Posted on Jan 1, 2005 by Tom

SB6 are a Manchester-based band that take bits of raggae, punkrock, hardcore and dub and mix it in a blender with more contemporary Hip Hop influences. The result is somewhat comparable to the much celebrated King Prawn, whom unfortunately split up some time ago. But SB6 is here to let us forget that, and with their Turbo EP certainly proved to be up for that task. Besides, the band will make it over to the mainland for a select number of dates in the summer, which gave us more than enough reason to send a few email questions over to the band. I had given up hope of ever receiving the questions back, but this is a prime example of how bands should take up their responsibilities towards the press (at least in my eyes), so without further adue find out all there is to know about SB6 (and then some)!

Please tell us who you are and what you do in SB6! If there's anything else about yourself that you'd like to share knock yourself out!

Yo... I'm Barney Boom, bass-player, barker and sometime reluctant interview subjectee from Sonic Boom Six. I can often be found rowing with pedantic cretins on the Internet, reading Batman comics or eating super noodles. I am a happy drunk and often people tell me I am shorter than they imagined I would be. But I am not impressed with height.

Since we are a webzine based on mainland Europe in can imagine that a lot of people still lack the most common info about the band, so please be as kind as to tell us the why when and where of SBS, all that and the juicy bits!!

Errm. We formed in early 2002 and had our first gig in April 2002. Laila our vocalist and me were in a ska-punk band from Manchester called Grimace. We started SB6 because we wanted to mix punk with other music that we were into like Hip-Hop and jungle and really bad UK garage. We made a demo, did two EPs with Moon Ska Europe and here we are three years later.

Why SB6 and not Sonic Boom 11?

On our first gig we had a sax and a trombone player so there was indeed six of us. He left after two gigs. Then we had a sax player so it was effectively Sonic Boom five. But then our guitarist left and the sax player went to guitar so now it’s effectively Sonic Boom four but we are staying Sonic Boom Six, because it sounds good. Like some weird outer-space crazy gang from the desk of a 70s TV writer.

Most people always come across the 'perfected' and practiced side of bands so we were wondering if you remember the bands first practice and how that one went?

We probably all got there late and rowed about money and played for about ten minutes as we still do. I dunno, it was very strange at first because we knew what we wanted to do but we hadn't realised how to do it in terms of arrangements so we probably just arsed around with a ragga groove and sung some silly lyrics over it then played some Minor Threat or something. Then we probably played some of the last Grimace songs that had kind of begun taking the direction we wanted to go in anyway. 'Northern Skies', which was our first song that went out was kind of played by Grimace.

One thing I like so much about Sonic Meltingpot Six is how you blend a multitude of genres together with what seems great ease. Hip hop, dub, reggae, ska, punk, rock, it's all there. I was wondering if you have a certain recipe for your tracks. Who does what in the band when creating songs and how long do you generally toy around with song structures and the sort? How's the whole song writing process like?

A lot of the time it basically starts with a bass groove for the verses which I will write thinking of starting with a certain style. Like for Blood For Oil I had a kind of riff that sounded ace with a jungle beat and Rape I had a Uk garage type thing and Silent Majority like a bhangra Hip-Hop thing. And then Laila will make up a crazy little melody for it because her head always comes out with these weird creepy little melodies, I think its her Asian blood rooted to weird scales or something. Then we will go into the rehearsal rooms and work out a chorus, which Ben will generally sort out a melody for. That’s like the exact recipe for all our signature songs like Silent Majority, Blood For Oil, Rape of Punk, Piggy In the Middle etc. There are exceptions, Ben basically wrote Northern Skies, I wrote People Acklike and stuff but its cool now, its got really really organic. Generally, if I write a verse, Ben will write the chorus and vice versa and Laila will summon up the spirit of Tutankhamen or something to add our trademark creepy scale thing. It’s like a weird science now. Its cool. We know our sound.

I described the band to a friend as a more manic version of King Prawn. Can you find yourselves in that comparison?

Yeah that sounds just about perfect to me! Yeah, a faster, more hardcore-influenced King Prawn with crazier vocals!

