Skating Polly Share “Hickey King” Video & Announce “Chaos County Line” Album

Skating Polly have announced details of their new album, Chaos County Line, that is set for release on June 23rd via El Camino Media. The follow-up to 2018’s The Make It All Show, Chaos County Line finds Skating Polly showcasing the depth of their growth, both as songwriters and personally. Whether they’re opening up about matters internal (identity, disassociation, unhealthy coping mechanisms) or external (obsession, deception, gaslighting), Skating Polly imbue that outpouring with an unfettered emotional truth. Along with the news, they have shared a raucous first track from the record and it’s accompanying video, Hickey King.

Over the past decade, few artists have embodied the unbridled freedom of punk like Skating Polly. Formed when stepsisters Kelli Mayo and Peyton Bighorse were just 9 and 14, the band have channeled their chameleonic musicality into a sound they call “Ugly Pop”, unruly and subversive and wildly melodic. With Kelli’s brother Kurtis Mayo joining on drums in 2017, they’ve also built a close-knit community of fans while earning the admiration of their musical forebears, a feat that’s found them collaborating with icons like X‘s Exene Cervenka and Calvin Johnson (Beat Happening), touring with Babes In Toyland, and starring as the subject of a feature length documentary. On their forthcoming double album Skating Polly reach a whole new level of self-possession, ultimately sharing their most expansive and emotionally powerful work to date.

“In Peyton’s verse she’s talking about never knowing how far to go or how much of yourself to give to someone, and when my part comes crashing in it’s about guys being possessive and always trying to leave their mark on you. To me it’s the most Skating Polly song on the record, because it’s all these different energies happening at once. The Hickey King video was special to us for lots of reasons. First of all, it was very important to me that it have a “live performance” element because we’d been playing it live for a year and it just feels massive to jump around to and feed off the audience’s energy. The setting for the performance stuff couldn’t have been lovelier, as it was an all ages space (Real Art Tacoma) in our home town and we were decked out in vintage clothes from our favorite local shop Scorpio Rising. Felt like we had to have Dave Smith direct, being the man who’s made more classic Skating Polly vids than any other (Pretective Boy, Hail Mary, Stop Digging, A Little Late, Queen For A Day). And Isaiah Autrey, the actor in the video, was just a friend who we thought was hot and wouldn’t mind hamming it up for a video and we got incredibly lucky because his acting chops exceeded expectations, couldn’t have been a better fit!” (Kelli Mayo)