Skuli Sverrison

Skuli Sverrison is an Icelandic bass player, who appeared on the album "Hard Hat Area".

Allan Holdsworth Interview (richardhallebeek.com 1996)

-On your new album, the band exists of Gary Willis-Bass, Kirk Covington-Drums and Gordon Beck- Piano. This is a different band than you normally use. Why didn't you use your own band?

I did a compilation album a few years ago where guitar players did their rendition of Beatle Tunes. When they called me I had two days left to prepare something. Coincidently, Gordon Beck, a good friend of mine and a great piano player was staying for a few weeks at my place. It was his idea to do a rendition of ‘Michelle'. Now, I'm a big fan of Gary Willis. Especially when he plays swing, he sounds fantastic. I know the conflicts that may arise between bass players and drummers, so I asked him with whom he liked to play and he said Kirk Covington. Funny, because that's half of Scott Henderson's band Tribal Tech. We did the song pretty fast and I really liked the way things turned out, so I decided to ask them again for my new album. The problem with my own band is that they're living spread in all corners of the world. Chad Wackerman is currently living in Australia, Gary Husband is living in England, Skuli Sverison in New York and Steve Hunt in Boston. I can only get them together for a longer tour.In th e past things turned out pretty OK, but the last tours we didn't make a dime. I cannot keep asking these people to play for next to nothing. That's why I have been looking for some musician's in the neighborhood for some time now. I'm on the right path with Kirk and Gary, but at the same time I realize it's impossible to find a replacement for somebody like Gary Husband. It's also about finding a soul mate, somebody who's on the same wavelenght.'

Allan Holdsworth Jam (Jazziz 1994)

Holdsworth's recorded output belies this self-deprecating comment. Though Hard Hat Area has the title of a work in progress, its sound, like a typical Holdsworth project, is carefully finished. The album is a cohesive package that highlights the band as well as the man up front, and it features drummer Gary Husband (a longtime Holdsworth compadre), keyboardist Steve Hunt, and the dexterous Icelandic bassist Skuli Sverrison.

The germ of an idea for the title track of Hard Hat Area, a sequencer-driven, mechanistic construct, came during a Japanese tour. Holdsworth admired the work ethic of a huge construction crew erecting a skyscraper. "That stuck in my memory, seeing all these guys, quite organized and doing this work," he says, "In my mind, I could see a Super Mario version of the process. What I wanted to do was write a cartoon tune.

Audiostreet Featured Artists (Audiostreet 2000)

"It wasn't a conscious effort, it was just a nice accident. Because what I wanted to try and do after the last album that I did with Gordon (Beck)"None Too Soon" we played old tunes, so in a way it was my album but I didn't think of it like it was my album. The last band album I think of was "Hard Hat Area" which was with Gary, Skuli (Sverrisson) and Steve Hunt and right after that album I was thinking I wanted to write some original music, but just put in a different setting, a slightly different setting. And in a way this also happened by accident because I was playing with Dave Carpenter, who introduced me to Gary Novak and we played a lot and we did two tours of Europe with that group and I also knew he played acoustic bass.

Creating Imaginary Backdrops (Innerviews 1993)

Your next album completes your Restless contract, right?

I'm gonna deliver it as soon as I can, but as to when they put it out, it's up to them. But once I deliver it, that's it for me with Restless. So, that's another reason I was thinking about doing the solo album—something like the Music For Imaginary Films record. A compositional type of record. At the same time, I don't want to just do that if it's not the right time. I've been working on music for a new band album, and I want to do that with the existing band, which is Gary Husband, Steve Hunt and Skuli Skeverson. So, unfortunately, the money that they're paying me isn't enough for me to pay all of these guys to do it even though I know they'll work for nothing, because they've done it before. It's just really hard for me to ask them to do that. So, it's a tough one, shall I do the band album even though the guys have offered to do it free, or shall I do the solo album because that's basically all they're paying for? Either way I'm going to do the best job I can. That's the other thing. It might be great to hold back on the band album and give it to another label.

No Secret (Guitar Extra 1992)

Q: What's going on with the new record?

Allan: It's finished, but it's not mixed. I do want to record one more track, and drop one of the tracks that I have onto the next album, because I turned out having a lot of ballads. Also, I really enjoyed playing with Skully [sic] Sverrisson and Chad Wackerman on this tour, and I'd like to record a track with Skully on it. What I'm going to do is mix the tracks that I've got now, and then right before I hand it in, go in and record and mix another track.

Q: And this is for Restless Records, right?

Allan: Yeah.