The Five Things You Need In Your EPK

This article originally appeared on the blog at Songeist.com.

This week, I’m going to get into answering a question I’ve received from Songeist member Jim Bridgeman from punk n' rollers Fish Hook.

JB. "Hi Barney. Have really enjoyed reading the blog! I have a question about press / promo packs. Would you say there are any rules to using these? What should / shouldn’t be in there, who should / shouldn’t they be sent to. I’ve often tinkered with the idea but never really done this properly. Thanks."

THE FIVE THINGS YOU NEED IN YOUR EPK
Be they Zipped-up as part of an EPK, or simply presented on a band's sites and social media, there are several key elements that make up any band’s complete electronic press / promo pack. EPK, or electronic press kit, is a term coined by the inventor of online music sales certifications Andre Gray, and popularised by sites like Sonicbids and Reverbnation, to denote a complete, one-stop resource for a band to present its assets to a promoter or press. Although there is a lot of crossover between the two, for the sake of clarity and the limitations of this blog, I’m going to concentrate on a general EPK rather than a press release to go with a record release. For an emerging artist, an EPK is a great way to ‘introduce’ yourself to a promoter or press in an easily digestible, but comprehensive, package.

THE EPK IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE EPK
Think of your press pack, or EPK, as the digital equivalent of what sending a CD in the post with your biography and contact details folded around it used to be. However, with the help of the internet, we can painlessly use this package to include a few more things to help in our promotion, such as high-quality photographs and logos, videos and MP3s, and other assets. It's very important to remember that we’re entering an age when downloading content itself is going the way of the floppy disk. Now that people are switching to simply using streaming content and their Skydrives and iClouds for storage, even downloading the EPK content alone might be undesirable to the other party.

That’s not to say that just because downloading ZIP files is dying out, EPKs are. Everything in the EPK is vital to have at your disposal. Completing your EPK then uploading it to your various sites, as both a ZIP and the separate audio and visual assets is going to mean that you have everything accessible and up-to-date. Even if the way that the content is disseminated isn't always going to be via the ZIP download, your EPK is still essentially presented piecemeal across your sites. So devising and collating it as one 'project' makes complete sense to ensure your content and copy is synchronised.

The circle of life

1) YOUR MUSIC
When it comes to EPKs, which include large music files as well as other assets, keeping the file size to a minimum is key. You might get that one promoter that enjoys the efficiency of an EPK and refuses to jump around your sites for your assets, but also doesn’t want to wait an hour for your five-song WAV opus to download either.

A maximum of three MP3s at 256kps bit rate is sensible. Make sure that the MP3s are correctly ID3 tagged. Correctly tagged MP3s mean less hassle for the user, it ensures the tracks are named and ordered correctly and they look professional and organised. Fill in the track name, artist, album ("Your band name EPK" is fine for an album name in lieu of anything else), genre and, importantly, track number. This will ensure that when the files are dragged or copied into an MP3 player, they will appear in the order that you want them in. As a fail safe to make sure that the tracks are in the right order (often MP3 players are set to use alphabetical order to denote track order) it’s fine to put the track number at the start of the song name on a promo release. Also recommended is attaching the MP3 artwork directly to the MP3 file.

For creating and editing MP3s and their tags, I recommend MusicBrainz for editing and LAME Front End for encoding but of course, Windows Media Player and iTunes are both more than capable of doing all these tasks. Any music that’s going in your EPK you should have uploaded, tagged and ordered in an online streaming playlist on a site such as Songeist as an alternative to these MP3 files and include the live link to this playlist in the covering email.

2) YOUR BIOGRAPHY
A biography is a must in your EPK and is an incredibly valuable asset to your band. It’s standard to format the biog (as well as additional text like gigs, links and contacts) as a Microsoft Word DOC file, which can be read by practically any system. A PDF is acceptable and has more scope for fancy imagery, but PDFs can be very large and are a pain for a journalist or promoter to cut and paste text from. A TXT or RTF file is fine to read, but is less functional in terms of images, customisation and links than a DOC. A DOC represents the best mix of functionality and size; the file is small and easy for a writer to work from but you are free to include hyperlinks from the document as well as a small logo and photo at the top of page one.

I’d keep your biog to the point, between 200 and 500 words. Three paragraphs of three long sentences will do the trick. The way I structure biogs is to have the opening paragraph an overview of the bands location, style and influences. The second paragraph will deal the band’s most recent record and activity and the third paragraph will be an overview of history in terms of live shows and records released. That way you can periodically go back and tweak paragraphs two and three to reflect recent developments or things you want to highlight, but the first paragraph stays largely the same, and is the paragraph most likely to be quoted on blogs and gig promo.

If you want greater detail on my views of how to write biogs, my Top 5 Mistakes That Bands Make In Their Biogs blog was recently featured on the Unsigned Guide. As Marcus Reeves kindly commented in response, it’s also very important to get someone to proofread your biog. Like a folder of badly tagged MP3s, there’s nothing that screams 'amateur' more than a biog riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes.

Spelling mistakes. Setting you apart from the compitition since day one.

3) PHOTOS AND LOGOS
Do not underestimate how important visuals are to press and promoters. Ultimately, while the success of your band is probably not going to hinge on one photo, it has far more influence than you might imagine. Don't get your mate to photograph you in the garden and do a logo on MS Paint. If money's an issues, just like we've all done gigs for exposure at the start, there are hundreds of band photographers in college that will do you a shoot for peanuts, as well as decent logo designers who will do the same. For the sake of an afternoon's research, you can massively enhance your band's appeal with good images. Two large, print-quality JPEGs at least 1500 x 1500 pixels in size is enough. One live shot and one studio shot, or one portrait and one landscape, will provide versatility. Resist the urge to submit every single one of your studio shots 'just in case' as it will just increase the file size.

Providing a graphic file of your logo is also very useful. I'd go with a PDF of the vector art over a JPEG. There is a school of thought that says a large JPEG is preferable, and maybe it was in the past, but in my mind, anyone currently designing a poster or putting together an article for a magazine is going to have the capabilities to deal with a vector PDF. This means that you can attach the file as a smaller size and the image will not degrade when it's manipulated. The designer will have the ability to change the colours and style of the logo to suit their art if they have a vector. There's nothing more cool to see than a nice festival poster where your logo is stylised along with the rest of the artwork and a PDF or EPS will make the designer's job that much easier to make that happen. The format it comes in might be the difference between him or her bothering or not.

If the EPK is accompanying a specific release, by all means include a large JPEG of the album or single cover at least 1000 x 1000 pixels in size.

4) PRESS QUOTES, LIVE DATES, CONTACTS AND LINKS
Rather than having these details as a separate document, it’s absolutely fine to include the press quotes, live dates, contacts and links in the same DOC file as the biog, making a neat, two-page document. It’s also acceptable to have these as separate documents if you need to split things up a little (having a separate file for a full UK tour might be necessary for example) but always aim to keep the document as compact and clutter-free as possible. Again, be sure to format and proofread correctly and bear in mind that we don’t want a breakdown of everything you’ve ever done, just a digestible, well-presented summation of it.

It’s tempting to include every great press quote you’ve ever had but, as with all these things, efficiency is key. Three short quotes that you present in a way that grabs attention is better than three paragraphs that describe the minutia of how great you are but don't fit on a flyer.

Your list of contacts needs to include at least one email for the band or management, and that goes for your social media and websites too. I can’t imagine how many promoters or blogs have just given up on bands because they don’t have emails displayed on their Facebook or rely on Contact Forms on their site. I know I have. Sorry to burst your bubble, emerging artists, but you don't need to avoid stalkers just yet. Soundcloud messaging might be easy for you, but it isn’t easy for someone who works in the industry and needs to save, organise and cc their correspondence in the way that email allows.

Don't go overboard with the links. You should definitely include your official site, Facebook, Twitter and Soundcloud and could include preferred music vendors such as Bandcamp or Songeist but every last social site isn't necessary. One link that’s becoming an increasingly vital is your band’s YouTube page. Make sure your YouTube Page has its best foot forward. If you're busy on YouTube and your homepage is constantly rotating through content for hardcore fans, create a playlist of a few of your select promo or live videos and link to this playlist through the hyperlink in the text.

Fish Hook's Rachael. Expect her EPK on its way!

5) OPTIONAL EXTRAS
If you're sending out promotion for your latest single, or the whole appeal the band hinges on your visuals, you might want to consider including a promo video as a small MPEG in the EPK. Everyone has access and familiarity with YouTube now, so I would generally advise against sending videos in EPKs, specifically because of the increase in the file size. That being said, it’s certainly been something that I’ve done, and been encouraged to, do in the past.

Another thing that’s a standard in an EPK is a stage plan. If the main purpose for your EPK is to send out to live venues, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with including this. However, I would certainly confirm that it’s been read and acknowledged before turning up to a gig and expecting a full rider and saxophone stand based on the fact it demands one on your stage plan in your EPK. There’s a handy stage plan creator HERE.