Has the demise of bands the ilk of King Prawn and Lightyear and the sort opened up extra opportunities for you? Do you consider there to be a "gap" now that those bands are gone? I ask this because Lightyear and King Prawn where some of the more renowned bands on the mainland and it doesn't seem like anyone is filling their shoes at the moment though No Comply and Howards Alias are making quite a name for themselves in France.

I don't see it as a case of there being a gap at all. There’s always room at the top. I mean, if anything it’s a bad thing for us, if King Prawn would have done another UK tour I'm pretty sure we would have been the support for it. No Comply and Howards Alias are nicely getting up there but they aren't as big as KP and Lightyear were yet really. I dunno, its a tough time at the moment, trying to deconstruct this kind of thing is a little cold from the perspective of being in a band. Call me foolish, but we just see it that we are going to try and make an amazing album and take it from there and do our best. I hope we can be a band to 'fill those shoes' definitely, time will tell.

How would you assess the strength of the Uk scene at this moment?

Musically it’s great, as good as ever really. There is a wicked sense of unity and purpose at certain gigs that is totally what I live for.. I don't know how I would assess its 'strength' though. I mean, I guess its strong but its not crossing over into the extent that there is lots of mainstream coverage or even enough money for the bands to really float without having to flog themselves relentlessly around the country and have day jobs which doesn't really help the quality of music. But you know, you don't join a punk band to 'make it', its about different values.

For me, there is still far, far too much division in the UK scene into 'ska crowd', 'DIY crowd', 'emo crowd' and 'hardcore crowd' to such a silly level. Its really 6th form and cliquey the way that people deem other genres within punk as inferior to each other. I love mixed bills, I love the thought of having a hip-hop act then a ska act or whatever like you get at house parties. Because of the underground nature of the scene it can tend to be a bit insular, everyone has made their minds up about certain bands before they have ever even heard them. It’s all so blinkered.

At the moment, we love playing in the scene but at the same time we have amazing gigs where we play to a room of strangers not into punk at all too and love winning them over. We have such a mashed-up sound that often going in front of a room of Leftover Crack t-shirt wearing kids that have a rollled up copy of Maximum Rock n Roll in their pockets isn't really what you would call a 'friendly audience'... Don't take that as me moaning. I love the UK punk scene. I live and breathe it. But I am realistic and see that anything so idealistic is always going to ape the traits of everything it claims to stand against from time to time.

I always looked upon the UK scene as just that: a scene for people within the UK. Lots of bands don't even have the ambition to tour the mainland because they can get better support slots if they stay within the uk . I was wondering what your thoughts on the matter where.

I really disagree with the ambition aspect. Most bands would kill to play mainland Europe. I think it’s a case of money and just the general grind of it all. We are playing Belgium and France this year. It isn't really easy for us to get gigs there or anything. I would fucking love to be playing in Spain or Belgium or whatever now! It’s not a case of having better supports here, it’s more a case of having to be back at work on Monday. It’s very tough.

When listening to Layla's vocals it seems like there could be some influences from British hip hop acts such as Ms. Dynamite and Mystique. Pure coincidence, or does Layla actually listen to her contemporaries?

I would say that Miss Dynamite and the growling bird from Miss-Teeq have definitely influenced Laila's vocals. Its not co-incidence. 'Boo' by Sticky feat Miss Dynamite was definitely a big influence. When Miss Dynamite gets down like that with that UK garage flow she is heavy.

Does she do specific things to help sustain/groom her voice by means of lessons or using special training techniques?

She had some lessons to do the breathing and stuff. She isn't all-obsessive about it, her view is that she just does the stuff in terms of being anal about her vocal chords within reason. 'What’s the point of being in a punk band if I can't enjoy a drink and have to make people leave the room if they light up a cig?' she says. I couldn't agree more. She has a really unconventional squeaky Manc voice. I like it, its unique but some people don't like our accents. Whatever, at least we aren't pretending to be American.

Which bands would you name as the most inspirational for SB6 as a band?

