Sonic Syndicate
Rebellion In Nightmare Land

04.05.2010

Sometimes you interview people and you have no clue what they will become some day. Who would say back in 2004 when we interviewed Greek guitarist Gus G., that in five years he would play with Ozzy Osbourne? On other occasions, you interview people and you feel they are bound for achievement. This was the case with Sweden’s Sonic Syndicate, who are about to release their fourth album, “We Rule The Night”, which is likely to be the band’s springboard to stardom, at least in the genre of modern / melodic death metal. Even a change of singer, which is a painful process for most of the bands, doesn’t seem to do any harm to the Swedes, and everyone who attended their first Russian headliner tour, saw that in Nathan James Biggs, Sonic Syndicate found a nearly perfect frontman. For this interview, we were offered both Nathan and his counterpart, growler Richard Sjunnesson, and we jumped at the occasion to see how these guys, who form a perfect duo on stage, look and communicate offstage.

You have already played in Russia back in 2008, but this time you did a whole tour all across the country? What are your impressions?

Richard: We’ve been loving it, it’s been a great tour, and the fans are fucking tearing me apart at every gig.
Nathan: Every single gig, every single venue has been incredible. It’s crazy – it’s our first headline tour, and we’re packing the venues. Every time you do your first headline tours anywhere, you don’t expect much, but here it’s been so fucking good!

On this tour you introduce your new singer. Richard, I know that you had a lot of applications for this position – why did you choose this particular person? What makes him better than all the rest?

Richard: As you said, we got a lot of applications, and we tried to narrow them down as much as we could in terms of quality and stuff. When we were down to about 14 people, we invited them to the rehearsal room to actually come and perform for us so we could see how they work, as well as to meet them in person and see how the chemistry worked out. And the winner is sitting right here now.

Nathan, how do you like being in Sonic Syndicate?

Nathan: Oh, every day is incredible. We’re talking about being new and stuff (laughs), and it feels weird now, because we’ve done a complete tour of Sweden, a Europe tour, a UK tour, and now we’re in Russia. I feel like I’ve known these guys all my life. Being on the road with them is incredible.

But you are from England, and Sonic Syndicate is a Swedish band. Are you moving to Sweden, or how else do you handle the problem of long distances?

Nathan: It was easy! They said, “Dude, we want you! How quickly can you move to Sweden?” I said, “OK, I’ll book my ticket”. And I was there within weeks after the audition.

What is your former singer Roland Johansson now doing? Are you still in contact?

Richard: Not really. I guess he’s working, but I don’t know what he’s up to, to be fair.

But you spent a lot of time with the guy, so did he basically disappear one day, and that’s it?

Richard: You could feel this for a while on the road.
Nathan: You can tell when someone’s getting bored of touring life. He was just not up for it. It is that it takes special kind of crazy person to want to live on the road, to spend all your life in a tour bus being in completely different places away from home.

There are two singers in the band. Isn’t there a sort of competition regarding who should sing more or something like that?

Richard: Whenever there’s something like that, we just settle that in like a Jedi light singer battle. (everybody laughs) Whoever wins, gets their way.
Nathan: Even if there is competition, it’s almost always positive. It makes you trigger and want to push harder.
Richard: We’re never fighting with each other, we’re always fighting for the song. We collaborate on ideas all the time.
Nathan: We fight against the guitarists. (everybody laughs)

Every band which gets big at some point in time starts getting negative comments such as “They sold out!” or “They went more mellow” or “I liked their earlier stuff more”. How much is it already happening to Sonic Syndicate? And how do you cope with it?

Richard: Most of the fans accept our development, and even if some stubborn fans don’t accept it, we gain so many new fans. We’re taking our music to the next level all the time, and that’s what we wanna do. We don’t wanna do the same record over and over again.
Nathan: We don’t want to be stuck with the same sound, that’s why on the new record we really tried to do something different. With regards to the old fans, I’ve been a Sonic fan myself (laughs), and I think that our fans are caring and open-minded enough anyway. They really care about the band and they love following the band, it’s a music culture for them.

In general, how much is fans’ opinion important for you? I mean, when you do a song like “Burn This City”, it’s a kind of risky step, because some fans may feel you’re moving in the direction of Linkin Park or something like that…

Richard: We look at it more from the perspective of what is good for this song. It comes down to the single songs, not to what the band sounds like.
Nathan: It’s more like what we want to do, what we feel in our hearts.
Richard: “Burn This City” was a natural development for us.
Nathan: It’s hard, because we are doing it for our fans, we care about them so much. They wouldn’t support us if we weren’t giving them 110% all the time with our music. We play what we enjoy, and our fans can see that.
Richard: I think the fans are developing with us as well. They’re broadening their perspective in music.

