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| Interview with Sonic Boom Six
Manchester’s now infamous ska / punk four-piece SONIC BOOM SIX have been making sweet music since 2002, with their ever growing mass of supporters only looking to increase. Tom Bradley caught up with Barney (bassist) and Laila (vocalist) from the band to find out about their new album, their 2008 tour plans, and who exactly ‘Shareena’ is... | ||
Tom: What musical projects were you involved in prior to Sonic Boom Six and how do you think they influenced you?
Barney: We were both in a ska punk band called Grimace, which did some stuff in Manchester. We got some gigs on the road so to speak, we played with [spunge], The Pilfers... We played all over, but we split up. That obviously influenced Sonic Boom Six cos it was kinda like very much sort of sub Sonic Boom Six. It was obviously a big part of it, but then there was lots of other little music things that I did, bands, different people I met at uni, stuff like that, everything you do influences you. Before we did Sonic Boom Six I was doing MC-ing at parties and stuff, and that really massively influenced Sonic Boom Six, because it was like, we maybe can be a punk band which has got the influence of MC-ing and some hip-hop jungle and stuff, and it was more authentic than we ever would have if we hadn't been more involved with that side of music. |
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Laila: With me, there were things like singing in the school choir that gave me the confidence to sing in front of other people, so when Barney and his mates were jamming in the garage, I think one day the vocalist didn't turn up and they were like, "oh you can sing, cos you're in the choir" so we sang Faith No More songs.
You released your new album ‘Arcade Perfect’ on November 12th; how do you feel about the reaction to it so far?
It's good, the magazine reviews of it still haven't come in so we're looking forward to that. Actually Big Cheese reviewed it and it got a really good review. All the internet sites that have reviewed it have given it good reviews.
It feels like we've only just taken the first step with it...
There's still a lot more work to do. Certainly the reaction from the kids that have heard it and the people who come to our gigs has been really good and it's been how we wanted it to. Most people have highlighted that there's been a change, or a progression as we would like to call it, within the record and with the last one. It's nice to hear people speak back on that and it has been vastly positive. I was just worried there'd be kids that were into the more hardcore side of sound, more abrasive side of the sound that was in the stuff that we did in the past that wasn't necessarily obvious on this album so much, only a little bit anyway. I was worried that some kids would think it was a bit too soft or whatever because of the song writing, but I don't think that's been the case really. There's been a couple of comments about it; a lot of people have said that they prefer it, which is what we wanted.
I think when you write songs in a better way, better structured, regardless of how heavy it is, people can see that you've progressed. The last record was more of a mish-mash whereas this time we were totally focused, we knew how we wanted it to sound so there were no surprises, we chopped out huge middle eights that were unnecessary and tried to make it more consistent.
So your writing process has changed to something where you have all different genres merged together as opposed to jumping from one to another?
It did change, but only in the fact that it was never particularly formulated, the way we wrote songs, because me and Ben both write songs ourselves and we all write songs together so there's like three different places that the songs can come from really. One concept that we had when we came to recording and writing new songs was that we felt that if you have a slogan or a concept of what you want to say before you write a song, then when you actually come to do it you write the music around an emotion, rather than writing the music, and then finding emotion to fit in with that. With a song like ‘Apathy Begins at Home’ on ‘Ruff Guide...’ ['The Ruff Guide to Genre: Terrorism']... all the music was written, then I wrote the lyrics. Whereas ‘Meanwhile Back in the Real World’ on the new album, I sat down with a guitar and sung it and the music became a bedrock for the emotion that I wanted to convey. I think that makes a better song because everything's married together nicer.
Is it intentional to have so many genres or is it more of an organic process from all your personal musical influences?
Yeah, it's definitely a more organic thing, I mean, the whole thing of the band at the start was that we wanted it to be punk music, but punk music means so many different things to so many different people. We knew that to us punk music didn't just encapsulate three chords and a leather jacket, it encapsulated a certain aesthetic within other musical genres and the way that those were performed. It was all things like parties and sound systems and all that kinda thing, just when we started the band we were really into that, but ultimately my heart was with punk music, but hip hop as well and it was like, I wanted to do something that could take all these things together. We always wanted it to be so that whenever we played hip hop or reggae or ska we could always play it in a in a sound system at a party, it was always about that party vibe. Then we'd have the subversive and anti-authoritarian lyrics or whatever and the content of it and that side. So to me it just made sense as a punk package. But we've always liked bands like Fishbone and Sublime, I feel they've got the same kind of thing going on. With Fishbone, you could see that they as musicians fed into this and the whole, no matter what they played you still had some discordant horn lines and their sense of energy as a black band from LA.
You've set up your own label now, what were the motivations behind that, and what were the challenges?
