—I knew he was going places. So he was the vessel for the songs I wrote – that we wrote together. I, like him, had an image I had to curate, and these songs just didn’t fit. We talked as well as making music. I learned a great deal about Zach Crystal in those years. I learned what sort of a person he was. I learned about what he wanted, the way he saw the world. And let me tell you, people think I’m fucked up.
—What did you learn?
—The songs, at least, I was paid for. I still am being paid for. The other stuff … not so much.
—Other stuff?
—I learned from Zach Crystal that we both had … unconventional upbringings, shall we say? I know his squeaky-clean rags-to-riches story. From an estate in Barlheath to stardom – only possible with the love of his family and a cheap Casio keyboard. Please, spare me.
—It wasn’t true?
—Some of it was. The place, the people. But Zach Crystal’s home life was far from happy. His tyrannical parents forcing him to play keyboards and sing for them, making the poor kid practise and practise so they could get the adulation they wanted in their church group. When he started being asked to play at religious concerts and festivals, they took whatever money he made for themselves. Then they got Naomi involved too. They made this image – this squeaky-clean, good Christian image. Naomi told me all about it – the therapy she’d had to go through after. When Zach decided to go solo, she was finally released. She’d never been so happy. They broke their son and they very nearly broke her too and, like me, music was their only way out.
—I had no idea…
—I don’t think anyone did. The Crystals have been masters of curating their own image. He learned how to do that from the very start. Their whole life has been secrets and cover-ups. A happy smile painted over an open wound. That was Zach and Naomi Crystal’s childhood. He saved her from that, believe me. It was them, their parents, who unleashed Zach Crystal on the world. So in a lot of ways, he and I were more similar than we knew.
I don’t know a great deal about Skexxixx’s early life. What I do know comes from a Kerrang magazine feature on him in 2004, entitled ‘Emptiness’s Sweet Embrace’ and an unofficial biography entitled Black Eyes and Mocking Glass from 2008. When Skexxixx was Leonard Myers, child of Marvin and Greta Myers, both of whom were drug addicts, he was taken into care and raised in a children’s home on Merseyside. His father took custody of him for a few years when he was six, but by eight he was back in the care system. Skexxixx tells me these early experiences shaped him, made him what he eventually became.
—The drugs didn’t help either. I’m not talking recreational here, I’m talking about the ones they fed me in the home. You see, my parents were also addicts of something much more dangerous, much more poisonous than heroin – and that was Christianity.
Young Leonard Myers was placed into Saint Nicholas Residential Home in Aigburth, a suburb of Liverpool. Saint Nicholas was a privately owned care home, funded by churches and private donations. Outside of local authority control, it sounds like it also medicated its residents – with unregulated drugs. The home is now long gone, the site flattened and replaced by an estate.
—They’d sucked my parents in when my mother was pregnant. They’d seen how vulnerable she was and, like good Christians, pounced. I have vague recollections of a preschool at the home, in its garden. There were rabbits, fluffy white rabbits, and wooden toys. A Noah’s ark with a pair of wooden sheep. I liked them the most. I remember the sunshine. But I remember being taken home afterwards. Back to hell.
Things get more sinister when Skexxixx tells me the story you heard at the top of the episode – about the ‘specialists’ the home brought in once he was living there. He admits that his memories are distorted, messy, and the accuracy might be off, but those meetings with Bill and Betty, the things they would discuss, have stayed with him.
—Always, with Bill, it was about what I would get if I told him what he wanted to hear. I would be allowed to leave early, I would be allowed a sweet, an extra hour of television. A good report from him to the home. Bill was obsessed with this idea of ‘turning a bad memory into something good’, and, it seemed, the worst I made them, the better I did. ‘Just tell me the truth and you get to go home’ … Easy!
Pretty soon, I just began to make things up. The stories grew more and more elaborate. At first, Bill would ask me about the real memories I had of my mother and my father, and then he’d twist it.
‘Are you sure that was right, Lenny?’ he would say. ‘Are you sure it happened that way? Or is your brain just trying to make something nice out of something horrible? Is your brain replacing things for you?’
I began to work out what were the right and the wrong answers. I began to understand what he wanted me to say and I’d say it.
By the end of our sessions, my mother and father were full-blown Satanic priests in charge of a coven that sacrificed animals, ate babies … the whole shebang.
—And none of it was true?
—Not a word of it. For a long time, I believed what they wanted me to believe. Up until my parents’ death. It was only after that I came to realise what these people were. They talked about demons and devils and evil with no self-awareness.
It never crossed their minds that they were the real monsters – the evil they were telling me to be scared of.
Skexxixx’s career, and the type of music and image he portrays make a great deal of sense in this context. He once told a magazine that the purpose of his music was ‘all-out war against Christianity and the blind sheep that follow it’.
It’s a tragic and terrible tale of coercion and manipulation, of religious zealots taking advantage of a child. The similarities he shared with Zach Crystal are much more obvious now.
—Did the two of you share stories about your upbringing?