Finally, it's important to note that this blog is my breakdown of a small, efficient, multipurpose EPK that's easy to download, touches all the bases and is my personal preference. Bands can make a wonderful impression by presenting all of the above in a huge, multimedia PDF file with interactive menus and videos if they so desire, especially if they're targeting to specific press and promoters who have a vested interest, patience, and ultra-fast broadband. Whether having an esoteric, resource-heavy EPK is something you want to utilise over the small, humble, 'does what it says on the tin' EPK I've described is something you need to decide for yourself.

SENDING IT OUT THERE
With the separate assets complete, remember to take this opportunity go back over all your sites and refresh your tracks, photos and copy to correspond with the material in your EPK. Then select the place where you're going to store the EPK, such as Dropbox or OneDrive. It's a good idea to upload the assets separately in two separate folders so you can give people who, say, just want the tracks, the option to grab them. That means first Zipping up your MP3s into one folder, then Zipping up the photos, logos and DOC file(s) in another folder and uploading them separately. Then take both the original folders and plonk them in another folder called 'Your Bandname EPK'. Zip that up, upload it, and you’re done.

Last but not least is your covering email. It’s important to take the same care and attention to detail in writing this email as you did in making your EPK. I'd use your email’s HTML editor to link using words like HERE rather than having long, ugly URLs all over the place like this… http://www.songeist.com/tw/4V5a9em

Laying your links out like this would be perfect.

Listen to 'Your Band Name' EP HERE (link to your streaming site).
Download Full 'Your Band Name' EPK HERE (link to the EPK file).

Good luck!

Barney

I’d really love to hear any more questions you guys have about music and promotion as it pertains to emerging artists. Please email me your thoughts, suggestions and queries to barney@songeist.com

Vinyl photo courtesy Acid Pix's Flickr used under Creative Commons License.
Sign Spelling photo courtesy John Lillis's Flickr used under Creative Commons License.

Alright then!

Understatement time. I thought it was about time I got back on here and started blogging again. To be fair, this spark of activity is coinciding with a general call to action in our lives as a band that's been going on over the last few weeks. Crucially, this has centered around formal discussions about writing new material and the whole host of intangibles, ideas and questions that throws up. To a certain extent, you put a record out and then go into a sense of creative stasis as you observe and absorb how that lovingly crafted slice of Rock n Roll has been received by the world. Now we're moving onto our last single from the album, it's about time to stop resting on the 'Sonic Boom Six' laurels and all the changes and developments that has entailed and creatively start to look forward.

That's not to say that the last few months haven't been welcome. We've played the odd festival, had some fun times and it's been cool to be at home to have a stable life and be able to eat right and exercise (the first things that fall by the wayside as soon as you jump into the Pirate Ship). But the last few weeks have been exciting with meetings, plans and talk of diversifying within, and beyond, the remit of the band. Specifically for me, that's gonna involve getting a proper start on DJing, (something I've really just played about with in the past) and making more of a go of things with my writing, a side-effect of which paying more attention to this blog is theoretically the start of.



We've also had some recent opportunities to use the band for a few more altruistic ventures. We played a great charity show in Leicester for Oxjam this weekend and spent last Wednesday lending ourselves to make a video with the people at OMG Cameras Everywhere, who provide kids with free resources, training and opportunity to direct, produce, shoot and edit music videos. A couple of weeks back we visited the Teenage Cancer Trust Unit in Birmingham to play a few acoustic songs and meet some of the guys in the unit. We've got some footage and interviews from that coming up for those interested. These experiences have been fulfilling and put us back in touch with why we started the band in the first place and provided us with a chance to keep those flames of idealism burning, albeit in a different time and context. This idea of reflecting and looking back on why we do this on the practical level has a direct synchronicity with our recent discussions on why we do what we do on a musical level. And so, to the main point of this blog... thinking about the future.

We've been for a few meetings to consider and discuss where our heads are at and figure out where to go from here musically. One of these meetings was with a very talented producer and song-writer with a proven track record who is interested in working with us and gave us the benefit of a very frank appraisal of where he thinks we are and where he thinks we could be. We don't want to sit there and have smoke blown up our arses, but this was pretty frank stuff, with some very robust, but valued, opinions being thrown about. Discussion centralised on the concept of truly getting in touch with who and what our band, or any band, is all about and writing songs that convey that. And the idea that writing music for a perceived audience, be they a room full of punks or listeners to daytime radio, is ultimately self-defeating. A band should write the music they want to make, and hear and strive to write the best songs possible from that base. It all sounds so simple. The difficult bit is then going out and doing it. The good news is that we're all a little more inspired and motivated to write. We're currently discussing hiring a cottage or holiday home for a week and spending some time together and having fun writing again. Writing music together, for fun, for us. The way it is when you start a band. Not thinking about audience one way or the other but creating an honest expression of what we want to play and want to hear. Maybe there's a way of getting that sense of adventure and fun, that mixtape vibe, that underpins our early stuff and have it exist in the present day with bigger songs and better performances. To hell with conventions and genres and the radio and all those considerations. That shouldn't matter at the writing stage. The art that rings the truest is that which is the honest expression. And if some of the rough corners we've been compelled to file off in the past sound good to us, then we should keep them. As I say, it's where to go from here that's the difficult question and all this pontificating about the macro doesn't actually create the micro. But it's all good dinner for the duchess as no one has said, ever.



All that's not to say that 'Sonic Boom Six' isn't still alive and kicking. We're currently sorting through lots of awesome treatments for the 'High Cost' video, some of which are great. I'm leaning towards the concept of making the video more velvet glove in terms of getting the message of the song across. The lyrics are explicit as it is, so we don't need to hammer the point home. I'm thinking a visual companion and counterpoint to the song will be better than something that goes to far in making a political statement. There's lots more on these subjects where that came from but I think I'd better save it for another day if I'm gonna be blogging once a week.

Last night we spent the evening doing the first, and only Suicide Bid rehearsal in preparation for our BoomTown Fair set. If the shows without rehearsal have set a precedent for being great, I can only imagine what the reaction's going to be now we've got our shit together, especially at a venue as up-for-it as Boomtown is.



Alright then, I'll let you get on. Remember PLEASE to keep sending me questions, it really helps with the motivation to keep this blog happening.

Listening this week: Kanye West, Yeezus

First couple of listens left me marveling at the boldness of production but balking at the lyrics. By the third listen, I realised that only lyrics that insanely egotistical and cheeky could measure up to what's going on musically. Tremendous.

Watched this week: The Killer Inside Me (2010)

Micheal Winterbottom's stab at the classic crime novel eschews much of the novel's filthy visit into the mind of a psycho and boils the story down into a solidly-acted murder yarn. The male on female violence is for a strong stomach, but serves to underline the despicably psychotic character of the Casey Affleck character. I feel that the critic who infamously printed "I was so queasy, I had to go and stand outside. I thought I might actually faint" about the experience really needs to get her sense of perspective straight. Worth a watch.

Reading this week: Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens.

Being a huge Neil Gaiman fan but never anything remotely approaching fandom towards the work of Terry Pratchett, I've always been turned off by the smug Radio 4 tone of this book and have never made it past chapter 3. Like a mountain, this is there to be conquered, but I think I'll have to binge on some very violent, brainless comics afterwards to wash the twee out of my hair. We shall see.

Until The Sunlight Comes... Barney x

I wonder when I hear sonic boom six tracks whether the politics is a gimmick » divine-providence

This is a reblog of a Tumblr post.

Divine Providence: I wonder when I hear sonic boom six tracks whether the politics is a gimmick »

divine-providence:

Like there seems to be no thinking in it any more just the latest buzz words to resonate with people.
Also having followed them on twitter for a while there is no politics there either. People that actually believe in something campaign for it. I can’t help myself rebloging or talking about…

Thanks for writing the column. Someone DM’d me and asked for my reaction as it’s an open letter. I’ll try and I hope you take my points in the friendly, discussional spirit they are meant in. It’s kind of hard to know where to start.
The obvious one to me is what possible positive effect does having politics as a ‘gimmick’ have on our career? It’s the actually the exact opposite. ‘Virus’ was held off certain radio playlists for being too political. There is no gimmick or bandwagon to jump on, it’s simply something I’m compelled to do because the music that influences and stimulates me is music with a message.
I never said I was a politician, music is my primary influence. Maybe ‘being nicer to each other’ is the most important politics of all, and the only one I know for sure I support. Maybe the politics are vague, and aren’t partisan and because my politics are vague and aren’t militant. And lots of people feel that way too, and I hope that resonates with people. Heaven knows, there’s enough punk bands with big left-wing slogans out there to fill up that demand. What you find vague, I think some people find sincere.

I’ve had numerous fans complaining to me on Twitter when I have done political tweets (especially during the riots) because they didn’t want to hear it. So I shut up after the first day. We worked with the local groups with the clean up effort and took part in the concert afterwards and tried to DO things in that sense rather than rant on about it. Surely posting pictures about what demo you’ve been at or pushing your political opinions down people’s throats is more in danger of being a gimmick?

