From the Archives: "Skard for Life"
A year after their guitar player was shot to death, A Weatherford metal band perseveres.
The fans chant. “Skard Soul! Skard Soul! Skard Soul!”
They aren’t the headliners on this cold February night, but it’s clear that many of the nearly 300-person crowd huddled underneath a haze of cigarette smoke at Fort Worth’s Ridglea Theater came to see the metal band from Weatherford.
Skard Soul is singer Jesse Herringer, 27; bass player Justin Baisden, 27; drummer Chris Sisk, 26; and new guitarist Andy Biggers, 27.
The stage goes dark and a photo is projected onto it’s back wall. The photo is of the band, crouched under a tree just before sunset. At their feet are a football, a bouquet of flowers and a small headstone marking Jeremy Sisk’s grave. Skard Soul’s guitar player. Chris’ brother.
A song, “Fallen Heroes,” plays over the theater PA. Fans and friends in the audience raise beer bottles and plastic cups filled with whiskey-and-Cokes.
And then, Skard Soul kicks off their set with “Realize,” the first song of their first show since Jeremy was killed in Weatherford on Oct. 21, 2008. A mosh pit starts instantly.
The band tears through a set of original songs like “Bleeding Inside” and “Don’t Know.” The crowd knows all the words. They even do a cover of Green Jellÿ’s novelty song “Three Little Pigs.”
Skard Soul is the hero of the night.
After the show, Herringer is sitting on the back steps of the Ridglea. He’s wearing two contacts – one nearly cataract white and one bloodshot – that give him a frightening intensity. He finds out the band, which usually draws anywhere from 75 to 80 people, drew 171.
A cheer erupts from the band’s friends when they hear the news. It’s the kind of cheer you hear when the home team comes from behind in the last quarter to win the game.
The band is riding high. “I couldn’t have asked for anything more,” Chris Sisk says later. “I almost cried when I was playing, hearing everyone’s reaction to my brother’s name.”
October marks the end of a long year for the members of Skard Soul. They’ve buried a friend and a brother, and they’ve been left to carry on with the band he was an integral member of for most of the decade.
Jeremy's death sent shock waves through the national metal community. Stories ran in the Weatherford newspapers and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. National metal news Web site Blabbermouth.net ran updates through his funeral.
In the Weatherford Police Department report, Jeremy's girlfriend, Laura Pederson, told officers that she and Jeremy were staying at Chris' West Bridge Street apartment in Weatherford Oct. 21. The three spent the previous evening eating chicken and watching movies.
Pederson said she and Jeremy woke the next morning to a knock on the door. Jeremy answered it, and two men entered the apartment and went back to Chris' bedroom. Laura and Jeremy lay back down.
Chris said in the report that he had met one of the men two days earlier. They had talked about the man providing him with a quarter-pound of marijuana.
That morning, there was an argument. Pederson said she and Jeremy heard what they thought was Chris being beaten. Jeremy ran to help his brother. Chris and Jeremy fought the two men. And then, the report said, the man fighting with Jeremy shot him. "Why the [expletive deleted] did you shoot him?" the man fighting Chris said.
The men ran out of the apartment. Jeremy Sisk, 24, died in Chris' arms.
It was just after 11 a.m. Shortly after that, Herringer, who worked for a local electrician, got the call that Jeremy had been shot.
Then the phone calls came. And the text messages. Herringer is the unofficial manager for the band, and now he was acting as their spokesman, talking to concerned friends and fans.
Skard Soul's Myspace page filled up with comments.
I’m so very sorry. I will miss Jeremy so much. My heart goes out to you guys. Let us know if ya'll need anything.
Love you Jeremy
You will be missed.
"It was a totally stupid reason for him to die," says Wesley Hathaway, who co-manages the Ridglea Theater. "We were horrified. He was a lovely kid."
Bobby Ensminger, who plays in another local metal band, No Scope, couldn't believe Jeremy was dead. "It didn't seem real," Ensminger said.
It's a death that Jeremy's friends are still trying to understand.
"There was a lot of anger," Biggers says. "A lot of 'why?' Why would someone do that to him?"
On Oct. 23, 2008, Johnny Preston Reed, 37, who went by the alias "Cat Killer," was arrested in Kaufman County. On Oct. 31, 2008, Guy Evan Graves, 35, turned himself in to WPD investigators in Arlington.
Reed and Graves were indicted in a single indictment with alleged murder, aggravated robbery and aggravated assault. It will not be a capital murder case. They are awaiting trial in Parker County. At press time, a date for the trial has not been set, says assistant district attorney Jeff Swain.
The robbery and murder charges each carry five to 99 years or life in prison and up to a $10,000 fine. The assault charge carries two to 20 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine. If the accused are convicted of more than one count, the sentences will run concurrently, Swain says.