“Burn This City” is also your new video. I’ve noticed that Sonic Syndicate are doing a lot of videos, there are at least two clips for every album. Given that making videos is pretty expensive, how much does this justify itself? Do you manage to reach new fans through videos?

Richard: I think one million views of “Denied” on YouTube speaks for itself. I don’t think we’re really aiming at the television, because YouTube is such a powerful tool nowadays.
Nathan: Videos are also added to albums for people to watch. It’s good fun doing them as well, and our label Nuclear Blast supports us so much. They like to have fun, and we like to have fun, and fans love it. So we giving the videos back to them.

Which of the videos is your favorite?

(together) “Burn This City” (laugh)

Let’s now speak about your new album “We Rule The Night”. First of all, you’re not working with producer Jonas Kjellgren anymore, this time it was Toby Wright producing the record. Why didn’t you continue with Jonas, and how did you enjoy studio sessions with Toby?

Richard: As much as we love working with Jonas Kjellgren – actually he had a part in this album as well, because he was tracking a lot of guitars – we really wanted a big name. We wanted to try and see how it works to record with a person who has worked with Metallica and Korn.
Nathan: We’ve developed, we’ve changed, our sound has stepped up, so we wanted to see what a producer like Toby Wright could bring to the table. He heard “Burn This City”, our new single, and thought it was really cool, and he was like, “Yeah, I wanna work with these guys”. He’s worked with some of our favorite bands, such as Kiss, Korn, Slayer. We just wanted to see what we can bring to the table, and we were right in choosing, because the results have been excellent.
Richard: Toby “Right”!

Yeah, with such a last name you cannot be wrong! (everybody laughs)

Nathan: Yeah, exactly! He was a great guy, and he really helped us work on the album. He pushed our sound in the direction we were going anyway.  

You also have a new cover artist, Gustavo Sazes from South America. How did you like this cooperation – especially that, as you wrote on your website – you had “countless hours of frustration and adjustments”?

Richard: He did the “Burn This City” cover as well, and we liked that. He’s done our website since “Only Inhuman”, so we’ve been working with him for three years. We talk to him all the time, so he can get across what we want from him very quickly. I like this. For the new album, we told him that we wanted a really bright cover that would also be dark. As the album’s got dark content – the lyrics and the songs – we wanted to have extremes of light and dark in one cover. I think he did just the right thing.

You said that Nuclear Blast gives you a lot of support. Do they ever say “no” to what you want?

Nathan: Not really. They’ve never pointed any fingers or anything at us, it’s a very family kind of work going on between us and them.
Richard: They really look after their bands.
Nathan: What you put into it, you get back. We work hard, and they work hard for us, it’s as simple as that.

“Only Inhuman” was basically written by Roger Sjunnesson, while “Love And Other Disaster” was a group effort. What way did you do it this time around?

Nathan: It’s very diplomatic. Everyone did their part, it’s even more diplomatic than “Live And Other Disasters” was.
Richard: It’s a very organic process. We wrote 90% of this album together, the six of us, in the rehearsal room just jamming at songs. We put a lot of energy into that, energy from the rehearsal room and our live shows is really stamped on this new record because of the way it was written.
Nathan: That’s what we really wanted to capture together with Toby Wright – the live raw energy of the band.

So far the band has only recorded one cover version, and it’s All About Us” by the Russian band T.A.T.U. What made this song so special for you? Do you listen to T.A.T.U. in your free time?

Richard: I really liked the song when it hit the charts. (laughs) The same goes for the other big songs they’ve done. They were huge in Sweden, everyone knows them, so it’s a good cover song.

Did it help bring more attention to the band?

Richard: Since we’ve never played it live up to now… But I know a lot of people who have it as their favorite song off “Only Inhuman”. Of course, it’s brought more attention to the band.

In general, what kind of music do you prefer nowadays? Have there been any new bands that you discovered for yourself lately?

Richard: I got a reeling to Amorphis when this tour started, I’ve been listening to their new album non-stop. That’s what on my iPod at the moment.
Nathan: I’m currently spinning a mix between the new Deftones album and Lady GaGa.

Sonic Syndicate are quite a successful band – you have made four albums, you have a deal with Nuclear Blast, you tour the world and you live off music, so you don’t need a dayjob. What is your next ambition, so to say, what is the next level you would like to reach in terms of music and the music business?

Richard: To have Metallica open for us. (laughs). To be the first band on the moon…
Nathan: And land safely!
Richard: The sky’s the limit. We’re so passionate about what we’re doing, and we’re so happy where we are and with the support we’ve got from our label and our fans and everyone. It’s fucking dream come true, and we’re just gonna keep doing what we’re doing.

Sonic Syndicate on the Internet: http://www.sonicsyndicate.com

Special thanks to everybody at Nomercy Music for arranging this interview

Roman Patrashov
April 10, 2010
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