[7][8][9] At age 17, they played the nightclubs CBGB, Great Gildersleeves, Max's Kansas City, Trudy Heller's, Bottany Talk House, The Mudd Club and The Showplace.

[4][5][10] He worked as a stock boy in the Summit Food Market to re-pay his mother who loaned him money to purchase a Ludwig double bass drum kit.

[4][5][11] Skates and Verni envisioned and implemented a theatrical, horror-oriented theme for Overkill, using visual elements from Kiss, Misfits, Alice Cooper, Twisted Sister, and an unsigned club band from Pennsylvania named The Dead End Kids.

[4][5][21] Skates established a relationship with Jon and Marsha Zazula in 1982 by mutual acquaintances of the Old Bridge Militia, an assembly of heavy metal fans and roadies who were providing their home for musicians Dave Mustaine, James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich and Cliff Burton to live.

[2][4][12] The Zazula’s were proprietors of Rock ‘n Roll Heaven, an import specialty record store located within the Route 18 Flea Market in East Brunswick, New Jersey.

Assisted by band photographer and merchandiser Lori DeAngelis, he sold one thousand Power In Black cassette tapes from Rock ‘n Roll Heaven on a consignment basis in eleven months.

[5][24][25] From 1985–1987 Skates arranged and co-wrote two full-length studio LP records: Feel the Fire (Megaforce) and Taking Over (Megaforce/ Atlantic), which debuted at number 191 on the Billboard Top 200 on April 11, 1987.

[9][11] He toured for these records in North America, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland, Great Britain, Poland, France, Holland and Austria as thrash metal bands experienced exponential growth during these years.

[9][12][18] Skates became inundated with touring and recording commitments, and stated that the close-mindedness of some band members was suppressing Overkill’s success, and the inability to satisfy his work ethics resulted in deep depression, excessive sleeping and alcoholism.

[5][10][23] In 1988, Skates wrote Some Stuff I Recorded, a ten-song demo of ideas to share with other musicians for a new project, where he played bass, drums, keyboards and vocals while intoxicated.

[32] Skates freelanced for the Suburban Cablevision television network as an audio engineer, live mixer and cameraman from 1988 to 1992; departing due to creative conflicts.

[2][3][34] Skates conceptualized Rock-Un-Rold, a musician’s television talk show with colleague David Ellefson (bassist, Megadeth), and filmed a demo shoot at The Studio in New York City on October 28, 2007.

They moderated two discussion panels of six recording artists and pitched an edited version to a Viacom representative who declined the concept due to the content being "too intelligent".