It’s funny because the most inspirational bands to you are the ones nearest you once you get going. Like to us, Adequate 7 and Howard’s Alias are inspirational so much, because we are kind of like a year or two behind them and we are mates with them and listen to how they do things and what they have done and it inspires us... I mean, especially recently the Howard’s Alias album in terms of being really ambitious and putting out something unique into a scene where kids are not shy of expressing exactly what they want and think of you on the Internet is something we have really admired. You get ska kids whinging about that album not being ska enough, it’s like whatever, its music, if you don't get it, it’s your loss. That album was a revelation to us that they would just go so all out with it. And its great, cos these guys are like really good mates. I'm sure those guys were the same with 5 knuckle and Capdown and Lightyear. And you can see bands like Failsafe have that going on with No Comply. And maybe Random Hand will look at us like that or whatever... its good cos you all have common references and kind of inspire the next line.

But in a general sense, King Prawn was a massive, massive inspiration as well as Capdown from a music point of view. At the moment, planning the album, I am really drawn to 'Progress' by RX Bandits, 'Shape of Punk to Come' by Refused' and 'Original Pirate Material' by the Streets for albums to try and kind of take a lot of references from when we come to put the whole thing together. It isn't gonna be a straight-up collection of songs, it will hang together like that.

The opinions about the bands latest effort seem to be divided. I was wondering how you deal with criticism at this stage?

It depends. The only criticism really is on the Internet and fanzines and present company accepted it’s easy to take that with a pinch of salt. Any numpty that can turn on his computer can have a webzine and call himself a journalist. Its nice when people like it, it doesn't bother me when people don't, we are gonna get up peoples noses, we aren't your everyday band that fits nicely into a genre. Fanzines too are a weird one. I prefer the ones that don't take themselves seriously to be honest. If you start thinking that your reviews actually matter you have fell into the trap that makes opinion-creating stuff like NME and Kerrang so uncredible, its like, congratulations, you have become what you set out to destroy. Ripping a record apart if you know that it won't offend your 200-people readership is so fucking easy and arrogant. Anyone can do it. What is interesting and what fanzines are good at to me is expressing an opinion on a record from the perspective of someone that may be interested in buying it. Not saying 'I hate ska, I hate hip-hop, this is shite'. I mean, we had a review for the Turbo EP in a generally cool, well-respected fanzine by a girl that, by the editors admission when he e-mailed me about it 'hates ska'. So why did she review it? How was that “positive” as you are so eager to re-iterate the virtues of? How is it helpful for someone who might possibly be interested in the elements of what we are doing??? It isn't, its just creating a negative, militant and snobbish aura around the fanzine. Its not punk, its snobbery, its the fucking NME, trying to say what is good and what is shit and how you should think. I think that these things start off with good intentions but sell a few issues and they suddenly think they are the voice of the scene. Whatever that would be, maybe the voice of the scene would be a kind of uptight, snotty-nosed, rar-rar-rar, I know-more-than-you-do whine in that case! I guess that’s proves it is easy to take things personally, they gave Sounds To Consume a great review, I just think that fanzines should bear in mind what they are providing the alternative too and watch they don’t become them.

I don't know about divided opinion on our last effort anyway! Seriously, I have only read one bad review of it on a tin-pot webzine no-one reads written by a Manic Street Preachers fan. So its not like we give two squirts of piss about that. I've read a shit-load of really good ones. Like on here. I’ve got the links yo!

Now that we have graced the subject of albums anyway, could you guys tell us a bit about the recording process for your latest album and the ways in which it differed from your previous release, the Turbo EP?

It was almost exactly the same cos it was at the same studio with the same people! We recorded this to clicks though and used a few more samples throughout and tried to tie it up a bit more as a record rather than four songs. And 'Monkey See, Monkey Do' was the first sample based tune we had done, which came out absolutely great and was a really good sign for what we can achieve in an album.

Why did you decide to re-record songs from the Turbo EP?

We didn't! It just got remastered and put on there because of all these weird distribution reasons.

