June 23, 2004
REPORT: Tweaker & Skinny Puppy = Loud and Large
Reports have been coming in from Chicago, Boston and New York that this double bill will blow your mind. The pairing of these two bands came to be when Skinny Puppy handpicked Tweaker for its first tour in almost a decade. The expansive, industrial band has always been revered by fans of the genre and beyond around the world. Tweaker is the alter-ego project of Chris Vrenna, a Grammy award-winning artist and founding member of Nine Inch Nails who is now a record producer/remixer/collaborator for artists including U2, Weezer, David Bowie, Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson.
The tour is a dream-come-true for serious industrial fans most of whom also adored early Nine Inch Nails (circa 1989) when Vrenna was instrumental in the band. Both bands have incredibly adventurous, hard spirited new albums out at the moment and are reported to be playing loud and large to audiences across America. Skinny Puppy's album The Greatest Wrong of the Right has been met with critical praise this summer, as has Tweaker's gentler, yet poignant and still hard, 2 a.m. Wakeup Call.
In an exclusive chat, Vrenna told Virginmega.com just before leaving on tour, "We're totally psyched to go with Skinny Puppy for our first Tweaker tour. We've experimented with lots of different ways to bring the albums to life on the road and we decided to present it just as a band. Clint (Walsh, Tweaker guitarist) and I were lucky enough to get one of the new album's guest vocalists, Nick Young from A.I. (who's on the song ‘Sleepwalking Away') to do the whole tour with us and sing every song.” Rounding out the band is William Faith on bass from the band Faith and the Muse.
If you're lucky enough to live in the middle of the country and the West Coast, you might still be able to catch this killer double bill. See the below dates. As fate would have it, the first NIN tour was opening for Skinny Puppy on their Vivisect Six tour. Adds Vrenna, “Seeing that this will be Tweaker's first tour as well, it's a huge honor that Skinny Puppy has asked us to be its opener. And since many fans will be wondering, there's no tape or sequencers with this show!"
Remaining dates are as follows:
Jun 23, Philadelphia, PA, Electric Factory
Jun 25, Atlanta, GA, Masquerade
Jun 26, New Orleans, LA, House of Blues
Jun 27, Houston, TX, Verizon Theatre
Jun 29, Denver, CO, Odgen Theatre
Jul 1, San Francisco, CA, Grand Ballroom
Jul 2 & 3, Los Angeles, CA, Henry Fonda Theatre
Jul 4, Anaheim, Calif, The Grove