—We did, sometimes. We both harboured a hatred for what we’d been brought up to believe, to become. We just went about that in different ways. Whereas I wanted to scream about it through a mic, he wanted to do things another way…
Skexxixx sits back again in his chair. He lifts a couple of bottles of cold sparkling water from a mini-fridge and offers me one. We both drink. Refreshed, Skexxixx continues.
—Zach and Naomi Crystal, The Crystal Twins, were an unmitigated success, mostly because of their wholesome image and Naomi’s flourishes with the song writing. Without her, Zach was insipid – as uninspiring as his songs. A single Jonas Brother if you like. I mean, that reference is probably too old now, right? He was looking for something to undo all of that, to become something else.
I’m going to tell you some more things now. Things that I’ve not told anyone yet. I wish there was some way I could negate the publicity that will follow this. You know what people are going to say about me.
Last time we spoke, you asked me a question about an album of mine. You asked me about the themes of some of my songs.
Instead of a recap, I’m going to play the audio from that particular episode. For context: the case I was covering was that of twenty-one-year-old Arla Macleod, who bludgeoned her family to death with a hammer in 2014. Arla was suffering from a very specific delusion – that she was being pursued by ‘black-eyed kids’ or BEKs, as they’re known; paranormal creatures of urban myth in the form of pale children with black eyes. Arla Macleod was also an avid fan of Skexxixx, perhaps because she was able to identify with a particular song of his from the Through the Mocking Glass album, ‘Dead-Eyed March’, which contains the lyrics:
A thousand black-eyed girls
A thousand black-eyed boys
Marching to a distant drum
Looking for a place called home.
Last time I spoke to Skexxixx I was starstruck and flustered. I’m not proud of how I breathlessly asked the following;
—Can I ask you something about Through the Mocking Glass?
—Sure, go ahead.
—Who are the blacked-eyed boys and girls in ‘Dead-Eyed March’?
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—I think you’re asking the wrong kind of questions…
I remember that long silence back when I interviewed Skexxixx the first time, when Six Stories covered the case of Arla Macleod. I remember sitting there in front of him, wondering about the people I talk to about their demons and struggles. My interpretation was that this song was about that. I see now that the song is about blindly following something like religion.
—You were right about the album. It was clever marketing on my part – all the stuff about the black-eyed kids, the rumour that I started about how I’d gone into their world and come back again … Do you see any similarities with someone else here yet?
—I’d never even thought of that.
—No. No one else did either. Zach Crystal and I, we’re similar people, we have similar damage. Crystal though … the hatred in him, the darkness inside him. People call me a monster, you know. I used to get the blame for a great many things: violence, terrorism, the corruption of the youth. All I ever talked about was black-eyed fucking kids, man. That guy, fucking Crystal, he was truly terrifying. Something evil lived inside that man. Something cold.
The not-quite-friendship and coproductions between Skexxixx and Zach Crystal ended more or less the following year, in 1995, when Zach Crystal released his first solo album, Yearn, to huge critical acclaim. The majority of the songs on that album, Skexxixx tells me, were the results of their song-writing sessions.
—Then he dropped me. Just like that. Bye-bye. I had served my purpose and wasn’t needed anymore. That’s how he’s been brought up to see people, man. James Cryer made sure I got my money, and I didn’t speak publicly about it. Fine with me. I was rich. I didn’t have to do anything if I didn’t want to. But I went back to work, used the money to buy a studio, equipment, start writing again. I used that money to begin cooking up Skexxixx. Planning my own world domination.
The two didn’t cross paths much after that. Skexxixx sat back and watched Crystal’s star rise, the percentages from Yearn dropping regularly into his bank account.
—You describe Zach Crystal as ‘terrifying’. I’m interested in what you meant.
—People refer to Zach Crystal as a genius. I think perhaps he was, man. But in the same way that someone might call Stalin, Hitler or Trump a genius. His genius had nothing to do with his music, man. I’ll make that very clear. Zach Crystal’s genius lay in how he was able to get what he wanted. Power … and more…
—Go on…
—Because what he wanted wasn’t just sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Zach Crystal had grown up performing, he wanted … he needed … a harem of young women around him, worshipping him, believing he was their everything. I found out years later why he’d been walking past that bar in Barlheath; why he and James had fallen out with Naomi.
—Can you tell me?
—He’d sent James Cryer out to find girls for him. He felt he was entitled to girls, and James was only too willing to do what he was told. He’d been getting girls for Zach Crystal long before that too. When Naomi found out, she lost her shit. As she rightly should.
—How has none of this come to light?
—Amazing isn’t it, man? Imagine if that had been me, cavorting around with teenage girls? Imagine if it had been you? But it was OK for him to do it because of what he was to everyone, what he was to you and people like you.
Just like I became the world’s devil for a time, Zach Crystal became the opposite.
—Quite.
—But how did he do it? How did he get to such an elevated position? How was he always seen with underage girls and there was no outcry until after he was safely scorched to a crisp in his mansion?