To me it seems like this is one of the biggest problems of European bands. They just seem to have a problem with productivity. I don't know how long you guys have been a band, but here in Belgium there are several bands who have been going on for more than ten years and have released only so much as one full-length and one split-ep. Are you such perfectionists that you feel the need to re-work songs over and over or is the whole writing process just a very slow thing and you didn't have new material ready or did you decide to re-release those songs for a different reason altogether?

I dunno. It’s hard to write loads of tunes when you have so many gigs and all have day jobs to live. It’s nigh-on impossible. We don't write really fast, but we have been getting better recently.

We stuck Turbo on there because the shops needed 6 tracks to class it as a mini-album or something. I can't remember exactly what happened but that’s all gone tits up too. Everything is so controlled by shop-racking protocol its madness. I wish we didn't have to deal with all that, but it’s the reality of our surroundings.

It amazed me as well that a band like Ninepoundnote, likely to ring a bell to you, who just released a promising demo, decide to split up for a shoddy reason such as "there are too many bands out there doing the same thing". This together with the notion that a lot of bands take forever to release new things got me thinking that maybe some bands are just afraid to REALLY go for it. Being in a band I was thinking you could be a better judge of that as you're in the same situation and experience this from a whole different angle than I do. Or maybe I'm seeing things too black and white here?

No, I quite agree with you. It’s a big thing to really go for it. To commit to this unswaying belief that you are here to make music and, no matter how hard it gets, you are going to stick with it. To be honest, no diss to that band really, but "there are too many bands out there doing the same thing" sounds quite calculated. I think they have re-formed as a pop-punk band or summat, I dunno, fair play to them. We make the music we make because it’s the sound we found that is unique to us, I think that’s the way to go about it. If you invent yourself, then there is no one else out there genuinely doing the same thing and the people close enough to it realise that and embrace you for it. I think its like a test, you have to believe in it yourself, no matter how untrendy it seems, because they only way anyone else will believe it is if you do yourself. You have to make sacrifices in your life, it gets to the point of big themes. There is a song by us called 'Play Inna Day' which is about this entire subject. The words in that sum up my view on this better than I ever could here.

Coming back on the whole NPN issue, do you think it is wrong for a young bands to set such high standards for themselves? Shouldn't playing in a band on that level be about going out with a bunch of mates and having fun every weekend instead of sounding different from the pack. I mean: you can always progress as musicians and will inevitably create an identity of your own once you fully grow into your own game, but you cannot replace the fun factor. How does this work for SB6? Did you set out to achieve specific goals or are you more kind of along for the ride?

It has to be both. Like I said before about the drinking and smoking thing with Laila, you have to have some kind of middle-ground. If you just attack it all for a laugh and make whatever sound comes out and be completely hedonistic you are gonna have a wicked time but your art will suffer. At the same time there is something ludicrous about approaching a small gig in a youth club in Wales with stoney-faced professionalism. You do this to have a laugh yeah, you take the fun where you can get it. It’s definitely a case of keeping both sides in balance.

Like, I won't lie to you, we are quite contrived. We certainly see our identity in the UK scene and go for that, go for being unique and try and plan everything as professionally as possibly. But at the same time this is no easy ride, we all believe in the thing one hundred percent, we all believe that we are taking this as far as it will go, we all believe in the sounds we are making and the words we are saying to the point that this genuinely is us.

Have you given any thought yet on how you are going to follow up on "Sounds To Consume"?

Yep, we are going into the studio in August with our existing engineer and hopefully Tim G, who has really impressed us with some mash-up remixes he did and by re-mixing our old demo. Check http://www.timgmusic.co.uk. We are working with him because it’s our intention to really go for it with the electronica aspects of the album like we started to on sounds to consume but just get it going across a full album. So that should be out before the end of the year.

Also, there is a new version of Sounds To Consume called the Champion Edition out soon on Moon Ska which has both EPS, 4 remixed demos and 3 dance remixes and one acoustic tune and new, proper artwork. We did that because our little pipe-dream of selling the CD for a fiver in the shops didn't really work, most shops were selling it at standard album price. If that’s the case, then we want to give people a record worth a tenner of their money that we are absolutely proud of and has the art that expresses our identity.