We have always striven to be a band that puts the message in the lyrics and keeps politics away from the live show in terms of talking about them between songs. We feel that velvet glove approach works. We respect bands that are more militant and we encourage activists to set up stalls on our merch from anything from hunt sabs to anti-facism and they have done in the past and will continue to do so. But we don’t do that ourselves so it’s natural that to reflect that we don’t do it as much on social networks.

A cursory look at our history will confirm that there are numerous causes and charity shows that fall fully in line with all our beliefs that we have supported, a lot, such as Love Music Hate Racism.

Maybe the real problem is that you expect our politics and political involvement to mirror yours. Sorry if they don’t. I’m assuming nothing about you but we’ve stated MANY times that we aren’t socialists, anarchists or even anti-capitalist in the full sense of the term. But we are socially conscious and I think that’s the same for a lot of kids out there and I feel that’s what makes our band interesting.

Thanks for writing the column, it was interesting to read, and I kind of see where you are hypothetically coming from, especially if your political involvement strongly eclipses mine. It might seem frustrating that we don’t do more. But for every one of you there’s gonna be a kid that gets turned off by us pushing the political thing harder, so I’m kind of sat in the position that I’m most comfortable in, which might be fence-sitting of me. I get that. But I frankly think your being unfair on us for the simple reason that the accusation of ‘bogus’ posturing rings hollow when confronted with the fact that there is no commercial or even artistic advantage drawn from writing the kind of lyrics I do in the current media climate. I do it because I’m compelled to it and because I know that there are people out there that dig hearing a point of view that mirrors their own and is unique.

Cheers mate

Barney :)

Tumblr Question Reblog: do you like horror films?! IF SO, which ones :3

Oooh good question!

I don’t just like them, I LOVE THEM. My favourite film of all time is the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But I can watch a rubbish horror much easier than I can any other film and even a crappy one (like Freddy vs Jason) I will thoroughly enjoy. I watch a couple of horror films a week at least when I’m at home.

My favourites are the usual suspects really, looking up on the shelf there I can see The Wicker Man, Halloween, The Exorcist, Hellraiser, Nightmare On Elm Street, Evil Dead 2, Suspiria, Night Of The Living Dead which we all know are classics so there’s no point in going on about them.
A couple of films people may not have seen then… a favourite of mine is ‘Witchfinder General’ which stars Vincent Price (the best to ever do it!) as a demented witch hunter in Cromwell’s Britain. It has a weird, tense atmosphere (lots of stories about the goings-on behind camera abound) and is wickedly dark.

Another film from that era (60s & early 70s British folk horror) that is a favourite is a film called ‘Blood On Satan’s Claw’ where a group of kids get seduced into devil worship. It’s actually on YouTube HERE so maybe that’s one to watch tonight if you haven’t already!!!

There are lots of decent horrors in the public domain speaking of watching online, including the awesome ‘Dementia 13’ and ‘The House On Haunted Hill’. There is a great List of them on Listverse HERE and a more exhaustive list HERE.
The best site for watching Public Domain horror is Horrorteque.com hands-down! Bookmark that shit!
Another film that is one of my favourites is Werner Herzog’s 1978 version of ‘Nosferatu The Vampire’, starring Klaus Kinski. It was filmed (in English & German!) in 9 days and is a beautiful film. Kinski’s Dracula is a thing to behold. I actually prefer the version where they talk in English because having everyone in their second language gives it an even stranger air than it already has. My girlfriend once hired out a little cinema and me and all my mates watched it projected! It was a great birthday and everyone loved the film.

And finally, a guilty pleasure of mine has to be ‘Deranged’, a completely batshit crazy exploitation version of the Ed Gein story (which inspired Psycho, Texas Chainsaw and… Ed Gein!) starring the wonderfully-named Roberts Blossom as Ezra Cobb. It’s directed by horror make-up great Tom Savini (who also did the interesting Night Of The Living Dead remake). Here’s a wonderful trailer for it, if you like it, it’s actually on YouTube in several parts which are linked off the trailer.

Right then, hope that answers that! That was fun, I like talking about films, so ask away everbody!

Ta!

Barney x

Plastic Sheet Blues (or how I learnt to stop worrying and love the hair-straighteners).

Question from Brendy Robb on Tumblr. (Tumblr Reblog).

Hey guys, hope you’re having a nice long weekend.

Just listening to “back 2 skool” at work and realised that one of the lines is “who pissed on a girl on the back of the tour bus?”

What’s the story behind it?

This was sent via web form from your Bandzoogle site

Hey man!

A few years back there was a big did he / didn’t he kerfuffle about Oli Sykes from Bring Me The Horizon and their crew ALLEGEDLY pissing on a girl in the tourbus and / or hitting her with a bottle. I think it turned out he didn’t actually do it at all. The whole story was doing the rounds on the internet and it became very tawdry. There were people who clearly had no idea what had happened weighing in and bitching about it. It was just very unseemly. On Punktastic.com in the forums and I remember at the time thinking that this was about as far removed from what attracted to me about punk as I’d ever witnessed. One example of these wonderful pieces of prose is HERE.

People have mentioned to me that they perceive this line as a ‘diss’ to BMTH. I’m sorry it seems like that because that band is very good and have done some great stuff for British heavy rock and also been instrumental in helping loads of bands. I have no problem with them, and I really enjoyed Suicide Season and it’s companion remix album. The line wasn’t about them, so much as the mentality of the tabloid-style speculation on ‘piss-gate’ and the whole circus around it. Back in 2007 things were happening in punk and rock in the UK that I was finding hard to accept; a move away from the lefty ideals I loved like equality, DIY and the punk gigs being ‘safe spaces’ to a vibe more reminiscent psuedo right-wing of ‘rock n roll’ of the 80s. I loved Gallows, but I hated the way the magazines portrayed them covered in fake blood, like that was what signified punk. Maybe I was sore because bands like Five Knuckle, Capdown, Freaks Union and the bands I loved from the years before basically didn’t look quite enough like what the music magazines wanted a punk band to look like. And I saw it happening and there was a clear shift in fanbase and the emergence of a new crowd of younger kids that really didn’t give two squirts of piss for the aspects of punk rock that I loved. To me punk rock was about not giving a shit about who was the prom queen, who was in FHM that month and who was the hardest lad like at school. Not repackaging it all with added tattoos and piercings. All the endearing things about the culture of punk rock to me had just been ignored. That’s what the song’s about and to me, it fitted in with the whole imagery of the album… city-centre rock clubs full of selfish, boorish, preening little peacocks who don’t care about anything but themselves.

I remember SB6 playing this party in London and backstage was this young hardcore ‘crew’ doing coke and calling each other ‘nigga’ and I was like ‘is this what this music has become?’ Us and YM@6 were kept very busy trying to avoid them and I said ‘it’s like being back at school’ and the idea for the song was born.
And, while writing the song, this little episode of people squabbling online about whether or not Oli had pissed on this girl (who ended up looking like a fool too when all the conjecture was over) was just another ‘what the fuck am I doing here?’ moments. What has this music turned into when we’re arguing about this?

I guess over the last few years I’ve come to accept that things move on and it’s all rock n roll at the end of the day. I’m probably not as precious as I was then. The good bands from that time are still together and doing great things and the UK’s rock scene has had a massive shot in the arm from the success of those bands. The lyrics to ‘Back 2 Skool’ still stand up though I think, you only have to go to one of the trendier rock festivals of the last few years to feel that ‘school’ vibe… the cocks of the walk with the prettiest girls on their arms sneering at everyone who hasn’t got the right trainers, the smell of greasy chips in the air and the dim threat of violence ready to go off at any given moment.

"Back 2 Skool"

Who is the kid with the coolest trainers on?
Who’s getting ripped cos they got the label wrong?
Who said that he said that she was a slag
because she kissed with the boy on the bike and tongues’ll wag?
Who’s keeping up with the kid that got the tag?

I’m waiting for the bell again.
Well but you’re not it, yeah but you want it, tick and you got it.
Running to keep up again.
Well but you’re not it, yeah but you want it, tick and you got it.
Catch them once.

Now I’m singing the sound of all these songs upon the radio,
and now I’m laughing aloud at how the kids can be so cruel
and now I’m stifling down my screams
and shattered dreams to make the team,
I guess I’m back at school.

Who read the part of the picture book
where they swear they don’t care what you wear or how you look?
Down in the playground they’re dressed like lady muck.
Who pissed on the girl in the back of the tour bus?
Back in the disco they sing to the chorus!

It’s gonna be a party, what you gonna wear?
Everyone’ll be there, life just isn’t fair.

Sent out with the boys and the girls in the big wide world
and well I took a look and found my way underground.
And soon I knew you never leave the playground.
Catch them once. Catch them twice.
Catch them three times. Never gonna get them in the end.

Sell-out, with me oh yeah.

Alright then!

A couple of rate interesting and timely little questions here…

Katy asks "1. What are your thoughts about playing some gigs recently 'for / to impress the industry' and having to plead with fans to come along and support you? Especially gigs when you clearly wern't over enthusiastic about having to drive alllll the way down to London to be there, (ie Barfly), but have to put on a great show to impress certain people..."

