Elliott Skinner’s “THAT KID” is a soulful study in the art of beginning again

Skinner has mixed feelings about the word ‘talent.’ “People talk about talent as this thing that is given to you,” he tells BEST FIT. “This skill that you didn’t have to work for.” But when we talk about people who are skilled at something, we should be “acknowledging the work they’ve put in,” he says. Looking at Skinner’s time in the music industry which, all told, comes to at least a decade, it’s clear to see why he leads with this statement.

His pathway into music was fairly typical, but he is, for lack of a better word, a grafter. Skinner’s interest began in church, his father sang in church choir, and around the fourth grade he picked up guitar: “I would just sit in my room and play and sing and write for hours.” Skinner went to Booker T. Washington High School, a prestigious performing arts school in Dallas, Texas, which boasts alumni ranging from Erykah Badu to Norah Jones. From there came the familiar beats. At Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, he met two guys with whom he’d form a band in 2014, Thirdstory, then proceeded to drop out after the first year.

After dropping viral covers on YouTube, the New York soul-pop trio signed to Verve Records, under Universal Music Group. “As much as I loved the work we did in that group, I think we were all pretty young, and the music industry did its thing,” shares Skinner. “It can be this machine that permeates into your mind, and the process becomes, ‘Okay, well, what’s the thing that we do that is going to get a reaction from people?’ Not, ‘What is going to emotionally pull people to this?’”

The gap between Thirdstory’s eventual break-up and Skinner’s latest single “THAT KID” is substantial – just over seven years, to be exact. In that time, Skinner didn’t stop making music, but he did reassess what he wanted his music to be: “I was like, man, I’m burnt out. I don’t know if I can do the music thing right now. It was pretty scary. Definitely a moment of having to start over. I needed that time to figure out what it [was] that I wanted to say.”

“THAT KID” elegantly distils familiar parts of Skinner’s work. Densely layered production, held down by fingerpicked guitars and intricate melodic lines into a musically complex rendering of an emotionally complex time. A moment of pause, to glance over your shoulder and see how far you’ve come. That phrase, “how far we’ve come”, which appears more than once in the track provides the title of Skinner’s upcoming EP, set for release on 18 September. “The title was this other beginning, this new beginning,” he explains. “It’s been a long time coming, we’ve put a lot of work into this, but you don’t have to start over again. It’s this sort of cycle of renewing and learning and growing.”

But renewal isn’t always easy, and what marks “THAT KID” as such a strong piece of music is how acutely aware it is of this fact. “Goddamn, I miss that kid,” sings featured California artist Jensen McRae mournfully. It’s hard to know if McRae’s singing about herself, a past lover, or her “old imaginary friend.” When the phrase returns again, it’s sadder and more at peace with the loss. A series of questions have cascaded down, beautifully echoed between Skinner and McRae, overlapping until it’s hard to distinguish their voices. “Am I victim to a fever? Am I merely faking light? Will it be a new beginning?” Then, like a sigh, Skinner finishes: “I’m really gonna miss that kid.”

A soft pattering of drums gallops gently underneath the melody of “THAT KID”. Sad and wistful, in a way that recalls the soul ballads of Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye, with a tinge of folk embedded into the instrumental. A conclusion is never reached, instead, the song hovers on a haunting musing about the past and the future, unwilling or unable to neatly resolve itself. “Artists are just regular people,” Skinner says. “We’re just trying to figure out what this all means.” Indeed, there’s so much to figure out. Through “THAT KID,” Skinner’s declaration is simple. He’s starting with himself.