As doors opened to the public, Skrude was filing in, wearing costumes resembling characters from Scooby-Doo. “The Scooby-Doo idea was quite old, to be honest,” Dante Paz Soldán said. “The K-UTE Halloween show in the era of bigger and better Skrude gave us the idea.”

This is the second time Skrude has played a show presented by K-UTE. They were the last band on the bill, playing to a growing crowd of costumed, sweaty fans of the hardcore scene.

Hailing from different musical projects, Skrude came together in 2023, marking themselves as one of Salt Lake’s favorite hardcore acts. The band is comprised of Joren Paz Soldán (vocalist), Brecken Hunter (drums), Dante Paz Soldán (guitar), Alon Meir (keytar) and Quincy Kimball (bass). When the band began, they were still involved in a high school-aged crowd, playing shows that catered to younger audiences. Now, their audiences range from new heads in their teens and early 20s, as well as old heads in their 40s and sometimes even 60s. “We’ve definitely had some, like straight geezers be like ‘this shit’s gas,'” Dante said. “They mention bands that nobody else mentions when they compare us to stuff.”

Creating community and higher stakes

Belonging to the hardcore scene, Skrude can be described as many things. “Aggressive dance funk,” “nu-metal” and “keytar rap rock” are just a few, but their music is boundless. Their live performance is proof of their range of motion and musicianship. As the first drum beat hits the room, sweat protrudes from the bodies of the audience and the movement is never-ending. This formation of community is their priority, having played shows in venues across the valley. Thrift Rx, Black Lung Society, The Beehive, Boiler Room and the late Soda Boba (rest in peace) to name a few. 

The community aspect has been there since the beginning, which they described when talking about Battle of the Bands. “We’ve all been involved or somewhat affiliated with various educational environments, like Battle of the Bands type stuff. And it’s fun when you’re at that stage, but the competitive nature of it puts the wrong idea in some people’s heads that they need to be better than the other bands, rather than be like a community. Like, it’s good to strive to play well, but to put other people down because of it is a bad byproduct.” 

Dante added that they played a Battle of the Bands in North Salt Lake. They broke the rules, fitting their intuitive style. “We were supposed to play one original and one cover, and we just lied about the cover,” Dante said. “We said we were going to play Nosferatu Man by Slint.” They didn’t.

Bringing it all together

Their live performance is a wild blend of different musical styles; their musical process ties it all in. The band members all come from different parts of town, so meeting together can only happen a few times a month. “It’s very mixed a lot of the time, because it’ll be like someone has some idea that they bring.” They all write and compose on their own time and bring it together, finalizing each detail as one. 

“Someone comes up with the riff, and then we jam on the riff, and then eventually a song happens,” Joren said. “Sometimes I have lyrics that I had written that I didn’t have any instrumentation for. So it’s 50/50 on whether the lyrics already existed beforehand or I wrote them specifically for what they wrote.”

The band will be putting a pause on performing to record their second full-length album. You can find more about the band here. Listen to Skrude wherever you get your music.