SUMO CYCO to Release New Album “Initiation”
Interview conducted April 19, 2021
By Dan Locke
Canadian alt-metal/heavy rock crossover stars SUMO CYCO will drop their unstoppable upcoming full-length album, Initiation, on May 7, 2021 via Napalm Records! The band has proven undeniably potent with the breakout success of their two recent singles, “No Surrender” and “Bystander”, with the latter garnering over 100,000 YouTube views in just four days and impacting at #10 on SiriusXM Liquid Metal’s “Devil’s Dozen”.
Initiation tracklisting:*
1) Love You Wrong
2) Bystander
3) Vertigo
4) Bad News
5) No Surrender
6) M.I.A.
7) Cyclone
8) Run with the Giants
9) Overdrive
10) Power & Control
11) This Dance Is Doomed
12) Awakened (not available on standard digital version)
SUMO CYCO is:
Skye “Sever” Sweetnam – vocals
Matt “MD13” Drake – lead guitar
Matt “Trozzi” – drums
Oscar Anesetti – bass
Your band sound is interlaced with inflictions heavy metal grooves, pop-perfected hooks, electronic undertones and a dose of punk. How did you discover what sounds you were going to focus on to create your band sound?
Skye Sweetnam: The sounds come from our own musical tastes and influences. It’s also how are instincts work when we approach things as writers. I come from a pop background so writing poppy hooks is a strength of mine, my co-writer Matt has a background of from a punk reggae band and we both really love heavy music. Between the two of us we found a sweet spot combining all our favourite things.
What was your first performance together as a band like?
Our first performance was opening up for Hollywood Undead in Toronto with four days’ notice after an opening act of theirs didn’t make it over the border to Canada. It was a great show – we had printed up 1000 demo CDs to give out to the crowd. I wore a nurse’s outfit and a gas mask and there’s still some videos on YouTube if you look hard enough.
Tell me about the making of the video “Bystander”?
Bystander was a fun music video to make. We really got to experiment with some new ideas being the first music video on this record cycle. It took me a while to perfect exactly what ideas we wanted to use. For instance, we actually filmed a real garden spider hoping that they would make the cut for the video but ended up going with my own CGI spider creation. Matt and I worked really well together as a crew of two. We’ve developed our own way of doing things DIY. I hate having time restraints to create art so I love working from our home studio.
Tell me about your new album “Initiation” which comes out on May 7, 2021 on Napalm Records?
Initiation is like a bucking bronco – it goes up and down with different styles and vibes and tempos and we really had so many moods when creating this record. There were many stops and starts to this album release cycle so it gave us many chances to rework, rewrite and push ourselves to come up with the best record possible. We also worked with Kane Churko who is an excellent producer and songwriter and working with him really inspired us to keep pushing ourselves to the next level.
Is Barbara Bones a take away from The Barbie Diaries?
No, Barbara is a character from our world of Cyco City. Cyco City is our alternative universe where anything goes. She is a Terrornaut – a skull-headed character, named after a terrifying astronaut. It’s been decades since the Terrornauts invaded the CYCO Touronauts and she’s now a renowned newscaster on CYCO City News.
Skye, you have been in the music business for some time. You have been nominated for a Juno-Award and a Much Music Award as a solo artist. As the band, SUMO CYCO has been won the Toronto Independent Music Award and Indie Week. Are you ready for a Grammy?
We’ve been lucky enough to been nominated for a few awards. These opportunities have really helped us get to the next level as a band and hopefully, lead to more people discovering our band. If we could get to the level of being considered for a Grammy that would be crazy.
If “Video Killed the Radio Star”, do you think that the Covid-19 virus has killed live music? Do you feel the Covid-19 virus is going to affect the music business in the future?
Covid-19 will definitely affect the world in ways we don’t probably even understand right now. I don’t think it will kill live music, I think everyone will be more excited than ever to get out and see live music once this is over. I hope that we have a resurgence of shows and events and more people than ever wanting to experience bands live.
How can bands keep their fans if they cannot play live in front of the fans and sell merchandise to them at the show? And that said, how did your SUMO CYCO calendar do with sales?
There are many ways that we keep in contact with our fans including doing Livestreams, chats, commentating, and posting a lot on social media. We also put a huge emphasis on making music videos that give our fans content with behind-the-scenes and live performance videos. The survival aspect all ties into keeping an up-to-date merch store with personal and limited items such as the calendar that you mentioned. Releasing that calendar literally helped me survive through Christmas, so thanks to everyone that supported it!
Did you know that the Grammys MusicCares can help artist? The MusiCares COVID-19 Relief has helped thousands of music industry artists and professionals during these difficult days. This is the most recipients helped, for any single event, in MusiCares’ history. The need remains great, and these unique times remain critical for music people. It has taken a community uplifting one another to get through this pandemic, and MusiCares has pulled together a list of additional organizations and resources to further support you. https://www.grammy.com/musicares/get-help/relief-resources. Is the Canadian government doing anything to help our musicians?
MusiCares is doing great things. I’m not up on every policy/program that the Canadian government has to offer but I know SOCAN is offering money for live streamed performances as well as factor funding is still in effect which helps many artists get a get their albums made. We’ve been lucky enough to be recipients a Factor Grants in the past. But there is always more that can be done. Venues are closing left and right and we need to help support our local scene as much as we can.
Would you be willing to play these big upcoming festival shows popping up right now, and what precautions do you think should be in place for a band like yourselves to feel comfortable performing?
Right now, we are in a province wide lockdown so it’s hard to imagine playing live anytime soon. I often wonder how I will feel crowd surfing again or getting close and personal with new fans at the merch table after the show, but I will feel much more confident once vaccines roll out properly so we can all be safe moving forward.
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