—That’s one of the many questions about Zach Crystal that has been bothering me all this time. I spoke to someone whose daughter was a regular at Crystal Forest. Now, out of context, it just seems insane that anyone would let their children anywhere near him.
—His light is diminishing, man. The mask has aged; it’s melted, slipped, corroded. What we’re starting to see now is what was behind it. We’re starting to see who the great and terrible Oz truly is. Now he’s gone, we can sit back and look at his long game.
—How do you mean?
—Let me guess one thing before you go on man: did this girl whose mother you talked to have a troubled past? Maybe from a home or her family had problems? Did she go to Crystal Forest and was told she was ‘special’ in some way?
—Yes. Her mother had only just got custody of her again.
—Do you remember a small part of you, when you were younger, that wanted to have a problem, that desperately wanted there to be some kind of strife in your life, just so that a Zach Crystal could come and fix it for you? That’s what he was known for, wasn’t it? The help he gave. He came down from on high to help the needy. We all wanted it to be us, we all wanted to be chosen.
We all wanted to be one of Zach Crystal’s ‘special girls’.
Skexxixx’s words seem to wriggle their way inside me and find an old, vulnerable place. A soft place. I think back to myself at the age Kirsty was when she encountered Zach Crystal. Twelve, thirteen. You think you know so much at that age. It’s the same as being sixteen or twenty one – you think you’ve learned it all, you’re indestructible. This is the first time that I’m glad I only found out about my past a few years ago. If I knew who I was back at that age, I could have been vulnerable too – vulnerable to someone like Zach Crystal … It’s amazing how little you know when you’re young. The world seems to pull itself open for you, just a crack, and you’re at the edge, desperate to push further. I remember the feeling Skexxixx is talking about; I remember seeing the promotional photos in magazines, the music videos, the press releases, Zach Crystal surrounded, sometimes hand-in-hand with young girls, girls the same age as me. I remember now that the feeling I had was jealousy. Why hadn’t I been picked?
Skexxixx watches me for a while as if he waits for this feeling to land. He nods, slowly.
—Who would question it? Who was there to tell them to stop, to examine credentials, to scrutinise what exactly was going on. This was Zach Crystal, after all. When you come up against a titan, a deity, you want to be approved, you want to be a part of it, you want to follow, to be picked. You’re not going to get that by asking awkward questions, am I right?
—But how do you know this?
—I’m not saying I know anything for sure. What I can tell you is that all his life, Zach Crystal was looking for a path to divinity and it had nothing to do with God. Or did it have everything to do with God? The god that Zach Crystal became?
Look at his MO. As soon as he could, he vanished into an exclusive realm. A realm of angry sprits. He wouldn’t do interviews. He graced the world with his presence only when he chose to. He was allowed to choose his victims. Remind you of anyone? Some imaginary bearded dude in the sky?
Don’t get me wrong. None of us are saints. We are put on a pedestal by fans whether we want that or not. But show me an up-and-coming star, an emerging Zach Crystal – nineteen, twenty – who says they don’t want that, and I’ll show you a liar. It’s about what we do with that power that matters. That’s how we’ll be remembered, in the end.
—How will Zach Crystal be remembered?
Another silence before Skexxixx’s face cracks into a wide smile.
—Now you’re asking the right questions.
—You talked about the goings-on at Crystal Forest, and you used a term I’ve heard before: ‘special girls’. What do you know about that?
—Right. Now you’re on the right lines. You see, after I split up with Naomi, there were a lot of people, former fans, who wanted to talk to me about him.
—Why was that?
—Maybe they thought he and I were friends, I don’t know. But I heard some things that I didn’t know about him. They were things I wasn’t surprised about though.
Skexxixx stops grinning, his demeanour changes. It’s subtle, but I can feel it. I don’t feel
like he’s manipulated me here. I feel like we’ve both worked toward this point and now we understand each other. What he’s about to say will carry significant weight.
—I talked to one or two young women – women who weren’t so young anymore. Women who had been through … things. Messed up women; women who were broken inside, with no idea who they were anymore. I spoke to women who carried trauma inside them, who had deep healing to do. They were former Zach Crystal fans – former ‘special girls’.
I know man, it’s hard to believe, isn’t it? That these people came to me for solace. I’m no angel. I’ve never claimed to be, but what I’m not is a predator. I wish I could prove the things I’ve heard about him. The problem is the problem there’s always been with him: who is going to believe the devil over God?
Certain things are starting to make sense to me now. It’s like uncovering something old, smoothing away the dirt and finding something grotesque beneath.
—I imagine there were many more. The women I spoke to carried deep shame about what they allowed to happen to them, about how they let not only themselves, but their families, be seduced, chewed up and spat out by that monster. And look what’s happened to their names? Look how our media reports on his victims. Look at the rhetoric. ‘Accusers’ they’re called. Man, if I punched you in the face right at this moment and you called the cops, you’d be ‘the victim of an assault by Skexxixx’; you wouldn’t be ‘Scott King, the Skexxixx accuser’.
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