Legend of the Roadside Ditch

Written and Photographed by Rick Perez

The Southern California band, Skerfunk, talks about the importance of being there for each other, dealing with low points, and the joys of being naked.

Temecula, California, USA

Josh Hughes, Sam Wells, Lui Banana, Kenny Wooten

I drove onto a quiet, seemingly abandoned street that had warehouses on one side and a creek in on the other. Google Maps kept taking into random places, and when I finally arrived in front of what looked like an office building, I saw the long, blonde head bob in the parking lot and knew I was at the right location. I parked my car in front of Discrete Sound Studios, where I was meeting the Southern California band, Skerfunk.

The members, Sam Wells, Josh Hughes, Kenny Wooten, and Lui Banana, greeted me warmly and showed me around the studios and scouted possible locations to do a naked photo shoot, inspired by The Red Hot Chili Peppers 1992 Rolling Stone Magazine cover. After deciding which places would be the best to get naked in, I sat down with Skerfunk (clothed) and talked to them about who they were and where they wanted to go as a band.

They told me that the early days of Skerfunk looked a little different; the original the drummer and frontman hadn’t left the line-up and they were struggling to book shows. One year later, Skerfunk is now a dominate name in the San Diego rock music scene and have an entirely new drummer and frontman: Lui Banana and Kenny Wooten.

“After the original frontman and original drummer had to part ways,” Josh and Sam said as they began to tell me the legend of how they met Kenny and Lui, “we went on a long, somber walk when we heard screaming from inside a local roadside ditch. We looked down and saw that it was Kenny Wooten. We figured that being inside a ditch was no good so we grabbed him and kept walking. Turns out, only a few hundred meters up the ditch was some smelly guy banging on some old garbage cans. That man ended up being Lui Banana. It was harder to domesticate him, but they made it work; thus Skerfunk in their current form was made.”

Although the legend of the roadside ditch is a work of fiction (some dispute and say it’s true) the metaphor of helping each other get out tough situations holds true. To be in Skerfunk is to be in a brotherhood, one where you love each other no matter how low one of the members is.

Josh told the story of one of the struggles they went through as a band. “I’ve been known for substance abuse since I was 18 years old. I was using heroin so much that I checked myself into rehab at 18. For about two and half years after that, I was free from opiates. Around the time the band was formed, Kenny and I began using fentanyl and kept on doing it even though we knew it was harmful. It got so bad that Sam threatened to quit the band if we kept doing it, trying to motivate us to stop the habit. Commonly with most substance abusers, we started hiding it; we would sneak into bathrooms and use it in my car. We began having severe withdrawals when we weren’t on it. Kenny started having bad health problems so he quit cold turkey. I eventually stopped but started dating a drug dealer and you know how that goes. During quarantine, I began dating someone else who was really against it, who knew what I was going through and I checked back into rehab. I made a post about it on the Skerfunk Instagram because I wanted to keep myself accountable and be open about my struggles. My goal is to help people in similar situations. The guys in the band are like my family and stuck by me the entire time. They know more about me than anyone. I know that I can reach out to them for help if I need it anytime.”

Being open and honest about their struggles is what makes Skerfunk’s bond even stronger. If you can overcome addiction as a band, you can overcome anything.

This bond has been created from rehearsing, writing music, and playing together. Not only have they grown together as a group, they have also grown as individuals, too.

Kenny: “I personally have become a lot more confident in myself. I have a lot of anxiety, anyone who’s talked to me during shows knows this, but i’ve learned to put it aside (for the most part) and just enjoy playing and being around people”

Sam: “I’ve created new friendships that have felt much more compassionate in this band. I’ve found myself just not really caring where I am, just enjoying who I’m with. I love these guys, they my brothers!”

Josh: “I have just found over the course of us playing shows that it comes so naturally for all of us to play in front of people, it’s in our blood. As long as we remember all of our gear, we’re able to play wherever and whenever.”

Their love for each other and for others really shows in their music as well. Skerfunk believes that using music to call out corruption and injustices in society is essential as artists.

“It’s very important for us to be vocal about our beliefs in our music because music is the ultimate form of self expression, in our opinion. Musicians throughout history have been vilified for speaking out against very controversial topics, such as Chester Bennington, Chris Cornell, Kurt Cobain and Lynard Skynard. They all have been believed to try to expose high level corruption and have died in the process. We recognize this and plan on using our music as a way to finish what they started.”

As a prominent band in the San Diego rock n’ roll scene, Skerfunk has played countless shows and festivals throughout the past year. With so many bands springing up all over Southern California, I asked them, what makes Skerfunk different?

Sam: “Our music is about energy and love. But the good kind of love, not the bad kind of love”

Josh: “Love: the bad kind”

Kenny: “Our band is different because we got both the good kind of love and the bad kind of love”

Josh: “Acid makes us different. It has made our playing styles very unique. Sam and I have done it a lot together, and we’ve formed very unique playing style with each other.”

Sam: “When we play together, our instruments seem to generate an extravagant luscious love-baby that is our music. We don’t know what we’re doing, they just do that.”

Another thing that makes them stand-out from all the other bands: Getting naked while performing. I asked them how this on-stage antic came about.

Kenny: “We used to only play with our shirts off, but it was our guitarist Josh who started pushing us out of our comfort zone. It was the 4th of July in 2019. I was new to the band and had only played a few shows. Josh tells me minutes before we play our set ‘Kenny, if you’re really the frontman for Skerfunk, you will run out on stage in only your underwear,’ and I panicked, but took his words to heart. As they played the intro jam, I took my shirt and pants off, out of sight, and ran out on stage, where josh and sam shortly took their pants off and we played our first underwear set. I still haven’t gone full nude, but I personally consider that the beginning of the nude era.”

Josh: “I remember the real nudity started at a show at our friend Justin’s house. Towards the end of the set, I ran inside his house and stripped down and put a sock on my cock, then ran out. We played our last couple songs and I remember Sam just dropped his boxers out of nowhere and from that point on, him and I will just kinda get naked and stuff.”

Sam: “I just love being naked, always have, always will.”

Wrapping up the conversation, I asked them how they thought the future of the music industry will look like after quarantine and what’s next for them.

“We personally feel like there will be, or should be at least, a surge in local music. It’s going to take time to go back to normal, but people will miss going to live shows, and we will be here to satisfy their cravings.

There’s an album on its way, as of right now we have ¾ of it complete. Be on the lookout. We also plan on tours for 2021. We’re gonna grab the West Coast and suckle it’s tity. We also plan on moving in to a house together to be more productive.”

After we finished the naked photo shoot, I drove home and noticed a few ditches off the side of the road. I thought about the times in my life when I was so low and felt stuck and the only way to get out of the low was with the help from friends. The members of Skerfunk understand the value of friendship, the value in lifting each other up. I feel that, as long as they keep that as their core, they can’t go anywhere but up.