NOTE: If people are wondering what (we) are talking about, it’s no secret that for one reason and another we’ve been working hard to get our next record out on a label. The reasons for doing so and the differences between self-releasing and all that are all very interesting but that’s another discussion. Let’s just put it out there that our last few London shows have had some people from different labels and other industry people coming down and checking us out. At the end of the day, a show is still a show, so we’re giving everyone a proper go of it (so it shouldn’t really matter at all to someone in the crowd) but that’s one reason why we’ve been so adamant about people coming and showing support at the last few.

Well, first of all, we are always enthusiastic to do a gig and we enjoyed that gig and pretty much find a way to enjoy all the gigs we do one way or another. There was a lot of trouble with the PA at the particular gig you are talking about so maybe some of that came across but I thought everybody had a great time. Playing those kinds of things is actually really fun and different. We like a challenge. I was probably kidding to be honest!

My approach to this kind of stuff is really the same as it's always been in that 'it is what it is' is my general philosophy. As well as being a shallow hellhole full of crashing bores and egotistical bellhops, the music industry is a business with people in there that are doing a good job. There are certain hoops you've got to jump through and brass rings you have to grab if you want to have someone come and risk spending lots of money on promoting you. That’s the end of it. You don’t go to someone-else's house for dinner and tell them they have to take their shoes off because you do in yours. It doesn't work that way round. We've kept the whole thing relatively quiet but anyone that follows us closely could probably figure out what was going on with us over the last couple of months. If that can push people into caring about us and thinking further than their own concerns about us that's great, but they don’t have to. I never liked those bands that acted like the audience owes them something because they've got on a stage and played a gig. So we're going to try to get people attuned and into the idea that we're trying to find a new home for our record and consider where things are going without banging everybody over the head with it. We don't want to take anyone's support for granted and we don't think anyone owes us anything. The reason it’s taken a while is that we need it to be right and we thank everyone for being patient. But if you DO care then it's a cool time to sit up and get behind us at the moment, because we're really THAT CLOSE to make this thing happen.

Ahem… Get your tickets HERE ladies and gentlemen.



2. How sucsessful would you like to be? I went to see Frank Turner at the Hammersmith Apollo a few months back. I remeber seing him years ago, on his own, on a barstool, with an accoustic guitar and an audience of about 40. This was a seated, over 5,000 capacity venue, with chilren, families and middle-aged women screaming 'we love you', but a sea of blank faces when Against Me opened the show. It was weird. Would playing sell out arena shows make you guys happy?

I too have seen Frank Turner sat on a barstool in front of next to no one and have seen him at Reading Festival where you can't get in the tent. We've had You Me At Six play before us and have a nightmare gig where their guitar broke and now they're HUGE. You've got to look at that and be inspired, not envious. It's cool to see.

“Would playing sell-out arena shows make you guys happy?” This question is a bit like at the end of Spinal Tap and Marty Di Bergi asks Nigel Tufnell if he could be a shoe salesman. The answer; “I dunno, what are the hours?”

It really is too hard a question to answer. Without hesitation I would say that if pretty much any band acquired that amount of success to headline that kind of show it would be a cool experience, obviously. But it's the other things that would come with getting your music out there to so many people that would be most rewarding I reckon. Having that many people singing that they're proud to be living in a land where we have the right to be who we are would be amazing.

Even if you look at interviews with me from 2006 I've always said that we are not a band that would be against being huge as a concept but I didn't realistically think that what we were doing was all that marketable because it was too crazy by design. That wasn't what we were trying to create. As time's gone on, we've evolved as a band and people and over the last few years we’ve had to think about where we’re going with this. Now I see the band differently than I did a few years ago in this regard. The new album is, in my opinion, heavier and more powerful than the old stuff but I also think it’s also hopefully more accessible. There's no shame in that, there's a skill in that kind of writing. But of course, you can’t always please everyone and even now I’ve noticed mixed reactions online to the new stuff from old fans. But we've always had that. Reactions have been very positive by and large. It's always difficult judging off a single before you hear an album anyway. It’s funny to me because I’ve seen kids citing ‘Piggy In the Middle’ as a classic dissing ‘Kids’ for instance but, to me, the riff and middle 8 on kids is heavier than any jog on the spot saxophone ska-core thing could ever be. It’s a different kind of energy and I love that youthful ska-punk madness but to be a big stage to see people bouncing to a rock riff is a different rush. That groove is completely different to our old stuff and, to me, way more 'heavy'. I read a Tumblr review the other day of us live when someone who was doubtful said he really 'got' Kids when he saw it live. If anyone’s got the impression we’ve tried to go pop, well, wait for the album. The raw and raucous energy of 'Ruff Guide' is another man's crazy mess. It's subjective at the end of the day!

Thinking about the old fans watching from the arena and losing that connection, it's weird. A lot of the times over the last five years, I've felt like our real fans have stood by us but we've, at times, felt like battered wives to the punk scene because it was so good to us as people and a band growing up. After people complaining 'Arcade Perfect' was too poppy we made (and wanted to make!) 'City Of Thieves' which was our love-letter to punk and in my opinion, our best album. But the best, punkiest moments of that album were ignored by our fans and largely not appreciated by the punk scene. In fact, all the kids that had loved Ruff Guide as teenagers and then got older didn't like 'City Of Thieves' but I have no idea what they were expected because if we'd have dropped an album with 'All In' on it in 2009 they'd have hated it. So, with that album, I realised that we were never going to please everyone. So we should please ourselves first and foremost and be what we set out to be when we started.

Sometimes you feel a huge sense of closeness and love for your fanbase and then sometimes you read some fan, or ex-fan or whatever, saying some stuff on the internet that blows your mind and you think ‘ah well, bugger what they think’. We literally have had messages telling us that our last few singles have got people back into us after not liking us for 5 years and then you get kids that used to love us talking about how we should have quit after Ben left. It’s all very hard to get to grips. It's impossible, you just try your best. With every person there are opinions about music that take in so many personal outlooks from their social circle and their age and fashion that change across time. Your band just slots into that. What represents heavy and underground and cool to a teenager in 2006 isn't going to appeal to them in the same way 6 years later if it's repeated, but the memory of it doing so the first time around will always remain like that. You just have to look to the fans you trust and believe in and take that with a pinch of salt. And remember to appreciate the good times that it does bring you!

Put it this way. I'd like to think that if a fan has ever enjoyed our music and what we've created at any point and saw us on stage now and we looked like we were genuinely having a good time and we were happy in what we were doing, whether or not they 'prefer the old stuff', I'd hope they could be happy for us. Call me an idealist but there we have it!

Happy talky talky happy talk. Talk about the things you like to do.

If you don’t have a dream. If you don’t have a dream.

How you gonna make a dream come true?

Tumblr Question Reblog: Between your samples and Horrotheque (thanks for that find) you seem to know a lot of public domain shit, how can I get more free shit? Do you take inspiration from the White Stripes with the colour schemes, particularly the original red black and white combos, and why do you do it?

Oi oi!

The Public Domain stuff has all been something that kind of fell together from researching for the Boom records. I guess I probably err on the side of caution more than I need to but if you know it’s PD you can really go to town on it like at the beginning of ‘Strange Transformations’ which was pieced together by me from stuff across the whole broadcast (rather than being one continuous bit of prose). It’s funny because on tons of dubstep records they used big chunks of film quotes without apparently invoking the wrath of film companies so I reckon you can actually get away with a lot. I often wonder did GZA have to pay the makers of Shogun Assassin anything for the repeated use of those samples on the ‘Liquid Swords’ album (one of my favourite albums of all time, hence the little Shogun Assassin nods at the beginning of ‘Danger! Danger!’ and ‘Ya Basta!’). Because that’s the dubbed version of the film, I wonder if the fact that it’s dubbed has something to do with everyone’s ability to sample it? Probably not but it’s interesting because it’s so sampled in hip-hop.

Anyway, here’s the list of sites I use to come up with the sampling stuff. The best site on the net for PD stuff is Archive.org. For City Of Thieves, and loads of other stuff, this was absolutely vital as all the public info films were from the Prelinger Archives on here which has a cool search facility.

http://www.archive.org/
Another thing I will do is find films that are public domain and then check them out on IMDB and check the Quotes page. If you read through the quotes and find one you like, it’s then a case of having to watch the film. Which is a good excuse for work! When we were recording City Of Thieves I was basically watching two or three old films a day.
This is a great site for all films.
http://www.openflix.com/
This is a great list of horrors.
http://steve-calvert.co.uk/pub-dom/pub-dom.htm
And this is a decent list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_in_the_public_domain_in_the_United_States
The main thing though is to check through a lot of different sites because there are lots of films that were never famous enough to go on all the lists.

Of course, there is horror radio too, which is where I got the Vincent Price stuff from!

http://www.steve-calvert.co.uk/old-time-radio/horror.htm


In terms of the matching colour schemes, no it was absolutely nothing to do with The White Stripes! Not a band I’ve ever really listened to but I know they’re good.