We just wanted to take it into our own hands because the labels that we've been with in the past have taken us to a certain level, especially Deck Cheese, we've done really well with the release of ‘Ruff Guide...’. If we'd done the record with Deck Cheese again it wasn't likely that they could have put any more into it than they already did. Unless there's a label out there that's going to put a hell of a lot of money into us, in the way that only a big label could, then we might as well do it ourselves. Because a) we get a load more revenue back to put straight back into the promotion of the records and b) then we've only got ourselves to blame it if doesn't work. We feel that we've been doing this for long enough now that it is high time that we did that. I think that we're at the point with this record where it's really do or die.
All we do is the band. That's how we make our living. That's our lifestyle. That's everything. None of us work or anything. This is what we do and we thought, well, we don't tour all the time, there's so much more time to take every aspect of being in a band into our own hands. Yeah, it does mean that on your one day off you're sat there counting merch or on MySpace, but it gives you that satisfaction that it's your living and you're doing something about it rather than relying on someone else to sit in an office and send out promo CDs to different reviewers. We know we're doing it ourselves, our own business, running it like a small business. You get a great sense of satisfaction out of it. We wanted to test it with u;, it's gone well enough to the point where if we sign another band we're confident that we can do as much as we've done for ourselves
Any bands you got in mind to sign at the moment?
There is one especially that stands out, and they got in touch and asked as well, which is why it seems good. But then I just didn't think at the time that it was going to work out, cos I thought maybe it's going to be too difficult, but then, when we did ours we were just like, we can do this. I emailed the guy last night and I haven't heard back yet but I'm hoping that we might be able to work something out.
With touring round Europe, how different is the punk scene and free party scene in Europe?
Most of Europe you'll go over and you play to like a squat, but legally run squat, and you get there, and it's a decent venue, people doing it for themselves, they live there as well. Everywhere pretty much we've done. Hamburg, Slovenia, places in Austria, Croatia, have got this totally different attitude.
Next to Japan and the US, in the UK our society is more in the grip of corporate multinational cartels basically than anywhere else. You realise this if you go over, the places which are less, like less affluent, shall we say, like Croatia and Slovenia - the punk scene is thriving more there. It's more grassroots, and more important, like kids really genuinely do things for themselves. We'll play Croatia and there'll be like 300 people there - 150 of them will know us and 150 will be there cos their mates are there. Everyone just has a good time and listens to the music. It's more like a fiesta. Whereas here... there's a nice interplay between the underground and the bigger venues, which you do realise when you speak to people from Japan and the US - there, you're either playing a big venue or you're playing an underground gig and there's a complete separation, but with here there's a nice cross over.
What I notice is, like when we invited the French band Guerilla Poubelle over, they were really shocked at like how gigs in the UK are run - sometimes you get to the venue, there's no food, there's no-one to greet you at the door... every night you've got to sort out your own accommodation. It's given that when you go to Europe you will get there, there'll be someone to look after you - the hospitality is really great. But then, at the same time, I've spoken to a lot of bands, Slovenian bands Croatian bands that at the same time are like, yeah, it's really shit here because they think it's too expensive, or music's too expensive to buy....
In the UK, there's so many bands, so many great bands and it's just the thought of if you're a band in the UK you could become rich and famous, you've got a chance of been a world entity. Whereas in rural Croatia it's not necessarily even dreamable, cos the scene isn't so active and tightly knit in terms of across the whole place, it's hard to get the bands out there and develop them.
Thing is though, before I went to Croatia I thought it'd be like, y'know a little bit backwards, a bit y'know, quite poor or something. You go there and you actually see that globalisation is happening before your eyes everywhere. It's not that much different than it is here, they've all got their H&M's, they've all got their McDonald's, they've all got their ipods. It's scary how similar we're becoming. We've travelled quite a bit, maybe it's because we've been a few times now you notice more, everywhere except for the language is turning into the same thing.
Are you planning to go the US and Japan?
Yes definitely. We're going to Japan before June.
We plan to do both. I had a very interesting conversation with someone via email today about the US. There's been like loads of American bands we've played with that have been like, hey come over, do some dates, but it hasn't materialised, but we got an email today off someone today and they were like, yeah I really think we could help you sort a proper good agent over there.
Next year that's what we'll be concentrating on. We don't wanna go yet. We've got the Reel Big Fish tour for the whole of February. I think there's gonna be a good six months where we can concentrate on going to Japan, um, we got a French booking agent and will book a proper tour in France. We're gonna figure out what's going on with America cos now we've got mates like the Aquabats, Reel Big Fish, even the Flaming Tsunamis who we brought over a while ago so yeah, the world's a big place. Get out there a bit more.
Songs like ‘Piggy in the Middle’ and ‘Shareena’, are they based on people you know?