Chris readily admits he doesn't want to discuss Jeremy's death. "I hope nobody has to experience losing their best friend, watching him die," Sisk says. "I listen to people gripe about petty crap, and I just laugh at it ... I want you to remember one thing-it could be worse. It can only get better from here."
Sisk was arrested for marijuana possession late last year, which has meant a lot of legal headaches. He's trying to face them head-on.
Chris weighs around 400 pounds, so it takes longer to get marijuana out of his system, but he's not only done that quicker than expected (in four months), he's stayed clean and passed his last six drug tests. "People are rooting for me," he says. "It's good to have people in your corner."
Sisk is spending time with his parents and putting in more time playing music: jamming in country music and alternative rock in addition to Skard Soul.
"I try not to blame myself," Sisk says. "Any normal man would have killed himself by now, but I know he wouldn't have wanted that and it's a cop-out."
Jeremy's funeral was held last Oct. 27. Local newspapers estimated the crowd in the hundreds. More than 300 cars jammed Weatherford in a procession more than two miles long, all there for Jeremy.
There were friends, guys in bands, and fans the band hadn't seen in five years. Family. 'There were people in suits and people who looked like metalheads," Hathaway says, "and there were people who certainly don't go out to shows. They all missed Jeremy."
The pastor at the funeral mispronounced the band's name-no one can remember exactly how he said it anymore, but he was met with a resounding "It's SKARD Soul" from the audience. And then a laugh.
The band buried Jeremy with his guitar and a big Skard Soul sticker, among other things. Friends brought photos, drawings, beer, whiskey, shot glasses and flowers. They were still throwing tokens into the ground when funeral workers started shoveling dirt on the coffin, Herringer says.
Afterward, family and friends held a memorial at Cherry Park in Weatherford. They ate, even drank a little.
Jeremy's friends remember him as a fun guy who was full of joy. "It was amazing, you know," says J.R. Jenot, a high school friend of Jeremy and Chris. "It spread to everyone he was around."
Chris says Jeremy lived life like "a tropical vacation in Weatherford." Photos show him clowning around, smiling and laughing. Lots of laughing.
"He was always in a good mood," says Eric Perrin, Herringer's cousin, who has followed the band since they started. "He was a stand-up guy."
At Cherry Park, Biggers and some other friends played an acoustic guitar. They played songs by Alice in Chains and Guns N' Roses.
"It was awesome to see all those people there for Jeremy," Herringer says.
Then came the business of the band.
For a split second, the guys didn't even know if there was a Skard Soul without Jeremy. "We knew he would want us to carry on," Herringer says.
That would mean a new guitar player.
Enter Andy Biggers.
Biggers first saw Skard Soul at a birthday party two years ago in Burleson, his hometown. "They were playing with this other band from Burleson called Varekai," Biggers says. "Weliked Varekai, but we thought they just blew them off the stage."
Biggers became a fan. He made it a point to go to their shows, where he would offer to carry their gear back to their cars. They bonded over Pantera, the Arlington groove metal band founded by brothers "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott and his brother, Vinnie Paul. In 2004, Abbott was shot and killed during a live show in Ohio.
Skard Soul knew Biggers, but they didn't know much about him. "For a long time, we didn't know he could play electric guitar or anything," Herringer says.
They were impressed when they heard Biggers play. He didn't have much band experience – his gig as a guitar player in a country band ended in a fight between the bass player and the drummer-but he had skill, spirit and intensity.
And he was fun. At practices and shows, he's usually running around, shirtless, cracking jokes in between pounding out riffs on his guitar and taking swigs of beer.
In other words, he's a happy guy. "He's a long-haired hippie that gets along with everybody," Sisk says.
That attitude appealed to the band. They wanted a guy they could not only play with, but someone they could hang out with, too.
"They taught me their music," Biggers says. "And that is almost a statement itself. They saw my personality. They brought me in, and they had guitar players [who could have joined the band] that they didn't have to teach."
Biggers says he's not replacing Jeremy.
"Every time I play, I play for Jeremy," Biggers says.
Filling Jeremy's shoes comes with pressure. A lot of pressure. "They have a lot of fans coming from Weatherford that make the trip every show," Biggers says. "It amazed me how big the band was. I was like, 'What did I get into? Am I going to be able to pull this off?"'
The band is still playing the old tunes, but they're also jamming and writing new songs.
"I used to just be out in the crowd, being a nobody, pretty much," Biggers says. "And now I'm up on the Ridglea stage ripping in front of everybody."