When we started the band, one of the ideas was to capture that element of bands like The Specials and The Ramones that seemed like a gang, so being colour-co-ordinated was one way of doing it. Another element was that we aren’t one of those bands like The Lost Prophets or Young Guns who are five lads of the same age who are all very handsome and dress similarly. Put us together, and we didn’t really look like a band and we knew that and that wasn’t really a good thing. Like eating food, a lot of appreciation for a band comes through the eyes, conciously or not. That’s not to say that a band has to look amazing, simply that the way they look needs to reflect the music they make. Those disparate influences were part of our music so it was fine that they were there but we wanted a way to be able to wear clothes we were comfortable in (which would be very different from person to person) but still looked ‘together’ as a package. And we still do that, but change the colour schemes around now and then. My favourite ever was the black with camoflague I think, which you can see in the ‘Sound of a Revolution’ video.

It’s funny because there was a point where we dropped doing it for a while because it got stale and Ben got really sick of it but now looking back they’re the worst photos of us live. We all look like we’re in different bands, even though we all thought individually we looked alright. So we went back to the colour scheme things, but just tried to keep it more subtle. It’s just another little gimmick of getting out there and performing as a band, just another small way to make it more interesting than stepping out of the crowd in what we would wear to the shops and going through the motions. It’s just an effort to do something.



Old school!

Ta! Great questions. Keep them coming in people and I’ll keep on blogging!

Barney :)

Tumblr Question Reblog: Who writes most of the lyrics in the band? Do each of you contribute your own sections to each of the songs, or is it generally one person writing the whole lyric, and then sharing the sections out in the studio? Also, as we're on the subject, who wrote the line "I'm scared of you, but that don't mean a thing, you know I'm scared of dogs too"? By far my favourite lyric in the 10 years of Sonic Boom Six.

I write all the lyrics now. Nearly all the lyrics on the early stuff are mine but across the first few albums Ben started writing more stuff that we used. Yeah, I work closely with Laila and a lot of tunes we kind of write together so I’ll get a demo of a song with her singing dummy lyrics and write to those. There’s a lot of printing out and practising and going back and changing stuff as we go along.

There are songs on the first three albums where Ben wrote lots of lyrics, especially Arcade Perfect. He’d often start a song off about one thing and I’d give it a twist and take it somewhere more political and less personal which was a fun way of doing things… ‘While You Were Sleeping’, ‘September To May’, ‘Floating Away’, ‘Through The Eyes Of A Child’ and ‘Welcome To The City Of Thieves’ were all totally like that… basically songs Ben had written on his own and we added to lyrically to make the message of them relate to the rest of the Boom content. That was a really cool way of doings things and I miss it! It would be too simple to say Ben wrote the ‘song’ and chorus’ and I wrote the verses but that’s not far off. Ben wrote all the lyrics to ‘Northern Skies’ and ‘Face Forward’ and I just added the raps and he wrote ‘Flower’ and ‘Passing Through’, ‘Sister’ and ‘Not Yet’ on the BabyBoom EP which are great. On all the more rap stuff Ben wrote his own verses. There’s definitely other songs of mine where he added stuff but I can’t remember off the top of my head!

I really loved Ben’s ability to make a big chorus line in a song stick in your head and the way he crafted proper songs, he’s a very good songwriter. He was massively influential on me. He believed that you shouldn’t, if possible, write music then write lyrics over it… you should come up with the chorus, beat, vibe whatever with the chorus of the song so the song is there before you write the lyrics. That means the song’s lyrics and music are married together. For instance, if you think of something you want to write about (say kids involved so heavily in the punk scene squabbles that they miss what’s happening in the world that’s important) and then come up with a phrase to describe it, you should have the phrase on the tip of your tongue and then pick up the guitar and marry it to music. ‘Meanwhile, Back In The Real World’ was me trying to write a song with that concept. It was a song that sounded like Mouthwash but with a concept of song and strength of chorus that was like a Ben song and what he’d been pushing me to do.

I wrote the dog line. ‘Rum Little Skallywag’ just started off as a song I wrote myself on an acoustic guitar so it was quite personal but it fit on the album. That’s a funny lyric to pick up on! I think most people like ‘Knob Head’ on ‘Monkey See, Monkey Do’ (not a line I ever thought people would pick up on) and people like ‘getting on together like chips and samosas’ from what I’ve heard.

Without starting to sound like Paul Simon on Classic Albums(!) or something, I think my favourite lyrics by us are ‘September To May’. That started as a song by Ben about people moving from Manchester and getting jobs in the city and I added the whole extra layer of fairweather student political activity which, for me, made it one of our best songs because it’s not something I recall ever hearing another song about. It’s an attempt of that marriage of the personal and the political that makes bands like The Clash get their message through on some songs like ‘Stay Free’. Not that ‘September To May’ is on that level but lyrically that’s a song I’m very proud of us for. I’m also very proud of the lyrics to ‘Jericho’ which are mine… ‘You seem surprised our race survived, you’d almost call us civilised’. Knowing I liked that line my girlfriend got an artist to put them in a framed picture for me. But I’ve only ever met one fan that liked that song!

On the new album I aimed to get rid of writing for a ‘target audience’ (i.e. like on ‘Meanwhile’ and ‘Bigger Than Punk Rock’ which are basically about the punk scene) and tried to write for everyday people. I wanted to stop second guessing what people were like who were listening to it. There is a song called ‘Gary Got A Gun’ that is going to really challenge people I think. I’m proud of that one too but that might be famous last words. We’ll wait and see...

September To May

Walking down Oxford road,
It seems that nothings changed,
Why does it leave me cold?
Must be more than Manchester rain,
Great place to piss a loan away,
But god forbid you’d ever stay.

Come and go, come and go, come and go.
(You used to be a friend of mine)
Come and go, come and go, come and go.
(You left that life behind)
Have you really changed so much since then,
Has it really been that long?
One minute you’re here and then you’re gone.

Oh when the locals quaint?
Oh weren’t the protests fun?
Second you graduate,
Join daddy’s firm in London,
Last seasons look inside the halls,
Was having Che Guevara hanging from your wall,
Three foot tall!
I guess those lies were just your size,
While you were dreaming of the money and sunny skies.

Come and go, come and go, come and go.
(You used to be a friend of mine)
Come and go, come and go, come and go.
(You left that life behind)
I thought that we were gunna smash that system,
Sing along to the Billy Bragg song,
One minute you’re here now you’re gone.

Took a little time to find out,
Took a little time to find out.
Took a little time to find out,
Took a little time to find out.

REVOLUTION EVERY SEPTEMBER TO MAY
I GUESS THE SYSTEM’S HERE TO STAY!

See you Come and go, come and go, come and go.
(You used to be a friend of mine)
Come and go, come and go, come and go.
(You left that life behind)
Have I really changed so much since then,
Has it really been that long?
One minute you’re here and now you’re gone.

Here we go! Music, gear and bass-playing…

HELLO JOE!

If you’re reading this, you’ve noticed that I’ve moved my blog from Blogspot to here on Tumblr. The problem was, that I was finding it hard to get motivated to write a blog on Blogspot because you get very little in terms of feedback and it’s just one of those things where one day becomes a week, becomes a month etc. There’s rarely a day goes by that I’m not doing something band-related so it’s sometimes difficult to fit in and I’m often contacting people on Twitter, Facebook and the mail-outs so it’s easy to forget about a blog. I guess it’s the instant gratification of Twitter that make them so easy to just jump in and out of but I often reflect on the fact that if I was to put half the man-hours I spend shooting the shizzle on there on something constructive then I’d have something to show for my time. Ah well, I guess at least I don’t play computer games any more. Anyway, here we are on Tumblr where sharing is easier and everything’s a little more pretty and fun. In theory. It’s going to be business as usual blog-wise, please send me questions and all that good stuff. But this is much easier, you can do it from here…

All that being said, my questions folder in my email is bulging so I’m gonna get through just a couple of these and make a new start this year. I’ll try and do something much more often and hopefully a bit more activity and interaction will inspire me to do it. There’s been some really interesting questions coming in about where we are with The Boom at the moment so I’ll get into those after these that have been waiting for ages…
 

Kev asks… One of the worst bits about underground music is that they’ll never be in guitar magazines or other spots where you can talk about actual gear and techniques, it does my head in. So, if you could talk me through some of the rigs in the band? I know Nick and Ben had crazy different styles and James seems to take a spacier approach, evidenced in the Midas stuff and his synth skillz, and the guitar tone on the newer records is completely different.

