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Photo by Kane Ocean

Unabashedly present, ferocious and uncompromising, Skuzland is everything you expect from a duo made up of Ugly Worldwide & Robot Moonjuice. Blending surprisingly catchy melodies over a blur of genres, including crunchy rock chords & industrial drums, their latest single "Tell Me You Love Me" spins visuals in such a way, you’d have to wonder, how would this song look? Well, luckily they’ve put together a stellar cast of collaborations on the music video as well, including Emmy award-winning director Chris Klimovski. With our curiously peaked yet again, we had to reach out across the ocean to find out more, and say we love it out loud: 

OnesToWatch: Who is skuzland? 

Jazzelle: I’m skuzland, he’s skuzland, you’re skuzland. There’s a little bit of skuz in everyone! Togetherness in Chaos.

Robot: Skuzland is for the people and by the people. 

Can we visit skuzland? Should we? 

Jazzelle: Yes! Everyone is welcome in skuzland all it takes is a little imagination and reckless free will!

Robot: Yes, but first you need to solve a riddle. 

Shit, my teenage punk band tried to sounds like this… how’d you settle on your sound? 

Jazzelle: We just stumbled upon it honestly. Super subconscious but looking from the outside in it’s more than just puzzle piecing different sounds from an amalgamation of genres, but drawing inspiration from the driving energy from each and throwing them all in a trash fire. Our sound is the smoke that rises!

Robot: It honestly just came naturally, we both gave each other the space to be absolutely insane with no judgement and it shows.

Your new single “TELL ME YOU LOVE ME” is out now. What are you conveying in this track and how is it an important part of skuzland’s storytelling?

Jazzelle: Navigating unrequited love can quickly skew reality. Whether that love is between you and another or you and yourself. It almost forces tunnel vision and makes you blind to loved ones that surround you and are actively fighting to make you aware of it. It’s a desperate plea to be accepted for who you are at your core. It’s raw and vulnerable with an almost magical glaze which is key to skuzland storytelling.

Robot: It speaks to the core of what I think our inner child wants and that's to be loved. A lot of our music revolves around that.

You guys also released “POOR CHOICES” earlier this summer with another stunning music video. Where do you get your creative inspiration from?

Jazzelle: From life experience, from our community, from strangers, and from dreams and nightmares. Creative inspiration can manifest in strange, unexpected ways. Keeping ourselves open to the universe is integral.

Robot: It was inspired by a part of our lives that was really chaotic. We shot the video in my old apartment in Harlem where Jazzelle first stayed when she came to NYC. We had a lot of really crazy nights in that apartment, so getting to use it to tell the story was really special.

What’s coming up for skuzland?

Jazzelle: Our Debut EP next year, more live shows, and a series of boundary pushing visuals.

Robot: We just finished putting the last touches on our first EP that we are hoping to drop at the top of next year.

Any collaborators? Who produced the upcoming project? 

Yes! We love collaborating. It’s a big part of what makes skuzland. We pride ourselves in giving everyone, whether it be a producer of the music to the director a video, and everything in between, to have space for their creative input. We have simply discovered skuzland, exploring it with our people is what makes us, well, us! We worked with a dear friends new and old on ‘OTW’. We made amazing music with Oscar Lang in London top of this year, TELL ME LOVE ME, and STEREO. We actually had him come out to nyc to play a part in the music video for TMYLM. A few days after we did a session here in NYC and made maybe my favorite song of the project called GIRL AMERICA. Our longtime friend and collaborator Lilith was also a major part of this project, producing Poor choices. Rockstar baby, and Puddles in tandem with JP Gallo. Another friend! So many friends!! Wow we’re so popular!! And last but not least we linked up with Wyatt Bernard and Austin Dale corona for the track WALK LIKE ME. 

What changes if skuzland goes off? 

My phone number! Just kidding. Unless.. (;

What's inspiring you right now outside of music? 

Comic books, rare insects, untouched earth.

Best / favorite venue to catch you at? 

Musically, who is new but making all the right moves? Who are your current OnesToWatch?

In the grand scheme of things “right” moves can be wrong and “wrong” moves can be right! So I’m not one to say. So many people the list be endless but lets just sayyyyy Junior Varsity, Ecca Vandal, Infinite Coles and Chi! Excited to watch their journeys.