Will you again rely on Ace for the production of an eventual full-length?

Don't think so. We have learnt so much from him and it was great what he did but we feel we will benefit from a different set of ears now and someone who is going to work with us closer in terms of pre-production of beats and loops and stuff.

If I'm not mistaken there has been a recent change in line up. How will that influence the sound and immediate progress of SB6 as it's always hard to fit in new people?

It’s gone very smoothly. Dave that played guitar left to go and pursue other things, it was cool, we wish him all the luck with it all and still hang out and stuff. Ben (vocals and sax) has moved from sax to guitar. The old tunes with sax are now handled by the sampler and we have our boy Pete from Jesse James playing sax on big gigs. Jobs a good'un. Its cool, it makes more sense now, its all a lot more symmetrical on stage.

Is there any other reason besides the fact that the Clash are a very popular band to cover why you choose "Safe European Home"? In this modern day's political climate it almost sounds accusatory. Do you think Europe in general is too slack in its position as a global power when it boils down to worldly issues?

That was definitely an aspect of it. It was quite a subliminal hit in terms of the lyrical content that, its a magnificent song, I love the mix of the personal and political. I love the notion that its all very well us shouting out about how open-minded we are but go over to where the shit is going down and a defensive reflex is gonna kick in. No matter how bad it is over here, even the most ardent, militant rebels can crave a civilized society.

Its a bit of a co-incidence we did that song, it was simply that we got asked to do a show for the Joe Strummer fund where every band covers one Clash song. We just decided to go as wacky as we could and do a version of Safe European Home with as many Jamaican styles as we could think of instead of going for something obvious like Guns of Brixton or Rudie Can't Fail or whatever. It was only later that I really thought about how the message was very potent, especially with the tune so mixed up.

I think its difficult to express the situation in terms of Europe’s political power because, even across the small gulf of this interview we have the French government and British governments taking very different courses in terms of their involvement with the Global actions of the US. So coming from Britain we definitely feel a part of the US’s world vision rather than a bystander assessing options and observing as some of mainland Europe has become. Tony Blair, against the general wishes of the people, has thrown our cards in with George Bush’s. What we all need to do now is get over that because its happened and exercise our voices to pressure that the promises actually come through. Now that Iraq is liberated we need as a nation involved in that process to ensure that we make the place a genuinely less oppressed country and all that good stuff on it’s own terms as opposed to toppling their evil dictator, creating some construction contracts and making it dance to the tune of the US. It really has just begun and there is still unrest. If George Bush claims to have liberated Iraq for altruistic and emphatic reasons then he still needs to prove it and we still need to keep our finger on the pulse of how well it is being proven.

Of course that song is not the only one with an engaged content. There's the magnificent "Blood For Oil" as well. Do you think it is important to bring something extra, something tangible, something that inspires people to think for themselves in these times where the radio seems to spawn triads of pop-artists whose only goal seems to be that people forget their daily worries by means of sugarsweet melodies with mostly negligible content about heartbreak and the sorts. Aren't you afraid that to some people such a content may come across as a bit preachy?

Yeah, even if we make a stright-up pop song it would still have some kind of subversive elements and edgy content like 'Monkey See Monkey Do'. That’s what really bugs me about No Doubt over the last few years, in order to become a pop act they have completely lost any sense of anti-authoritarianism they used to have in songs like Just a Girl and Tragic Kingdom and have basically become about as challenging as Pink in order to shift units.

On the other hand, we don't speak about lyrics really between our songs and say what they are about any more. That seems to come across as preachy, that’s some positive feedback we have had off kids. It’s preaching to the converted, it’s pointing out the obvious and we aren't about that. Our philosophy is live and let live and be tolerant and learn from each other. We like our gigs to be like a party, but the messages are in the music rather than everywhere else. I mean, being anti-war, anti-crass commercialisation and generally anti-exploitative capitalism is hardly revolutionary anyway at this point in time. Its common sense for any young free-thinking person I think! Saying 'fuck McDonalds' is hardly more revolutionary than wearing your top button undone at a dinner party in the 60s really! And that’s the way it should be as long has people have come to their own conclusions.