This is a really interesting question but a slightly difficult one to answer at the moment because it’s very much undecided in terms of moving forward with the new material… maybe I should take you through that. In the past, we always had a very clear idea of arrangements and being able to play stuff live as a unit, starting with the bass, drums and vocals of the first couple of records. On “City Of Thieves” we knew everything we were playing and Nick and Ben knew exactly what each other were playing as guitar left and right and we could sit down and play the album ‘live’ and it would sound that way (the versions of the City Of Thieves tunes we did on The Punk Show session are testament to that…). That was very deliberate. With the new album we recorded it was totally differently… between the amount of stuff that went on it and the different way it was written, all those rules went out of the window. We literally demo’d and wrote the songs directly onto a free DAW called Reaper on a laptop and added and subtracted from there adding synths, loops, beats and all that much more like a dance or pop act. This was done because we wanted it to sound like that, but we also had so much happening live with the sequencers, it wouldn’t have made sense to write without them. We would jam in a room once we had some ideas but the ideas would come from different places. James sits there on his own with all the instruments and writes pretty much alone once he’s got an idea and then brings a finished piece of music for everyone to put stuff on. Nick brings in riffs and we jam them and me and Laila and everyone will try to turn them into songs. I will come in with anything from a riff to a pretty-much finished song so the way of writing became very much based around the central idea of the recording. The upshot of all this is that when we got into the studio to record it properly there was a lot of stuff where in terms of the bass and guitars we weren’t even sure of who was supposed to be playing it. We kept a lot of the bass off the original demos and, for instance on bass, there is tons of stuff that I didn’t play. There’s metal bits on the album where I don’t play the bass because I can’t. What this has meant is that when we’ve come to have to approach playing the new album live, it’s going to be very interesting. There is a huge amount of stuff on the album where I’m doing so much vocals that having me stood there playing bass is taking away from the performance. On the King Blues tour, I was playing bass on ‘Kids’ and then I decided to drop that because the song was dying. On the forth date of the tour or so, I switched to being away from the bass and suddenly the song came alive. So the new songs are going to have to go in that direction. But that’s not the perfect compromise, because we’re dropping a whole guitar that’s part of the track. So the point of all this is that we don’t know exactly what we’re going to be doing once the new album comes around and we don’t know how we’re going to approach things… clear as mud.

In terms of the guitars, James and Nick are quite different players. James is very good with the more modern metal stuff and is fantastic with stuff he’s made up himself with a herbal remedy and an evening in. Nick is more versatile and solid as a straight-up rock / pop guitarist and picks things up quicker and is easier to jam with. I’m guessing that, looking forward, even if we do have to bring a new bass player into the mix, Nick’s still going to be the ‘main’ guitarist in that he plays on everything and James will hopefully be able to do some live synth work on stuff like, say, ‘Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!’ to make the synths side of things more interesting and organic. Its cool the way that we’ve all been able to move in and out and between in terms of roles but at some point we’re going to have to ‘shit or get off the pot’ as they say and maybe bring someone else into the fold as a live bass player or multi-instrumentalist.

In terms of the actual gear we’re using, click the picture below and that answers that. I’ve posted it properly below on the Tumblr so you can get a better look. Apart from a few additions to Nick’s arsenal like a new delay pedal, it’s pretty much the same…

While we’re at it, why bass? Do you have sausage fingers, think it’s the cooler hip-hopier approach or just prefer a back seat? 

I definitely didn’t and don’t have sausage fingers(!) There was a variety of reasons. Bass is very much my first instrument and I felt I was late in actually taking learning music seriously (I was about 16) so I felt that picking up bass was more achievable in terms of learning to be good more quickly. To be honest, it totally is. Any bass player that tells you otherwise is trying to defend the instrument, which is fine, because it is a rich and interesting instrument in lots of ways but it is easier to pick up and play at a basic level. My school mate Simon played guitar really well and Neil (as in Neil Macca who is still our drummer now) played the drums really well so I learned the bass, basically (argh!). My dad was a bass player and played bass for some decent names like Rufus Thomas back in the day and there was always an acoustic guitar in my house, so I was always familiar with instruments in general. But being a stubborn little sod I was always resistant to picking them up and taking lessons etc. When I eventually did, it was to help my mate Simon to play his GCSE music and accompanied him by playing ‘Under The Bridge’ by RCHP on bass, just as a favour to him and it was the first thing I learned. Inspired that I could play something by a band I liked, I dived head on in and decided I was a bass player and he, Neil and I were a band. And it went from there.

I think I liked the bass because I was so into rap-rock with bands like Rage Against The Machine, Fishbone and Primus who always had interesting bass stuff going on before I even realised it. And then there was the whole Cypress Hill, Dr Dre stuff I liked too which was all basslines so it just fitted with me right away. I’ve always listened to music with the question ‘does it move my neck back and forward?’ as something that was vital. And then as time went on and I got into ska and punk and hardcore and drum n bass, it became almost chicken and egg but I always liked the stuff that was bouncy, with what I would consider good rhythm sections, be it The Specials or The Smiths or Bob Marley or Green Day. I never had that ‘two-guitarists with a bass player stuck at the back’ like Oasis and Radiohead in my head because I always had that Led Zeppelin 3-piece plus vocalist archetype. The whole taking a back-seat thing wasn’t a thought to me. In RHCP Flea was as cool and in your face as the guitarist, as was Timmy C in Rage and Geezer Butler in Black Sabbath and Eric Avery in Jane’s Addiction. Even with the whole ska-punk thing, I was always drawn to the bouncy stuff like King Prawn and Suicide Machines over the chaotic brass-on-punk, say, Lightyear and MU330. When Big D and The Kids Table slowed down and did Strictly Rude I became a massive fan, I think that’s because I’m pre-disposed to liking more groovy stuff rather than liking it because I’m a bass player. Maybe that’s just how I hear things so maybe that’s why I can play the bass and make up basslines. I dunno.

I guess sometimes wish I’d have learnt guitar or piano earlier, because I think my song-writing would be better in terms of chord progressions. Being a bass player, I kind of liked to write a bassline and shout on it and call it a song and didn’t get the idea of chord movements and the like until much later and didn’t really get totally on top of that aspect of song-writing until ‘Ruff Guide’ (even on our original SB6 demo some of the chord progressions are unconventional. Shit might be a better word). But what I will say for bass is that if you’re wanting to write whole arrangements being the middle-person in the mix gives you an immersion into an arrangement where you are in a great place to know exactly what everyone is doing in a song, drums, guitars, vocals and all. That’s why I think people like Charles Mingus and a lot of bass players make good band leaders. Being in a band, I’ve always written songs and found being behind the bass a very comfortable place to listen to what EVERYONE is doing when writing songs whereas, say, the drummer, has to concentrate on what they’re doing. Cos the bass in SB6 is quite simple, it gives me time and space to check everything else out. Nowadays I definitely write more on the guitar or just in my head but I ultimately think of myself as a bass player. Even if I move onto more vocals and leave the bass behind in the future, I think I will still write on it and always jam with it. The bass is good.

Anyway, that was fun, sorry if it’s a bit long-winded. I get on one and just break on through to the other side as Jim Morrison was so fond of saying. I’ve still got a ton of questions to answer but maybe if I can reblog silly pictures of girls on roller skates and cupcakes between blogs, I might be more drawn back to this page. I think I’ve already got more people following this than the other blog and I’ve imported all the old stuff so sonicboomsix.blogspot is dead. Long live sonicboomsix.tumblr!

Until The Sunlight Comes…

Barney x

I still don't know when it's gonna be out... but it's good!

Hello!

It's taken someone to remind me that it's been months since I've done a blog to even realise it wasn't a week ago. The last few months have gone by so fast, I think it's really a symptom of having the main thing you do in your life preparing for the release of something that's going to happen in the future. Every day you're looking forward to what's going to happen tomorrow that sometimes you forget to think about today. And it's important to think about today!

Anyway, the vast majority of questions we've been having recently have been about the new album, what direction it's going in, when it's coming out etc.

I'll let everyone know where we are now. First of all, the album is 99% finished and it's going to be out next year at some point. At the moment, we're actually speaking to different labels and people and have just signed to a new management deal (which you can read about HERE) and we're deciding what to do with ourselves. Because we had the line-up change back at the start of 2010, we really wanted to take the time to make an album that was going to re-establish what Sonic Boom Six was rather than hurry out a continuation of what we'd done before. I think we went the right route, because the album, coupled with a spell of festivals over the summer where we debuted the new material, have certainly been met with a lot of enthusiasm by those that have heard it. There's lots of question marks going forward in terms of performing the new material live and how much old material we'll be doing too but it's good to have a challenge. Hopefully we'll see a lot of you on the October tour and we'll be playing a nice selection of new stuff with a nice amount of the ones you know and love in there too.

A lot of people have been asking are 'Sunny Side Of The Street' and 'New Style Rocka' going to be on the album. Never say never, but the plans are that the new album is a full, fresh set of songs, the first of which will be the single 'For The Kids Of The Multiculture' which will be available on October 10th and you can hear a few little previews from HERE.

