Interview с Sonic Syndicate : DARKSIDE.ru

Ksenia! It’s Nathan from Sonic Syndicate!

Hi, Nathan! Nice to hear you! First of all let me congratulate you with a new role of Sonic Syndicate vocalist! What do you feel in a new position?

Oh, it’s amazing! We’ve had so busy time. When I joined we toured, we were in Russia as well. We toured Sweden, England, whole Europe, the whole tour of Russia, we were in Japan. We recorded a new album as well.

The name of Sonic Syndicate new vocalist was kept secret for a long time. And only at the end of August last years your fans and all metal world learned that you, Nathan James Biggs, occupied this post. And how did YOU get to know that you were chosen? How did you accept the great news?

I was one of the people chosen. I went to Sweden and we started to play. We started to play some of the songs, and it went out just amazing! And it was like, “He is the new singer! That’s the singer!” And then they told the other people who also came, that they’d chosen me. They just asked me, if I was prepared to all this, because in the UK I had a dog, I had a girlfriend, I had a job, but I gave it all up and sold my house and stuff and never looked back since.

So now you have no dog, no house and no girlfriend!

(laughs) Well, no so bad! I have a house now! But I don’t have a girlfriend and a dog anymore. (laughs)

Was it completely your idea to take part in this competition for Sonic Syndicate new vocalist or maybe someone gave you this idea?

I received a newsletter. I’m like a fan of Nuclear Blast bands, so I was signed up to their newsletter. So I got an e-mail from Nuclear Blast saying that Sonic Syndicate are searching in the world for a new vocalist. I applied and sent them my old band reference material and they really liked what they heard. So that is how it happened.

And how ma

ny people all in all took applied for this position?

I know that there were people entering from all over the world and there were adverts in “Kerrang!”, “Metal Hammer”, also on the radio. So thousands and thousands of people had applied. Then they whittled it down to several hundreds, then they whittled it down to some tens and then twenty people came to Sweden to play with the band in the rehearsal studio.

Any girls trying to occupy this position?

I think there were some girls trying, but the searched for the male vocalist.

How did you former band members react to your new position, I mean your old band The Hollow Earth Theory…

They were very shocked… I would say.

Shocked in a bad sense of the word or in a good sense?

Both, I think! (everyone laughs) Somebody like Chris, he is a bass player and my best friend and sportsmate and whatever, we go to the shows together, we drink together and hang out and all the stuff. He is so proud of me, he is so happy for me. And the guitarist as well. But when I broke the news to the drummer stood up and walked out of the practice room and he didn’t speak to me again, to the present day. I think he felt really offended.

So now you are not a member of HET band?

Yeah, I took the whole my energy and the whole my effort to SS. We’ve been so busy with SS, that I wouldn’t have time for anything else.

Do you know how are they going on right now? I mean Hollow Earth Theory. Did they find a substitution for you?

No, they haven’t found.

And the band stood up? They are obviously not working at the new material?

No, they are not. No. Actually, Chris joined another band, so he is also busy right now with that project. As for the HET, they haven’t announ

ced that they stood up, but they haven’t done anything since I left.

You were chosen as a replacement for Roland Johansson and he is known as a very charismatic vocalist. And moreover a lot of people associate SS with his name and his figure. That is why it is very interesting to know how the band’s fans accepted you as the chosen singer?

Well, Roland is a great guy and when I came, we rehearsed all the material and we kick ass live now. Basically I’m doing my own thing now, people are very diverse, and the music which they listen to is also very different. But I reach out for them, for each of them, and after the show I’m always there talking and drinking with fans. We always try to interact our fans. Sonic Syndicate and our fans are one big family and this connection and warmth between us has become even stronger thank to great support of our fans. During the last Sonic tour with Roland I was also there with them and communicated with Roland. We both were hanging out, having fun and there was no bad blood, so to speak. He said that it was his choice and that he didn’t want to be in the band any more.

Yeah, and this communication is always very important for the fans. I happened to visit Serj Tankjan concert some time ago, and as soon as the last accord was played, he left the stage saying “good bye!” and never returned to the fans, though they were calling and shouting, inviting him to come to them once again. And of course the fans were very astonished…

Yeah, I understand, there is a certain category of musicians who play concert and leave, because it is not written in their contract that they “must” talk to fans after the show. But we respect our fans, we love them and that is why we always make some competitions for them, we always have drinks together. When the fans write to us, we reply to every single message. A lot of fans travel with us, we make new friends in all the countries that we vi

sit.

As far as I could get the overall reaction of your new fans was welcoming…

Well, of course there are some people who like the “Old Sonic”, but in general the reaction and support were overwhelming. And it’s been great.