I'm not a politician but when it comes to lyrics I write stuff that is straight-forward. Punk has this tradition of being incendiary and I believe in that, I'm not up for sitting back and being apathetic and saying this is just the way it is... In case you haven't noticed this world really fucked up! Some people's values never cease to amaze me. But at the same time I'm not down with embracing political ideas off bands at all. It’s following the pack. I have more respect for a militant young conservative that has come to political conclusions from his own experience and can argue his corner than some young punk that has co-opted militant left-wing ideology from someone like leftover crack and wears it like a badge he can take off and put back on.

System of a Down I really like in that respect, not saying this is what you should do and being all po-faced but just trying to relate how fucked up some of society can be and maybe making people see it with fresh eyes. I think people miss a lot of the humour in our music to be honest, I think that when people whinge about us getting on our high-horse about Blood For Oil they haven't actually heard that the lyrics are basically calling the whole thing a quiz-show and saying such ridiculous things as 'just because I'm brown it doesn't mean I fly around and dream of knocking buildings down!'

Are there any plans for an adventure on mainland European soil or do you still think it is a bit too early in the bands career to take such a step?

We are doing a show or two in Paris with Howard’s Alias I think and doing a festival in Belgium. That’s all in July! Its not too early, its the right time, we are well up for it.

There's been a wee bit of criticism on the fact that Moon Ska Records doesn 't really help their bands on an organizational level and indirectly caused the demise of bands like Solabeat Alliance (or so I have heard/read). Besides having a good distribution you're pretty much on your own. Do you remember how you got in touch and are you happy with the way they are promoting the band?

We got in touch via our first demo, kind of more through Ace, the producer than anything else cos he caught us with King Prawn. We didn't go into it all naive expecting them to make us famous and be promoting us left-right and centre, we got our own live agent and have done a lot of promotion ourselves. We are top of the downloads on their Moon Ska webpage, we have put the work in, it speaks for itself. We knew what to expect and there have been bumps along the way but there have also been good points with Moon so we look at it as a good experience overall.

Is there still a US branch of the label and has there ever been talk of a trip to the states yet?

No, the US branch of the label folded. Bucket from the Toasters now has Megalith records. No US dates as yet for us, but we would fucking love to.

Time to get a bit acquainted with your personal preferences: What song that is currently on the radio do you shamefully admit to liking?

Mate, shameful songs we like would be longer than this interview! I dunno, I've just looked at the Top 40 and the only tune I can really even stomach is that Kelis feat NAs one. Must be a really bad week!

Lailas' really more up on her chart stuff really. She sings along in the van!

What's playing in your stereo at the moment?

Today at work I have with me ...Tim G's remixes of our old demo's aka "Successfully polishing a turd". And...

5 Knuckle - Lost for Words...

System of a Down - S/T

Edan - Beauty and the Beat

Mastodon - Leviathon

Oasis - Definitely Maybe

Elliot Smith - Either/Or

Streetlight Manifesto - Everything went numb

The Day Today radio show MP3s

And M.I.A single 'Galang'.

That’s pretty much a good summary of a general Boom music day.

The Darkness, cool or fools?

Fools. But I don't like a scapegoat so I have a bit of sympathy. They are cretins, but Goldie Lookin Chains are far far more shameful.

Only Fools and Horses or Absolutely Fabulous?

Fools and Horses! My God, I didn't have to think about that!

Anything left you want to get off your chest? Famous last words?

If you have read all this interview, thank you, you are a better man than I! I will also inform you that to guilt-trip me into finishing it, Tom made references to the fact I am the internet all day so you have been the unwitting participant in some serious emotional blackmail!!! Big up Europunk and all that sails in her. Adios.

p.s. Buy our shit!

Taken On:

January 1st, 2005

Interviewees:

Barney - Guitar, Vocals

Related Links:

• www.sonicboomsix.co.uk

Album Reviews

	The Ruff Guide To Genre Terrorism Jul 10, 2006
	Sounds To Consume Oct 31, 2004

Interviews

Jan 1, 2005