There are plenty of frontmen who transform when the lights go down, Benji Webbe isn’t one of them.
The Skindred vocalist is loud, hilarious, restless and completely incapable of pretending he’s too cool to enjoy being watched.
With the Welsh genre-manglers returning to Australia in a matter of days for their biggest headline tour here yet, Webbe makes no attempt to dress any of that up as some carefully constructed stage persona.
Asked whether being the centre of attention comes naturally, his answer is immediate.
‘No, I f***ing love it. I’m a show off.’
There you have it.
‘There ain’t no difference between the guy who comes on stage and the kid who’s in school,’ Webbe continues. ‘You know, that was me. I was always that guy. But fortunately, I grabbed the microphone and squeezed the f*** out of it until it made me some money.’
Nearly three decades into Skindred, squeezing that microphone has worked out pretty well.
This April, ninth album ‘You Got This’ became Skindred’s first record to reach No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart, they arrive in Australia for shows in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane between September 1st and 6th.
For a band that spent most of its existence stubbornly operating somewhere between reggae, punk, metal, dancehall, hip hop and whatever else happened to feel right, reaching the summit wasn’t just another plaque for the wall.
For Webbe, there was some satisfaction in proving people wrong.
Skindred ‘My People’ video
‘F*** You, You Bastards’
When asked whether finally reaching No. 1 felt like winning, proving a point or something else entirely, Webbe doesn’t hesitate.
‘All of them, love it. All of them. F*** you, you bastards. Oh, it it only took the crown 30 years to put us on the cover. F*** you. You know what I mean?’
There is laughter underneath it, but also three decades of accumulated frustration.
Skindred have rarely fit comfortably into any single box, that eventually became their greatest strength, but it didn’t necessarily make navigating the music industry any easier.
‘The music business is not like a it’s not like a horse race where everybody lines up,’ he says.
‘You know it’s very it’s who you know, where you know, how you go. And for Skindred, we never had it easy. And forgetting to get a number one album is absolutely beautiful because the sentiment of the album is incredible, but it’s a bit f*** you to some people. I’ll be honest with you.’
The numbers back up just how significant the moment was. ‘You Got This’ became Skindred’s first UK chart-topper after 2023’s ‘Smile’ had previously taken them to No. 2.
Webbe, however, sounds considerably less interested these days in whether the wider music industry understands what his band is doing.
‘I’ve definitely stopped caring a long time ago,’ he says.
‘First of all, it’s me in the mirror in my sister’s room with a brush, singing, having a great time. If anyone else likes that, they’re more than welcome to join in.’
That philosophy might be the simplest explanation for why Skindred still work, they’ve never sounded like they were waiting for somebody to tell them what Skindred should be.
Skindred ‘Can I Get A’ video
‘This Band Is Run By The Band’
Nine records in, Webbe still talks about Skindred like something that had to hack its own path through hostile terrain.
‘This is the jungle that we found, and we’ve hacked our way through it and made our own rules, made our own path,’ he says.
Having worked across numerous record companies during their career has only reinforced that sense of independence.
‘The record companies don’t own this band. This band is run by the band.’
It doesn’t mean Skindred operate without a team, Webbe is quick to praise their management and label. The distinction is that the identity at the centre of it remains theirs.
‘Forget that Skindred is his own entity, and I, you know, we’re not we’re not governed by that rules and and and stuff like that.’
That freedom extends directly into the music.
‘Making the music that Skindred makes because it’s so do what the f*** you want. That I think that’s a magical gift, and I and I really do love it.’
That might sound obvious until you consider how many bands 20 or 30 years into a career become museums to their younger selves, Webbe isn’t interested.
‘I’m just as passionate as I was the first time we played a little pub in Newport called the Pub. Honestly, I am just as passionate playing.’
There’s also another factor increasingly sitting at the front of his mind, mortality.
‘It’s like when you get to a certain age, you f***ing you’re in Sniper’s Alley, and you get dropped in any f***ing moment,’ he says.
‘So every every time every opportunity I get to play with Skindred, I’m giving it my A game and my double A game.’
Australian audiences are about to find out exactly what that means.
‘F*** Me, Are They Gonna Get A Show’
Skindred last hit Australia for Knotfest in 2024, along with their previous local support dates with Halestorm. Webbe hasn’t forgotten the response.
‘Do you know what hardworking people who want to have a good time? That’s what I enjoy about Australian crowds.’
He sees the ticket itself as a commitment.
‘When they buy a ticket, they bought it because they’re passionate. And I know they go f***ing mental when when we when we play the music.’
Knotfest, in particular, left a mark.
‘When we come over to Knotfest, I couldn’t believe the energy in the place.’
This time there is considerably more room for Skindred to stretch out than a festival slot allows.
‘I’m so looking forward to coming and doing some costume changes and f***ing with your head and just just having a good time.’
Then comes the promise:
‘People bought a ticket for the show, and f*** me, are they gonna get a show?’
Anyone who’s previously watched Webbe command a field full of people won’t need much convincing. And yes, the Newport Helicopter is coming too.
The ritual, which sees audiences remove an item of clothing and swing it overhead, has become inseparable from Skindred shows. Webbe says they’ve been doing it since 2011, which has given him plenty of opportunities to watch the concept take some strange turns.
His favourite happened at Poland’s enormous festival formerly known as Polish Woodstock, now Pol’and’Rock Festival.
Just as Webbe prepared to launch into the Newport Helicopter in front of an enormous crowd, a gigantic Polish flag began rolling across the audience.
‘So I’m going. We’re about to do the newborn helicopter. No, we’re not because I can’t see nobody because they just covered them up.’
Thankfully the flag eventually disappeared.
‘They stole the helicopter,’ Webbe laughs.
Smaller rooms can create their own problems.
‘When you do the Newport helicopter, then it becomes the Newport smelly copter.’
Australia has been warned.
Skindred ‘This Is The Sound’
‘Don’t Worry’
For all the jokes, bravado and sheer volume that surrounds Benji Webbe, one moment in our conversation strips everything back.
Asked what one sentence he would tell the young Benji before his first-ever gig, he answers with two words.
‘Don’t worry.’ followed by ‘Every little thing is gonna be all right.’
It carries far more weight than the question initially suggests, Webbe lost both of his parents while still a child.
‘Because I spent a lot of time as a youth worrying, yeah, and being because I lost my parents quite early when I was by the time I was like 12, both of my parents had died.’
Their absence left him trying to process not only grief, but jealousy towards friends who still had the ordinary family experiences he’d lost.
‘I got very angry, and I spent a lot of time in my room angry with with God and the powers that be for making me lose my parents.’
Those feelings eventually found their way into ‘Can I Get It?’ from ‘You Got This’.
‘It’s basically me as a child saying, “Will I get this? Will I get that? Can I have this? Will I have that? You know, and that’s what that song basically is about.’
It’s difficult not to hear Webbe’s entire philosophy differently after that.
The man commanding thousands of people to spin shirts over their heads is still, somewhere underneath it, the kid singing into a brush in his sister’s bedroom.
Only now he isn’t worrying quite so much about where it’s all heading, and with Skindred arriving in Australia next week, he’s still squeezing the hell out of that microphone.
Skindred Australian Tour 2026
With Future Static, excluding Perth
Hailmary in Perth
- Tuesday, September 1st – Perth, Magnet House
- Thursday, September 3rd – Adelaide, The Gov
- Friday, September 4th – Melbourne, Northcote Theatre
- Saturday, September 5th – Sydney, Metro Theatre
- Sunday, September 6th – Brisbane, The Triffid
Tickets are on sale now via Destroy All Lines.
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