The band tries to practice on Mondays. They practice in the kitchen of Herringer's Bowie Drive house in Weatherford. Bass, guitar and vocal amps are in the middle of the floor, and the drums are wedged into the breakfast nook. Chris doesn't have his stool, so he sits on a blue cooler.
Herringer, an electrician, just started a new job the week before, and his energy is flagging. Nonetheless, he's ready to play "the new one," and when the song – called "Bleeding Inside" -starts, he's in fine form.
It's a hard financial time for Skard Soul. Beyond Sisk's legal issues, the band currently has a 50 percent unemployment rate. Baisden installs insulation in Mansfield. Sisk and Biggers are looking for work.
I’d like to have a job so I could contribute some money to the band," Biggers says. "If we had some money, we could get a jam room, and-oh, man – I'd fall asleep in that thing, just playing guitar."
Biggers tries with moderate success to convince the band to do a cover of "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles. The band members talk about their influences-Pantera, Killswitch Engage – they're goofy and fun, just four guys in a band, happy to be playing music.
That's where it all started, after all.
Herringer met Jeremy and Chris Sisk at Weatherford High School. The Sisk home was saturated with music – their dad, William, owns more than 850 records by bands like the Beatles and the Flying Burrito Brothers. "He didn't teach me how to work on cars or how to skin a buck, but he taught me about music," Sisk says.
Like the rest of the band, he loves Pantera. He tattooed "Pantera" across his shoulders in 2003, and he and Jeremy got matching "Cowboys from hell" tattoos as well.
Sisk says when he was a sophomore, a friend told him about a junior who wore Pantera shires to school. It was Herringer, and before long, they became friends.
The band started about seven years ago – no one remembers exactly when. The name was just "Skard," but their then-guitar player didn't like it. Herringer came to practiceone day, and the name was changed to Skard Soul.
"I didn't like it then. I just thought, 'OK,"' Herringer says. "Of course, it means so much more to us now with everything that has happened."
They made a name for themselves around Weatherford, playing parties at a makeshift party spot off Bankhead Highway called "the Junkyard."
They won a battle of the bands in winter 2003 at the Galaxy Club in Dallas. They played relentlessly, and before long, they sold 1,000 copies of their first CD, Skard Soul, locally. Skard Soul developed a reputation as a bunch of guys who loved to have a good time. "They've never been egotistical or cocky," says Geramy Mays, who plays bass in local band American Lab Rat. "They're very supportive. I see Jesse at our shows all the time."
The band cycled through members for several years before stabilizing with Baisden at bass and Jeremy at guitar. Before Jeremy's death, they felt like they finally had a long-lasting lineup.
Baisden joined the band two years ago. He's been playing bass since he was 12 years old, and he's been in bands since then – one of which beat American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson in a high school talent show.
He is splitting time between Soul and a Fort Worth funk-rock band called Rabbit's Got the Gun. He's always playing or promoting one of his bands.
He has a gigantic set of ear gauges and an easy-going attitude. He's an energetic performer, known for jumping all over the stage and acting like an all-around crazy man. All for the show, he says.
"When Jeremy was here, we played the song different every time," Baisden says. "He would notice something I was doing, or I would notice something he was doing. And just go with it."
Playing the new songs with Biggers has been reinvigorating, Baisden says.
About halfway through the practice, someone knocks on the door. The cops tell the band to turn down the noise fairly often, but tonight, it's just a group of friends. Some listen to the band practice, and some go outside to smoke and drink.
By the time practice ends a little after 10 p.m., there's a small crowd of people outside, and the guys in the band are outside, drinking, smoking and laughing in the night air.
So, what's the future for Skard Soul? A year after Jeremy's death, the band is going strong, playing live and preserving his memory. All of them say they would like to get out of Fort Worth and tour in the upcoming year, maybe play some places like Austin, but with limited money and two fulltime work schedules, they have to find a way to make that happen.
They're gigging regularly around the Dallas-Fort Worth area. They still play the Ridglea, but they've recently ventured up co Denton as well. They're recording a CD. "Bleeding Inside" will be on the disc, as well as a lot of old material, like "Don't Know" and "Friends?" Sisk says he hasn't discussed it with the band, but he'd like to call it Skard for Life. "My brother and I had talked about calling it that," Sisk says. "A lot of people can and will be scarred for life."
Biggers is happy to play music. "I could work at Guitar Center or something like that," he says, "but as far as what I really want to do, and what's going to make me happy in life – a lot of people aren't happy with their jobs. If I could make a living out of this, hell, yeah, I would."
Skard Soul's name will always be tied to their fallen hero, Jeremy Sisk. "Jeremy would be proud of them," Hathaway says.
For the band, Jeremy's presence is still felt. "We've had cables come unplugged and amps short out for no good reason," Herringer says, "and we just say that's Jeremy messin' with us."
