fter departing doom metal legends Trouble in 2012, vocalist Eric Wagner, bassist Ron Holzner and drummer Jeff " Oly " Olson, formed The Skull and released their debut full-length album For Those Which Are Asleep in 2014. Initially, the premise of The Skull’ s formation was to go out and play tunes from the first two Trouble albums, Trouble( 1984) and The Skull( 1985).

Today, The Skull has developed their own fan base and became more focused on creating original material, with tentative plans to write a second full-length record after the band’ s appearance at Reggie’ s on March 24.

“ When we first started, we wanted to go out and play the heavy stuff,” Wagner began.“ Since we’ ve been doing that, it’ s kind of fun playing that live together. What’ s weird is that The Skull has evolved. Sometimes we tried to do a Trouble song in the set from a later period and when we play it, it just doesn’ t seem like us. I think with The Skull doing those first two [ Trouble ] records, we established who we are, and it allowed us to make that record [ For Those Which Are Asleep ]. We always figured that when we first started touring on this record that people just wanted to hear us play the Trouble songs. But we got a great response from the record and people actually did want to hear those songs, and they knew the lyrics.”

After For Those Which Are Asleep was released, the band did a lot of touring. In between all that, Wagner managed to somehow write a new Blackfinger record— a project he started in 2014— tentatively scheduled for an early summer release.

With former Trouble members in the

line-up, The Skull will undoubtably be compared to its former band.“ That can’ t be helped,” Wagner said.“ Obviously, we’ re going to always be compared to Trouble because I was in that band for a long time. There’ s no way around it. The Skull is going to remind everybody of it because I was part of the writing process in Trouble. I was the one singing the songs. Even though it’ s different, there’ s always going to be that hint of it, that common thread through each record. But we’ re always searching to branch out and do new things.”

The current incarnation of Trouble, with Rick Wartell and Bruce Franklin at the helm, along with vocalist Kyle Thomas, have done an honorable job continuing the

band. Ambitious as it is, to this author ' s ears it’ s just not the same Trouble without Wagner’ s charismatic wails.“ I think it’ s great if they’ re [ Trouble ] having fun and doing what they want to do, because I am,” Wagner said.“ I always just wish them the best. I think these last few years have been a very creative period for me. Blackfinger is just about to come out with a third record and then The Skull with a new one again. I’ m having a great time and I’ m glad that people still want to hear it.”

The Skull loves to play hometown shows, where the crowd welcomes them with open arms. " We’ ll always be a part of it there,” as Wagner finishes up.“ We [ Trouble ] got together in 1979. Sometimes

in the early days the hometown band didn’ t get treated the same as bands coming through there. It’ s kind of weird actually. It’ s like you said, as you get older you become an institution. I love going there. It’ s home and it always will be. The fans have been great. I think people appreciate it when you go there and just give it up for them. Chicago is that way. They appreciate that and they like that we do that when we go there.”

And Reggie ' s is kind of our home bar in the city. I love playing there the people there are great to us, and there’ s always a good crowd. It’ s like our home base.”

Appearing 3 / 24 at Reggie ' s, Chicago.