Let’s speak about the new album of Sonic Syndicate. Originally the release was planned for spring of this year, but then it was two times postponed, first to July and then to August. Why?

Basically we were so proud of this album, so confident in the songs and it is such an important album for us, because it is a new album in the new line-up. And we just wanted to make sure that everything sounded perfect, then the album was next once we prepared the remix after In Flames. Then we remixed the album. We are very very sorry that it took so long (laughs) Of course we wanted to get back to the fans, but we wanted to make sure that everything sounded perfect and now it is and we know it.

I know there was a king of competitions for the fans – they were to offer their variant for the title of the new SS album…

Yes, that’s right, we just wanted our fans to write some suggestions about the title, we wanted to let them take part in creating the album. And we got just tons of e-mails, they posted on Facebook, and they came up with very good ideas, some very good titles that we might use in the future. And finally we titled the album after one of the tracks, which title we invented ourselves. But I also liked the title “Phoenix Project”, “Fire Within”, “Escape from Eden” – actually thousands of cool titles, but we’ve chosen also the powerful title. It is open to interpretations “We rule the night”. Interpret it in any way you want. First, we get out and party all night, and that is one way of “ruling it”. Or second, that we rule on stage, we rule the show, we rule the night, or third, we are big fans of horror movie and there is something of t

his aspect. Me and Richie are big fans of vampires, books and films about them, so two or three tracks are devoted to this theme. We decided that it would be nice if we wrote about vampires each, he and I. And I wrote the song “Black And Blue” and he wrote “We Rule the Night”, and both of them are about the creatures in the night and the stuff…

Many fans think that this title “We Rule the Night” would better fit some other bands, someone like Finnish vampires The 69 Eyes, and in no way for SS. Can you agree with this statement?

No, not at all. It’s just a powerful title, and it can be interpreted how people want. I mean it is like a statement, you can be a gangster and say that you rule the night and it has nothing to do with vampires. Just having a good time.

When you entered the band was there any material ready or you created the whole album together with the band?

No, nothing was ready, and we wrote and recorded the whole album together with the guys in a practice room. This time we all – me. Richie, Rober, John took part in making the album. It wasn’t like one person coming with the song finished. Some came up with new ideas, with vocal lines, we were like jamming and rocking, like old school rock’n’roll in a practice room and the songs came together very quickly.

In September of the last year you wrote on you MySpace that you are going to release an EP, “The Rebellion Pack” and you wanted to include a part of the new tracks, and best songs of the band rerecorded with your vocals. But as far as I know it was never released.

Well, we released an EP with two songs which I did, like a single with a bonus track and separately it was released on-line, “The Rebellion Pack” which included these two new songs and also radio edit of one of the songs.

The artwork of the new album as well as of the new single was made by a

Brazilian guy Gustavo Savez. These two artworks arose a lot of rumors on the Internet. Thus, the artwork of your new single "Burn This City", looks like the cover for the latest movie about Batman. What do you think? (laughs)

Yeah! We are great fans of comic books and stuff and we just wanted to have some elements of that – not only that, also “Sin City” and other comic books. And the idea was to have something in common with all those superheroes, you know. So we are glad that people have such associations, because it came out intentionally.

The single is called “Burn THIS city”? Is it some exact city that you are intended to destroy, or is it just some abstract idea?

All of them! It\s the point! It is like a metaphor, meaning that we want just to go out, to kick ass and to have a great time, a great time with our fans as well. And it doesn’t matter in what city we’re in – St. Petersburg in Russia, or Paris, or California – whatever… we go out and we have a good time and we have a kick-ass-live. (laughs)

In April you were in Russia with concerts. Did you like the crowd, the fans, our people in general?

Russia is awesome and the crowds are the same. The was crowd surfing, moshpits and all the signing sessions at every show we played. And as far as we know every single venue was sold out.

Any sightseeing?

We were very busy, but every free minute that we have we try to spend watching the sights. So I remember that we went to a big park in St.-Petersburg, we also went to a museum, so we really want to come back to Russia soon.

I hear that the logo of your band has changed. Is it true?

Well, it is still there, but it is no longer on the front cover. But it is still there.

I have happened to hear only three song off the new album and they

are so different that they obviously don’t give the general picture of the new album. Could you lit the light to this matter?

First of all, we didn’t want to be limited to anything this time, and we thought it would be the best time to try out new things. We were getting alone so well with the band, and the album turned out to have a very positive energy. There is a lot of diversity on the album, I think. I mean the heavy metal songs go side by side with hard rock songs. So we really think it is a very diverse album, “Revolution, Baby” is like a “balls-to-the-wall” hard rock song, and at the same time the song “Plans Are For People” is like and industrial rock metal effort like Rob Zombie or Nine Inch Nails or something. “Turn It Up” is like party song on the album. We know that our listeners, our fans are into a such broad variety of music… But still we arranged the songs in our style, because we are the same Sonic Syndicate.