One thing that's REALLY been drilled home to me over the last few singles is that you can't please all the people all the time. 'New Style Rocka' was met with enthusiasm from the majority of fans and was all good. 'Sunny Side' we expected more of a backlash (there was a bit of 'going mainstream' grumbling but not a huge amount) but we actually had kids and fans that hadn't been in touch for years telling us how much they dug it, as well as quite a bit of other stuff that was attracted by it. We love the song and the video but, to be honest, with what's being going on politically since the coalition got in power, our heads simply wasn't in the place to write songs that don't address what's going on around us more directly with more energy across a full album. There is a tune on the album called 'Flatline' which has a very interesting back-story and I can't wait for you guys to hear it. Remind me to tell you about it when it comes out.

There are a few questions in the mailbag, but it's all looking a little scant. Get on it people, barney@sonicboomsix.co.uk you know the drill. I'm not doing this Formspring thing, I'm staying on here like a Luddite.

Kev asks Coheed & Cambria, yay or nay?

I really don't know. I know that song that sounds like a girl singing when it comes on in clubs and it's nice enough. I saw them at Reading on the Lock-Up stage one year but I was so off my head on goofballs if you'd have struck a match I'd have burst into flames. I remember a man with an afro that was well good at guitar. You could be talking about Mungo Jerry. I have an album by them that is red and has a Roman Numeral four on the front and is still in it's cellophane wrap. That's as far as it goes. So yay nor nay really.

Anonymous asks When are you coming back to the States, mainly Florida? 

We hope to get back over to the States next year. Our priority now is basically re-launching the band here in terms of having the new material and having the line-up and live show 100% representing our new stuff and sound before we come back over. But that should definitely be done in the early part of next year. We're always talking to people over there so we have plenty to do there... and plenty of burritos to eat. We will definitely be back to LA, New York, Boston and hopefully Florida, we promise!

Have you thought about putting your music in the video game Rock Band? 

We've spoken to a content provider company about this over the last year and decided to wait for the new songs. I'm pleased to say we're currently sorting three songs from the new album to be downloadable content on Rock Band. That's definitely happening, 'For The Kids Of The Multiculture' will be up there first, as soon as we can make it happen.

Last question, are you going to release any more of your albums on vinyl?

Definitely, when there is the demand there. The great thing is we own the rights to the vast majority of our old material on a label level so once we get our feet on the ground with everything we'll be looking into re-issuing older albums in different formats and vinyl is one we're most fond of...

Lastly is this peach of a question from James Rodger Brown. And I promise, this is the full question your man James emailed me...

i can't remember if i have ordered sunnyside of the street and t shirt bundle?

Firstly James, grammatically that isn't a question, it's a statement. But I get what you mean. I'm afraid that I don't deal with the mail order side of things. You'll have to check your paypal or email the Boom shop. Thanks for the mail though mate, it's surely made a few people smile! :)

OK, that'll be that. I might have to start reviewing films on here or something because I need something other to talk about than where we are with the record. Mainly I'm still banging about on Twitter and Facebook to answer questions but if anyone needs some longer answers send some questions in yo!

Also, I did do a video blog when Mouthwash split up that you can see HERE if you haven't already checked it out.

Safe

Barney


I don't know what to leave you with so here's a picture of me and a dog.

Alright, I'm back! Hip-Hop, Record Labels and STOODUNTS!

Hello fellow earthlings!

First of all, massive apologies for being away from the blog for so long! Basically, this period of inactivity started with me wanting more time to answer a couple of questions and then having to wait to do so and basically weeks slipped into months. But no longer! As of today I'm back on the blog and back on the questions…

So, what have we been up to then?! First of all, rest assured we've been mad busy. Unfortunately, the end of last year ended up being a bit of a damp squib what with Laila's chest infection and a few cancelled dates but I hope you guys enjoyed our new songs and the 'Addicted To Bass' cover. A few people have asked if that song a good indication of where The Boom is going with the new stuff we're writing and I'd have to say yes and no. Yes in the sense that there is a lot more going on in terms of loops and synths than we've done before but we won't be playing it quite as safe with it in terms of the song-writing as we got away with that particular cover version. We're really stretching things out at the moment and some of it feels pretty far out there... I'm doing more vocals than I ever have before. There is a lot of stuff with me rapping and Laila doing the chorus's which are really exciting for us all and certainly represent enough of a departure and progression from the way we've done things in the past that at times it does feel like a different project. It's challenging and exciting to find ways to actually sprinkle in some SB6 in terms of a bit of ska or rock or the kind of lyrical content that will be a bridge from our new stuff to our history. It's still a bit of a mystery to us how the kids that have got into us via a frantic moshpit song like say 'Blood For Oil' will take our steps towards a more dancefloor-orientated sound but we're going to be brave and bold with it. We've just finished about 10 demos and we feel we've nailed the new 'Boom' and are heading into the studio at the end of this month to record a new single. We'll keep you up to date with it from in there. Exciting times ahead!

Right then, I better get stuck into some of these questions... first, a question from James Pitt..

"Just wondered if you guys had ever considered any other side projects that take you on a different style to SB6, something like a dedicated hip-hop/dubstep/d'nb style thing?"

Personally, I've contemplated doing a proper hip-hop thing and was really dead set on it a few years ago but my interest in current hip-hop has, unfortunately, really waned. Maybe it's being immersed in it for so long but I find it a challenge to get worked up about current music. I recognise it's good but I don't always get excited about it like I did back in the day. Much as I loved early grime stuff I'd say that in particular I'm not especially feeling the electro-crossover-pop UK hip-hop thing at the moment because, for me, it strays too far from what I like most about hip-hop; the lyrical content, which, apart from the odd punchline or two, just isn't really that featured. I really like Proffessor Green at the moment and I've had a few listens to Devlin and Giggs and enjoyed Maverick Sabre's mixtape but apart from that there's not much UK stuff I've listened closely too since Braintax and Jehst etc yet I expect there's loads of great stuff out there. For us, it's finding the time and the energy. There is a lot of emcee-ing inside me that's dying to get out and to say that I'm doing more vocals on the new SB6 stuff than I've done before is an understatement. As I said above, in some respects it feels like whole new thing in which stuff I’ve only been able to express a smattering of before is well more featured so that's really satisfying my creative appetite. One thing I would say is that I'm always up for guesting or emceeing on other people's stuff so if anyone has anything please let me know...

Laila has been working on some tracks in a 80s electro style with a mutual friend of ours (the guy that did the 'While New Were Sleeping' remix on Play On) that sound great. I'm not sure exactly what the plans are there but it's good stuff. James is always tinkering about with remixes and tracks and is currently working with Mark that used to be the vocalist of Myth Of Unity and also a band from Wales called Miacca whose stuff would be well worth checking out for anyone into The King Blues or Dirty Revolution. 

This one has come from quite a few of you but it's Dave Sharpe's I'll answer now.

"So my question is, what with seeing how tight knit the whole Rebel Alliance bands were (are?), I'm wondering why bands such as Random Hand and The Skints have left the label. I refuse to believe there's any bad blood, because why would anybody lie about that? Also, tying in with this, will there be any more Rebel Alliance signings in the future?"

Hey man, thanks for the question. This was a difficult one to answer because we're actually still dealing with things to be honest but as I did say I'd answer all questions in the blog, I'll give it a quick stab. There absolutely isn't any bad blood between us as a band and The Skints or Random Hand at all and, as intriguing as it may seem from the outside, it really is a case of this is boiling down to private business. Suffice to say, we found 2010 very difficult in terms of running the label and running the band, both financially and work-wise and as Rebel Alliance became bigger it got to be more work and require more finances. In terms of Rebel Alliance and it's output of bands other than SB6 in the future, we're going to take it one step at a time again and we're not going to feel too pressured to go this way or that or make any promises or statements that we can't keep. We certainly feel that what we were attempting to do with the label remains very important. A focal point like a label for bands and music in any scene is invaluable but with so many other challenges in terms of the music industry at the moment, just running SB6 is a task in itself right now. We thank everyone for their interest and support and wish those bands the best.

Stacey Jones in Devon asks "waht did you feel about the Student Tuition Fees debate? Do you think the protest action is right and works?'

Wow, that's a big gun. Well, me and Laila were actually discussing this in the van the other day before the full extent of the cuts and what was going on were revealed to the public (Laila's best mate is a Uni teacher and had told her some horror stories about what was happening in her department). Laila was very much of the opinion that not enough is done to encourage lesser privileged children to attend uni, or at least push them towards it. While I understand this viewpoint, I feel I need to be honest about my view on this and before hearing about the cuts I made the point that, in truth, I see the dilemma faced by the higher education institutes in terms funding and entry. And discussing tuition fees while completely ignoring this is simply not getting to grips with the issue. So many kids joined my uni course and dropped out which is a waste of time and money so pushing everyone towards university isn’t going to make anyone’s standard of living better. I think that the biggest challenge that is faced by the people running higher education is to engage and attract students that actually want to work hard and be there, which sounds obvious but, amongst the hoopla about fees and class (that a hell of a lot of people don't actually fully understand) it seems to rarely come up. Whether it's a working-class kid with a low level of education 'eased into' uni only to potter about for a bit and drop out or a middle-class 'gap yah' type having a 3-year party at daddy's expense they're both costing the education system if they aren't in it above the age of 18 for any reason other than to apply themselves to their course. That might sound a little stuffy but how else can you view further education in times where cuts are being made everywhere across the board? That's the problem with the myopic focus on fees and class and I feel that a lot of the coverage on the news doesn't always explore all the facets of the matter.

