In 2015, recent high school graduate Brandon Sussman of Long Island, NY attended a Slipknot concert. On this day, Skrik was born.
Skrik had been gestating in Brandon’s mind for years prior, a collective embodiment of music he had written, his cynical chaos-praising tendencies, and most importantly, the angst he had saved up since he started listening to heavy music.
You see, Brandon had a tame, happy childhood by most measures—so tame and happy, in fact, that it seemed something was missing. He had dreams and goals, but they were so pure, generally unscathed by the harsh forces of reality whose erosive powers perpetually sculpt the ego of each individual soul into unpredictable forms.
Brandon had always wanted to be an artist—of what kind, he did not care much. He also always loved stories, and he understood how every great work of art is also a story. Most of all, he always knew he wanted his life to be the greatest story it could possibly be. Meanwhile, he knew that any good story needed to have a conflict. Having generally succeeded in academic and extracurricular pursuits and having had very amicable and stable relationships with most people, he decided there was only one real option: man vs. self.
It was brilliant! A man could manufacture a conflict within himself, one that would be potent and dangerous enough to ruin his life, if only he weren’t so strong that he would ultimately survive and emerge stronger. At that point, he would have a story to tell. It would have to be convincing. It would have to be so convincing, necessarily, that even he himself would not realize the plan was in motion or ever conceived whatsoever.
And so he forgot about it and went on with his life. In his early teen years, he began to sit alone in his room in total darkness, wearing a black Halloween costume cloak, and think of his life and himself in the darkest light he possibly could. And he hadn’t the slightest idea why. He gradually familiarized himself with depression and anxiety, with whom he would remain a close companion for several years.
He started to listen to the most aggressive, emotionally charged music he could find, and he slowly trained himself to identify with their lyrics and themes. With his newfound negative mindset, he continued to self-sabotage everything he did, eager to throw his life off the rails at every chance he got. He ruined friendships and familial ties, lost interest in most hobbies, clung to the wrong people, and generally had little regard for others.
Several profound, world-altering challenges and life events later, and after a largely dormant phase of detached barebones existence, Brandon has awakened from his self-induced mental health catastrophe and realizes the full extent of what he’s done, and more importantly, how and why.
The year is 2025, and Skrik has already released three full-length albums and an EP, and a fourth album is nearly complete.
Now, Skrik and Brandon are on a mission to dominate the music world, bringing to the stage an intense, heartfelt passion fueled by the fiery blaze of a soul that set itself aflame to self-destruct but learned to thrive in the inferno.