at a coffee shop that I worked at for like six years. We didn’t work together for that long because covid was a part of that...

Char: No, but I had heard Emma was learning bass.

Emma: It was at a bowling night at The Gutter in the Lower East Side that was a work gathering and he was telling me that he met this person that had really cool music.

Char: And we needed a bass player that could harmonize. I played in another band with our first drummer, Aaron, so that's how he got involved.

Emma: I’d grown up playing string instruments but I recently picked up the bass to join a friends band.

Char: And tonight was our first night playing with Max on drums.

Here’s a hypothetical question. What’s something that would make your life as a band easier?

Emma, Char, Alli: A manager.

Emma: We’re really stretching our (non-musical) abilities. We have a lot of people that have volunteered help but it’s at the point where it’s hard to keep asking friends to do things. It’s awkward because we never stop needing content.

Char: But to those people that help us we cannot thank them enough.

Emma: Oh my god, yeah.

Char: The photographers, the graphic designers, we’ve been beyond lucky to have people that want to help.

Alli: That’s the stuff that you can see that lifts us up.

Looking forward, any plans for an EP/Album?

Emma: Album, yes.

Alli: Yes, we’re planning on an album.

Emma: It’s mostly recorded, it’s being mixed. We have an incredible dear longtime friend of mine, Teddy O'Mara, that's been producing us, and mixing, and engineering, and mastering, he’s a wizard. These things take time and we are trying to sculpt the sound. It’s on its way.

Char: It’s been great, probably the best producer experience you could have.

What’s a song or an album that you’re currently listening to on repeat?

Emma: I really like BOYSCOUTMARIE. Char saw them and freaked out, and then we played a show with them and I freaked out, and then I listened to their record and freaked out more. They’re like in the scene with us and they are fucking epic. And Finom.

Char: Oh yeah.

Emma: We actually saw them at Sultan Room. All of us a couple weeks ago. Their harmonies are insane and their songwriting is insane, and their new album we all bought records of.

Char: That Finom record has been the best thing to come across my table in a while. I’ve been having a hard time with music and getting into it so I’ve been going back to some classics. Like Clockwork by QOTSA.

Alli: I was listening to Do Ya by Peaches because I was trying to get some stuff to work out to. I love that femme power punchiness and it’s very in-your-face. It’s very cumgirl8.