Piggy in the Middle was a lad at my school, he was only a few years younger than me and he wasn't a close mate of mine, whereas in the song just for dramatic effect it was one of my best mates. I used to play football with him and when I was like at uni or maybe even a couple of years after I left school or whatever, I saw him in the pub and I was like "how you doing mate?" and he was like "Oh great I'm a copper now, my hobby's cracking skulls of pissheads ha ha ha". At the time we were living quite an alternative lifestyle, and it got to the point where we were breaking the law a lot, in minor ways, but things we would do and things we'd be doing and the things we'd be getting up to. If I saw him at three in the morning in the forest, he would want to break my neck, and here he is stood there and being really nice. So it was just at the time when I was a little bit more embroiled in that kind of thing he angered me quite a lot, and his attitude was just awful.
Shareena as well is a similar sort of thing, it's just girls we knew at school. We went to a school that was quite mixed between different ethnic minorities, especially Asian and white kids, so you got quite a schism between Laila - what she was allowed to do and certain other girls that were a lot more religious. They were our friends at school but outside of school they couldn't really do anything. I was a little bit pissed off with bands that I perceived as sloganeering that were talking about politics, especially left wing anarchisty type politics, that weren't doing that at all and weren't living the life. It was like, "Capdown sung about that so I'm going to sing about that", and it was really doing my head in. With ‘Ruff Guide...’ it was like, really gonna be like The Streets, that song, The Irony of it All, I just love that song, how every observation in that song is so true to life. So I wanted to bring that into a punk context.
What about stuff like Danger Danger, have you been victims of violence?
Oh yeah, living in Manchester, between the ages of 11 and 17, it's normal to encounter - not violence as in like get shot or anything, just getting shit off people that are older than you and harder than you.
We were sitting ducks, but we didn't give a shit cos we just used to like going round getting drunk. Without Nirvana t-shirts and Rage Against The Machine t-shirts we were just like grungy skater kids, but this was like Stretford and Gorse Hill, not the roughest parts of Manchester on a scale on one to ten, but in terms of like the kids...
I know it'll be happening now, I know there's 13 year old kids now, maybe they'll be emo kids now and they'll be sitting under the bridge where we used to sit and there'll be a bunch of scallies.
It wasn't really about that, that song, it was more just another subject we wanted to address, like we sing about things that are close and near to you. There's definitely something a bit skewif in terms of the criminal element, in terms of the wayward youth in British inner cities. Anywhere you go in the UK, any town centre, there's little kids causing severe trouble.
Especially now, it's like it's spiralling out of control. I know it makes me sound like an old bint but the fact an 11 year old can shoot another 11 year old I mean. I know that probably could have happened ten years ago it might have happened ten years ago, but it is pretty shit. Everything's so much more intense more, so much more violent.
Do you have any creative outputs besides Sonic Boom Six, Suicide Bid and Baby Boom?
I'd like to do some, I've not got a creative output but I got like art and literature, I've got hobbies. I'd definitely love to do more - I reckon I could write a book, or a graphic novel or a film
I'm gonna be doing guest vocals for bands next year..
What bands excite you at the moment?
Random Hand at the moment are on fire. We've seen them grow up, so we've seen them at the very, very beginning too, sort of now where they're touring with Voodoo Glow Skulls. They're really come into their own characters and developed musically - they’re really great to watch and musically good.
King Blues. That'll be interesting to see what they do in the New Year, what stuff they come out with.
Mouthwash, their album's amazing.
JB Conspiracy are really good. A lot of Pickled Dick's new stuff, they're recording some new stuff, Laila's on the album aren't you?
Yeah, gonna be on the Pickled Dick album, doing a duet with Domb.
There's a band from Cardiff I heard the other day called Dirty Revolution. They kept MySpacing us and when I go through the MySpace messages, we get so many, there's so many, so many bands, that you don't listen to the music, you just don't have time sometimes. I never did, I never did, and then I just kept seeing their little picture about and they kept messaging. Eventually I listened to it and I just felt like such a twat, cos it was so good it was just like, "oh why didn't I listen to them?". This Dirty Revolution are like really, really good. I mean, it's well early days for them, but it would be well interesting to see how far they take it. Even though it's not the finished article you can hear it; the lyrics are interesting, the arrangements are interesting. You've got a sense of what it is. Kinda reminds me of when we started. Yeah, really looking forward to hearing their new stuff. That's a band to check out [www.myspace.com/dirtyrevolution].
Many thanks to Barney and Laila from Sonic Boom Six for taking part in the interview. Thanks to the band for sorting out a pass for photographer Dan Hase as well. More photos from the gig on the 5th December at Newcastle Carling Academy can be viewed on Push to Fire’s live photo page.
You can catch Sonic Boom Six when they tour the UK with REEL BIG FISH and STREETLIGHT MANIFESTO throughout February and March - check out www.myspace.com/sonicboomsix for details. | ||
