Longtime Doll Skin drummer Meghan Herring says it’s surreal a decade ago her biggest goal was to form a mostly female band that would compete in Rock Rev. — a battle of the bands-style competition at her school, Desert Mountain High School.
Herring, also a student at the School of Rock Scottsdale at the time, recruited her peers — vocalist Sydney Dolezal, guitarist Alex Snowden and bassist Nicole Rich — to form a band.
Not only did the band win the competition, which had a pool of nearly 15 bands, but it captured the attention of now-former Megadeth bassist and Scottsdale resident David Ellefson.
Ellefson approached the band nearly a year after its victory to serve as Doll Skin’s manager and producer. The band agreed.
Its first EP, “In Your Face” — produced and released by Ellefson’s label EMP Label Group — hit the airwaves in 2015 and immediately garnered the attention of promoters.
Get out of town
With the support of Ellefson and the musicians’ parents, Doll Skin made enough money to buy an RV to tour. The band hit the road in early 2015 for its first tour, a four-gig West Coast run opening for Ellefson’s project, Metal Allegiance.
The tour offers continued. In 2016, the band played 110 shows, supporting the likes of Otep and Hellyeah, and landed a headline tour.
After the tour, the band returned to the studio. The result, “Manic Pixie Dreamgirl,” which debuted in June 2017, spawned the Top 40 hit “Daughter.” It also landed the group on the Vans Warped Tour.
Herring says she didn’t feel successful until after Warped Tour.
“I started feeling it, particularly, when we did the second year of Warped Tour because we were having crowds in random states and in places that we either never played before or we played before there was a small crowd and now there’s a big one,” Herring says.
Dolezal, however, awaited the next big accomplishment.
“It’s interesting because I feel like we’ve always been asked the question of when will you know that you’ve made it? And before we got on Warped Tour, I always said when we got on Warped Tour and before we went to Europe, it was always when we went to Europe,” Dolezal recalls. “It never felt like I was reaching a point that I wouldn’t feel like there was more to do.”
Building a community
One unexpected accomplishment was the creation of community within its fan base. Doll Skin referred to its fans as its “Family of Strangers” — an ode to the first track on its debut EP. That changed when an unexpected visitor crashed a writing session for “Love is Dead and We Killed Her” in a Big Bear Lake, California, cabin.
Each morning, they awoke to rat feces and became fixated on finding the unpleasant visitor. They never did. However, the rat inspired the album artwork and they redubbed their fan club “The Rat Pack.”
With a new community forming after the release of the record in June 2019, Dolezal felt that the band had succeeded.
“Right before the pandemic, we were doing some touring, we were hitting some headlining shows that were doing so well, and that was when I thought, ‘This is our crowds, this is our show, and there’s a lot of people here.’ It started to hit me and was really cool,” recalls Dolezal, an alumnus of Arizona School for the Arts.
Separate ways
Doll Skin had just finished a tour with New Found Glory when the COVID-19 pandemic was declared.
“Right before the pandemic, it felt like we were starting to take off, which was upsetting, as we were making so much traction and then the world had to shut down on it,” Dolezal says.
Rich and Snowden left the band, which was sidelined from touring in 2020, to pursue other interests.
Snowden joined the nu-metal band Tallah alongside her longtime boyfriend Max Portnoy, son of metal drummer Mike Portnoy. Rich owns an LA jewelry shop called “Strawbaby.”
This left Herring and Dolezal in unfamiliar territory, having to replace two founding members. They found two equally capable musicians — guitarist Tori Ross and bassist Tay Fischer. In July 2022, the band was dealt a further blow when Herring departed, citing mental and physical health concerns.
Although Dolezal pressed on with drummer Syd McVicker for another jaunt, the singer admits it didn’t feel the same.
“As much as I love the people that I decided to bring with me on tour when I was still trying to make it work without Meghan and Alex and Nicole, it felt like I was not making music with my friends anymore,” Dolezal says.
Dolezal says this was compounded by rising costs for touring musicians.
“Everyone I bought on the tours with us all needed to be compensated because they had invested all of the emotional labor into it, and I couldn’t expect them to just set aside their life and make all the sacrifices I’ve made,” Dolezal says. “Merch costs also started going up, and so did the cost of the RV that we had, and instead of being able to have the four of us pitch in, like it always had been, it just became me.”
Because of this, Dolezal plans to disband Doll Skin.
For old times’ sake
After talking with Herring, they decided to say farewell by reuniting with the original lineup for one last show. They will play deep cuts and the new single “Melancholia.”
“I am so deeply grateful for everyone who is still listening to us, and I wish it didn’t have to end like this,” Herring says. “But I’m just happy that we were able to make this show happen and get the original four together.”
Dolezal has a similar sentiment.
“There are not enough ways that I can say I love you to the Rat Pack for me to feel like I can get it across,” Dolezal says. “If I could give them the world I would, but in the meantime, I hope that they enjoy the show and enjoy the final single.”
Doll Skin w/Rio Wiley, Lilac Cadillac and Bite The Hand
WHEN: 7 p.m. Sunday, March 12
WHERE: The Rebel Lounge, 2303 E. Indian School Road, Phoenix
COST: $18
INFO: dollskinband.com, rebellounge.com
