If you have a hankering for a local band that’s doing something distinctive—something hard to describe and place in one basket—Giant Skunk should fit that quest.
There are definitely early punk influences, vibes from the best ’90s alternative rock—they all cited Melvins as a mutual band they love—and modern metal riffs galore. And there are some surprising Brazilian rhythms and musical structures as part of Giant Skunk’s sound, which speaks to the one-of-a-kind melding of backgrounds within this four-piece.
“It’s a ton of different influences in every song,” guitarist Rhett Lila said from the band’s practice space. “We’re all coming from somewhere different, and it’s just kind of meeting in the middle. I think all of us are like, ‘Whatever comes to be, comes to be.’ There’s no goal for a sound.”
This diversity is reflected in a Spotify playlist they’ve curated that has a whopping 26 hours of tunes from many different musical pathways. “If you want to peek inside of our heads, that’s a good way to do it,” said drummer Brayden Tripp. “Hit shuffle, and see what happens.”
Giant Skunk is basically two duos smashed together. Lila and Tripp moved to Reno last year from Duluth, Minn., and were in a band called The Hermits while in the Midwest. Singer Daniel Zulian and bassist Edson Junior last played music where they lived in Aracaju, Brazil, which Junior said was the equivalent of Brazil’s “biggest little city,” and were in a band for decades before both moving to Reno earlier this year.
The way this band of pairs was formed, on a snowy Reno night this past March at a local metal show, was “totally by happenstance,” Tripp said.
“I go outside after the show’s done, and these two guys are standing out there, and they’re waiting for their truck to warm up,” Tripp said. “I was just going to hang out for a second, just said something offhand like ‘sick show,’ and as I’m talking to these guys, they’re saying that they’ve been looking for a band for a while, and I’ve been in Reno for a while, and I’ve been looking for a band, and they were looking for a drummer. So we decided to jam sometime.”
Tripp brought his Minnesotan bandmate to that jam, and the rest is Giant Skunk lore. Zulian said that while all four members have different visions and come from different cultures, the love of music makes it work.
“I think when you meet the right person, and the right chemicals start, everything will happen,” he said. “We’ve haven’t even played a year together, and we have more than 10 songs, and a lot more songs we can start. So we’ve got that connection.”
Said Junior: “When (Daniel and I) played when we were young in Brazil, we listened to bands from Seattle, Chicago and a lot of places. So that’s why I think we can connect with the music, because even though I didn’t understand the words in English, I felt the energy and how it works. And that’s making me love that music.”
Giant Skunk plays this willfully wild music on bills that reflect its shifting sound. The band has shared the stage with death metal combos, acoustic groups, straight-ahead rockers and even DJs. It’s not so much a deliberate thing, but it’s definitely a drive they want to maintain.
“For me, it’s always been really cool to play on bills with people where you wouldn’t normally fit,” Tripp said. “Just because (when) you get exposed to new stuff, you talk to new people.”
Zulian added this telling comment about the chaos factor of being such a diverse group: “A lot of times, we go to the limit of what we can do. It sounds good, or it sounds bad, it doesn’t matter. We are Giant Skunk, and we’re going to do the same thing for the next show, or forever. We just love playing and love starting new songs.”
That songwriting has evolved in the short time Giant Skunk has been together. At first, Zulian brought in completed songs, but after a while, it was jamming that led to full group compositions, something that everyone agreed they preferred.
“For the last few songs we’ve written, we just find the parts we like and just keep playing the jam until it forms into a structured thing that we actually have parts for,” Lila said.
Tripp added: “We like playing jams live, too, for songs we don’t quite have written down. Usually that’s an idea we had here, but it goes somewhere different every time we play it. It’s a really fun way to try stuff on people.”
Going out on a limb in front of people is what Giant Skunk is all about, and some band members are still a bit flabbergasted that they’ve reached success so soon.
“The first time we got paid in Reno, Daniel and I were like, ‘Bro, they pay us?” Junior said to chuckles all around. “We got $43? What is that? Why do we have that money? I didn’t understand this, because in Brazil, you just have to play outside somewhere, or sometimes you have to pay somebody to play.
“Another show, we made a hundred bucks, and I thought, ‘Why do people keep paying us?’ In my mind, it’s unacceptable. We’re just having fun.”
Giant Skunk will open for Soulfly at 7 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 18, at The Alpine, at 324 E. Fourth St., in Reno. Tickets are $34.61; visit www.thealpine-reno.com. The band will also play with Out of Character, Decline to State, Cl!t, Denim in Yellow and Longjump at the Second Annual Rock for Tots 2025 show at 5:30 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 22, at Club Underground, at 555 E. Fourth St. Tickets are $18.53; visit ticketweb.com. For more details, follow @giantskunk on Instagram.