SKASUCKS celebrate 20 years of making people dance
Punk band vocalist, tattooist, venue owner, and occasional festival organiser, Ryu Jinseok has spent two decades being part of more projects than most would consider reasonable. Twenty years after forming SKASUCKS, one of Korea's longest-running ska punk bands, Jinseok talks to us about a career built almost entirely on being unable to sit still.
2026 marks SKASUCKS' 20th anniversary, and Jinseok is brutally honest about a shift in priorities he’s noticed in Korea’s band culture. "The music scene has changed a lot since then," he says. “Since Covid, musicians have been putting a lot more energy into short-form content and YouTube rather than live shows. Content over live performance." He lets that sit for a moment. "As people who love live music, that's a shame. But at the same time, it's quite interesting."
The first big milestone in SKASUCKS time came a year into the band’s existence, when they opened for ska legends The Slackers. "I think we got to play with them because we covered one of their songs, 'International War Criminal', and put it on our demo CD," he says. He was a huge fan of the band long before that. "I really loved and respected The Slackers, so I was already excited I could see them play in Korea. I was even more excited when I found out we'd be playing with them."
There is one regret about that night he has, though. “My English wasn't good enough to have much conversation with them, which I regretted. Now that my English is better, I think I could talk with them a lot more. So there's a bit of regret there too."
While the show was a big moment, it didn’t affect how SKASUCKS operated going forward. "SKASUCKS has always been a band focused on us enjoying ourselves playing, having fun live with the audience, and saying what we want to say," he says. "That's been true from when we first formed until now, and it'll stay that way going forward."
If SKASUCKS have one song that has connected with people more than others, it's Skaholic. "When I write new songs, I focus a lot on making them easy for the audience to sing along to," he says, explaining the song’s longevity. "That song is probably the easiest of ours to sing along to." A former guitarist wrote the track, and it's held its place in the set for one simple reason: people still sing along.
In 2021, SKASUCKS made something of a comeback with new material and an introspective direction, as best seen on the track Hometown. Jinseok writes most of the lyrics himself: "I usually write about myself, or about society. I guess you could call it the human race," he says. "As we go through life, we see positive things, negative things, reasonable things, unreasonable things. By my own standards I sometimes cheer them on, sometimes curse at them." Jinseok sees a connection between himself and the people whi enjoy his lyrics. "If that came across as emotionally resonant, maybe you have fairly similar thoughts to mine, or you've had similar experiences. That's interesting."
Fronting a band has never been Jinseok only project. He also runs Club SHARP, a venue he opened in Mangwon at a time when opening a venue seemed like a less-than-sure thing. "A lot of the small venues in Hongdae were shutting down. Absurd gentrification was the problem," he says. "I thought, if this keeps up, new bands and small-scene bands are going to lose the places where they can play."
"I ended up trying to open a space that was honestly beyond what I could afford. I think there was also a sense of responsibility, wanting to protect the scene."
Mangwon, back then a much quieter neighbourhood than the one it's become, simply offered rent Jinseok could stomach. Even so, he's careful not to take sole credit. "I probably couldn't have opened Club SHARP without my friends' help."
The venue once shared a building with SHARP Ink, Jinseok’s tattoo studio, though that has since moved, "about five seconds down the road," he says, laughing. He sees the two projects linked philosophically. "Band culture and tattoo culture have been inseparable for a long time, and both the tattoo shop and the club use the name SHARP." The name carries weight beyond just branding: it stands for Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice.
When pushed on his live performance highlight, Jinseok picks a stage he built himself. New Generation of Ska Festival was organised by four friends in 2014 in downtown Sinchon for a day of ska, ska punk, and reggae, and featured bands from Korea, the US, and Japan. "It's a show I'll never forget," he says. "It was a truly DIY festival in every sense." The connections it produced outlasted the event itself, eventually leading to a split 7" with the legendary Jeff Rosenstock.
New Generation of Ska Festival hasn't run since 2017, but Jinseok isn't ruling out bringing it back. "Lately I've been thinking I'd like to do it again if the chance comes up," he says, laughing again, before adding the part that actually matters: "as long as I have people willing to help."
Twenty years in and SKASUCKS are working on a new album to mark the occasion. Jinseok’s ambition for the band hasn't changed much. "If I have a goal, it's to keep pouring my heart into it until we break up," he says, "sometimes cheering, sometimes cursing.”