Cleveland, Ohio's Violet Ray Wrote a Song About Tony Hawk, and It Drops on Halloween

Cleveland, Ohio punk band Violet Ray writes songs about skateboarding, by skateboarders, for skateboarders, and its new album has a track about Tony Hawk. Skate Gang arrives on all major platforms on Halloween, Oct. 31, with a release show this Friday, Oct. 23, at the Five O'Clock Lounge in Lakewood.

The band has leaned so hard into skate culture that local musician Nick Wolff and his band Gemini Lounge started calling them the Kings of Skate Rock. The nickname stuck, and Violet Ray now prints it on its flyers and merch.

A '90s punk lifer on a board since 1988

Frontman Billy Somerville has been skating since 1988. Before Violet Ray, he sang in the Hooligans, a popular Cleveland punk band that split in 2000. He started Violet Ray in 2017, originally as a politically charged band.

That changed on the band's first full-length album, This Is Skate Rock. Every song referenced skating in some way, from skate legends to wipeout slang. Somerville told Cleveland Scene he once drove all the way to Portland, Oregon, just to skate the Burnside Skate Park.

The skate rock sound has stuck ever since. At the time of that debut, the lineup was Somerville on vocals and guitar, Mike Layton on lead guitar, Rich Kauffman on bass, and Eric Riehm on drums.

What's new on Skate Gang

The new album pulls from songs written as far back as 2020 and as recently as last year. Somerville says the band has been breaking away from its punk roots, borrowing from early Iron Maiden on the metal side and Austin skate-rock band the Big Boys on the funk side.

The biggest surprise is synthesizers. They show up on "Birdman," the band's ode to Tony Hawk, the world's most famous skateboarder.

Another standout is "Ripper Girl," a snotty, NOFX-style track written for Abby, a young skater who rode with Somerville's crew. He remembers her as one of the toughest skaters he's known. She once broke her tailbone snowboarding and never complained. The song pushes back on people who dismiss female skaters. Somerville's line on it is simple: let the skateboarding do the talking.

A skate band on a surf label

Skate Gang comes out on Otitis Media Records, a Corpus Christi, Texas, label run by Christopher Puryear. Somerville says Violet Ray is the only skate-rock band on what is mostly a surf-rock label. The band talked to other punk labels around the country, but none felt like a fit.

Otitis gave the band full creative control and time to finish the record. That mattered, because Somerville was recovering from a diabetic coma that he says nearly killed him while the album came together.

Why it hits

Skate punk has always been about community: the crew at the park, the scabbed knees, the songs blasting from somebody's car. Violet Ray isn't chasing a trend. It's keeping a Cleveland tradition alive, now with a little more range.

Where to listen and follow

Stream earlier releases on Bandcamp and follow Violet Ray on Facebook for the Oct. 31 drop.

Sources

Cleveland Scene — "Punk Band Violet Ray Broadens Its Sound on New Album"
Cleveland Scene — "Cleveland's Violet Ray To Release Skate-Themed Album"
Bandsintown — "Violet Ray" artist page
Maximum Rocknroll — "Violet Ray"