Fantastic Black

FANTASTIC BLACK is the combined effort of ERIC SKODIS (Imperial Drag, Redd Kross, Missing Persons) and AARON TAP (Matt Nathanson, Paula Kelley, Swim Jeans). L.A. native Skodis met Tap shortly after his move to L.A. from Boston in 2005, when Skodis, frustrated with merely being a drummer in ill-fated bands, decided to move up from the back of the stage and exhibit his own talents as a songwriter and front his own band - singing lead and playing drums, simultaneously. In Tap he found not only a musical compatriot, but a lifelong friend.

Between both artists’ busy tour schedules with other bands, the duo set up in Tap’s studio to flesh out Skodis’s tightly arranged musical ideas and embark on a seemingly never-ending search for the perfect sound. Over a period of almost two decades, Skodis/Tap inched the project down afield, until they were finally able to enlist mixer Joel Valder to provide the final layer of power and shine.

Skodis and Tap’s musical influences range from rock, power-pop, glam-rock, new wave, heavy metal, punk, post-punk, industrial, EDM, jazz and prog-rock, and both were raised on specifically late-70s riff-rock and 80’s metal. While the latter sounds might be what hits you first, Skodis always intended for the band to be a mélange of all of these styles. The resulting debut album is a love letter to a bygone era when rock was king and rock stars walked the earth.