You mentioned the song “Revolution, Baby”. I know that you also have a video clip for it and many fans say that it was just an attempt to laugh at metal core bands from North America…

Not at all! (laughs) We always shoot different videos, we make different things, and I like many metal core bands – but this one is just a hard rock metal song, and we wanted it to be really raw and punchy, but it is not a mockery at anyone. Just “balls-to-the-wall” metal song.

And tell us about the shooting of the video? For instance, who was the director?

The director was Patrick Ullaeus. The video was done within two days. The shooting itself took place in Sweden. He is a great guy and he also worked with Soilwork, Mnemic, In Flames…

… and did “Burn This City” video…

Yeah!

Was it easy to work with such a proclaimed person? I know he is very demanding to the bands he works with…

He is very professional, he knows what he wants and he is a very good director. But at the same time we’ve known him for a lot of time, he is a friend of us as well. So we know exactly how he works, he knows what he can get from us, we know what we can get from him. We work really well together, so the video came together exactly how we wanted them to be.

And what is about the bonus DVD for the album? I’ve seen a trailer on the Internet and judging from this trailer, there is gonna be a lot of funny stuff on it…

There will be a lot of extra stuff, because we always want to give our fans more, more extra, more emotions. There will be a little live material, also videos “Revolution, Baby”, “Burn This City”, and “My Own Life” video plus the making of the videos, also the funny stuff is actually us (laughs) recording the album “We Rule The Night”, some documentary about that. About being in the studio for a long time, about all the crazy things which happen during the recording – it’s really funny!

You worked with a producer Toby Wright. Did you like his work as a producer? Was it easy to get on well with him and to find a compromise about how the album should sound like?

Basically we were evolving as a band and I was the newcomer to the band, the new singer. That is why it was such a big and important album for us, this album was like opening a new chapter in Sonic Syndicate history. So we wanted to try someone who had an awesome reputation and worked with band we really liked, and Toby Wright worked with Kiss, Slayer, Sevendust. So he has worked and great sounding albums, and different sounding albums, so it would be a great try to work with him. We sent him some of the songs and he really liked us and wanted to do it. So we took it from air and it was a great choice, he is a cool producer and a good guy.

The guys from Sonic Syndicate said that when you came into

the band a lot of things changed. Do you agree that you’ve brought changes into the band and what are these changes?

A lot changed. I think the most important thing that changed is that we’ve become such a tighter family than before, and started really enjoying practicing all songs together, meeting up in the rehearsal studio. We went on tour and the energy on stage has gone up, I think that we’ve had such greater fun of what we were doing! We’re all like best friends and it is great. We’re like a little family.

Tell us about yourself? What kind of personality are you? And why music after all?

Well, I think I’ve been into the music all the time, since my childhood. I watched different bands, my favorite singer is Pantera’s. When I saw them on stage, all that energy and fun that they were having, I decided that I want to be on stage, too, one day.

Yeah, taking into consideration how easy you gave up your former way of life…

Yeah, I didn’t want to do that for my whole life. I’m the happiest person in the world now, because of what I’m doing now. I’m sure that this is what I’m going to do for a very very long time, maybe for the rest of my life. When people want to talk to me after the showm I’m always there for them, I care for them.

But don’t you miss your former life? You former girlfriend after all? I doubt that it is just that easy to turn your life upside down and never to regret anything, and even never to miss anyone…

Of course, I miss my girlfriend a little bit, but you have to sacrifice things for your dream. I can’t go to the UK now, the band comes first. I hope I’ll meet somebody maybe (laughs)

You will for sure, just come to Russia again! (everyone laughs) Did you play anywhere else before Hollow Earth Theory or was it your first real band?

There was something, but nothing serious, so I can cay that Hollow Earth Theory was my first serious band.

You have one female band member, your bass player Karin Axelsson. Is it easy to work with her? Women can be capricious at times!

Oh, she is just another guy! She doesn’t like to be treated special, she works as hard as the rest of us. On tour she is looking equipment around and she kicks ass on stage, even more than any other person I know (laughs).

And traditionally your words to your Russian die-hard fans!

Of course! We had wonderful time when we were in Russia last time and we know for sure that we’ll return to your country again as soon as we can. “We Rule the Night” and we are going to see you all at the dark side, he-he!

Interview by Ksenia Khorina
© Russian DarkSide E-Zine
20 окт 2010 the End


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