In principle, I'm totally and completely against raising the fees but I'd like to add the addendum that I acknowledge that more can be done in the area of money wastage in higher education. The obvious trouble with the raising of the finances it takes to get into uni is that it simply raises the stakes of debt and financial impact that the education will have in the life of a less-wealthy student to levels that may well prohibit them from attending. While for the wealthy it might be more of an impact on the wallet but it isn't life-changing. I believe it is a responsibility of the government and an adherence to the idea of a ‘United Kingdom’ to strive for the playing field of university-entry to be levelled. In my experience, there has certainly been no evidence that I've seen that someone from a wealthy background is any more likely to apply themselves in uni, many simply expect it, are expected to go and get that privilege without any consideration for what it entails. Financial inequality and class-based distinctions cause a huge amount of unfairness within the university system as a whole. So yeah, I think that university education should be accessible to all but I accept someone has to pay for it and I feel that does sometimes get ignored in hubbub. Ultimately, raising the fees is not the answer and that's the bottom line, especially when it exposes promises before the election as the blatant lies they were. What's that? What should we do about it?! I don’t know, but I know that while the government is spending the amounts that they do on military action overseas they should certainly be able to figure out how to tighten up higher education expenditure without turning universities into luxury consumer products for the highest bidder.

Anyway, as far as the protesting goes, I thought it was exciting and inspiring and heartening. I'm behind it 100% (maybe in that case 99%, the 1% for the guy that threw the fire extinguisher which compromised the credibility of the action somewhat in my opinion). I think that it's got the public standing up and looking at the problem at home in the way that a peaceful protest wouldn't. People argue that the violence compromises the message and a lot of the time I’m with that (smashing Burger King windows at a G8 summit in a ham-fisted jab at capitalism only harms the kid on minimum wage that has to clean that shit up) but in terms of something as palpable as education, people tend to be a little more magnanimous in their reaction to what’s going down. While it’s simple enough for the silent majority to sit there and caricature anti-capitalists as violent, loony, lefty wackos, it's another thing to say the same about such a culturally diverse and socially-accepted group as students. I think they shouted loud enough and expressed their anger in a constructive way and put across the disappointment a lot of people are feeling with the government's decisions at the moment.

Anyhoo, that's that for now, please keep the questions coming in a barney@sonicboomsix.co.uk. Best of wishes to Oli from the awesome Anti-Vigilante who is currently battling a serious illness and could do with all our support. Look out for our new single next month. Check out the bands Tree House Fire, Tyrannosaurus Alan and Clay Pigeon. I think that’s it!

Safe

Barney x

I'm well aware that I'm never going to be on the 'Cool List'.

Well, well, well!

Sorry it's been so long. Life rolls along whether you're rolling with it or not... Salut to those that came over to the UK shows recently, we’ve really enjoyed pulling a lot of the old tunes out of the box and giving them a play with. We've been recording our version of 'Totally Addicted To Bass' with our old pal Christophe this weekend which has been great fun and the first time that we've actually recorded with James. I can't wait to hear it mixed actually. There are tons of dates coming up including France, India(!) and a European tour with Less Than Jake so we're certainly keeping ourselves busy. Anyway, enough of my yackin, let's get into those questions...

Tim Johnson asks…

Aite man! so, what was the story with Grimace?

The story of Grimace! OK, Grimace was a ska-punk band that lived from 1997 – 2001 and involved Laila, Neil and I and had our good friend Dave Kelly on guitar and a parade of different brass sections (Ben C ended up on sax in the final line-up) We started out when we were in our teens and friends at school and were playing funk-rock, ska, pop-punk stuff influenced by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fishbone, No Doubt etc. We were playing general band nights rather than punk nights but we started to get a few gigs at ska nights and with bands like Vodoo Glow Skulls and Spunge which introduced us to the ska and punk scene and really turned our heads. As we got into more US ska-punk like Dance Hall Crashers, Less Than Jake and Save Ferris we went more into a US sounding ska-punk thing. We had a couple of songs on some compilations like Know Your Skalphabet and Compunktion, from which the tune ‘Push You Back’ is probably our best tune. Laila actually sung a duet with Alex from [Spunge] on their second album after playing with those guys. Cos we’d just been rock kids who kind of fell into the ska and punk thing by mistake, we didn’t really come from a punk place so we had difficulty fitting in with the scene at the start and by the time we’d figured it out, we had become a bit burnt by it and felt very disillusioned (which is what ‘Play Inna Day’ was about). Musically, we’d discovered hardcore punk, reggae and drum n bass and I got really into hip-hop so Grimace quietly died a death. We were adding these elements into Grimace once Ben had joined and some of the stuff on the final Grimace demo ‘Demonstrate’ is re-recorded on the first SB6 EP. I think we needed to go out and figure out what we were then come back to the punk scene and do something different.

The rest of the story can be followed just by going and checking out the discography on the Sonic Boom Six site HERE! If enough people ask for it I'd be happy to upload the Grimace discography at some point.

Aaron Lohan asks (well, challenges!)

I've loved a lot of the support bands you've toured with but I
challenge you to take a hardcore band on tour, and if you do, which
hardcore band would you like to take on tour?

Hmmm, sorry to be ‘genre-dude’ but it depends on whether you mean hardcore-punk or hardcore hardcore. We did a tour with Chief in support in 2008 who are my favourite hardcore-punk band around. I think that hardcore-punk bands work really well alongside us and it’s great to play festivals with bands like Strike Anywhere and Paint It Black. We asked The Steal to come on tour a long time back and they couldn’t but one band I’ve really got my eye on at the moment is Our Time Down Here. Those guys supported us in Southampton and we leant our gang vocals to their album and we’d love to take them out one day if we could. You can hear them HERE.

If you mean more in the realms of ‘proper’ tough hardcore like Madball and Judge and stuff, I don’t know if that kind of band would be right for our crowd, much as I love it personally!

And finally, a couple off Kev H

Managing your own label between you guys, being all self-reliant, and constantly touring and merching, doing all that full time, if it's not in bad taste mentioning money, you guys must crunch alot of numbers?
 

Hell yeah. At the moment Neil actually does the accounting but the whole thing is very much run by us. The operation is divided into a division of labour. In theory, we divide like Voltron and we all do different things within the unit that divides the work into manageable chunks and makes sure that we’re all playing to our strengths towards a common goal. And all that. For instance, I'm shit at business and can't drive so I don't go near the money or the steering wheel but I write all the lyrics and lots of the music and Neil does the opposite so, in theory, we all meet in the middle somewhere... in theory. :)

                            
Double Header! It seems this band you're in, more than any other I've ever seen, are totally open to talking to fans & wasting time listening to drunk people tell you they loved the first album. You've got all this vault stuff on your website and are the 2nd most prolific poster on your own forum, and are merch standing it at every gig... Why and how do you put up with it?

Well, I can only speak personally here but I think it’s basically to do with the whole idea of Sonic Boom Six, which was to be a punk band that embodies a lot of different ideas without trying to draw too much attention to that fact. I personally just think the ‘rock star’ mythos is out-dated, corny and narcissistic. I don't dig on that whole Motley Cru thing in terms of that kind of hokey rock-star image, even when people do it ironically. I remember being totally bummed out meeting Red Hot Chili Peppers outside their gig back in 1995 and I’d made a birthday card for Flea and he basically just pushed past and knocked it on the ground. And this is someone who always likes to go on about how punk he is. I tried to give it to his security but they all just shoved past. Who knows whether he got it. Whereas, not long before that year, at the same venue Pantera had come out and hung with the kids and Dimebag was a proper nice bloke and that meant a lot to us.
I don’t see that remaining aloof brings any mystique or air of mystery to a band in this day and age. I like to interact with our fans because being pragmatic and down-to-earth was definitely always an aspect of what SB6 was about. Pricking the bubble of ‘the cool’, which is generally just something that reminds me of 6^th Form common rooms. Like the ‘cool list’. Something journalists write about for kids to read that need to re-affirm their coolness by liking something that a magazine that they sell in Asda tells them is cool. I’m not losing any sleep over it but it’s total bobbins isn’t it? Fuck it. Act like a nice bloke that you’d like to hang out with, not ‘cool’.

As Babar Luck so consistently points out, it's nice to be nice.

Rightio, I'm aware there are another few questions on another specific subject but they'll have to wait until we've got all our ducks in a row to be able to speak about the thing they're asking about! As ever, keep those questions coming in to barney@sonicboomsix.co.uk

I'm off to see Inception in a bit. I like Leo DiCaprio but Christopher Nolan's Batman films - apart from the odd flash of brilliance - haven't been for me. It remains to be seen what I think about a film that he isn't making about a character that I'm irrationally demanding about. I'm ready to be pleasantly surprised!

Barney x