When a band is forced to take a break from touring a country for such a long time there must be a part of them that wonders what the support will be like when they return. At some point you have to wonder if Sumo Cyco had broken a mirror because it’s been seven years since they last played the UK. They needn’t have worried though because their fans turned out in force to welcome them back. Here vocalist Skye Sweetnam talks to Gary Trueman about why that absence was so long and why they put so much effort into making their music videos.
It’s been a long time since we last spoke.
“It has, it’s been way too long unfortunately. It’s been seven years since we last toured the UK and it’s been such an amazing warm welcome back.”
The UK really missed you guys.
“And we missed the UK. It was an unfortunate bunch of situations. Obviously we all went through the pandemic. Then we had a bunch of tour schedules and reschedules cancelled and by the time we had gone through that we had already released the record. We debated coming back at that point but all the advice we had said we had to have a new product to come over with. Then we had lots of changes, changes in our line up, changes with our team behind the scenes, a new record label then starting our own label. So a lot happened and we got a few US opportunities to do touring. All in all it took way too long with too many obstacles. But we finally got back here and we’re very happy to be here.”
You’ve been busy with ‘Initiation’ coming out in 2021 and then ‘Neon Void last year. What drove you to keep making music when you were having all these setbacks? Did it affect your writing in terms of subject matter?
“Oh yeah it did. The 2021 album ‘Initiation’ we were really excited to put out. We had just signed a record contract with Napalm Records in January of 2020 right before the world went into the pandemic. We had high hoped for 2020. We had done a Download appearance in 2019 and a UK headline tour. The momentum was growing, we had a new record label and a new management team and we were ready to take on the world. Then of course it all shut down on us. With that record we had a lot of songs written but we did add a few on including the lead single ‘Bystander’ which was written about being stuck at home and watching the world through all your screens. It’s like being an observer where you can’t take part in the world. So that song was inspired by being stuck in the pandemic. I had grand plans to make all these music videos, one of the things we love are our self-produced music videos. I had done a couple thinking of all these gangs that lived in the Cyco City world of ours.
But then with the pandemic they said no socialising so I had to rethink the entire concept literally within the release, And to make it even more complicated we had signed to the record label after the release of the first two singles for a crowd funded album. We had already taken purchases from the fans. So because of that we decided we had to get it out within the year. That’s why we put ‘Initiation’ out in 2021. We couldn’t delay it any longer. It was quite upsetting not to be able to tour that record because there were still restrictions. Then just before we started recording ‘Neon Void’ our drummer got into a really bad car accident. We couldn’t find him, he was lost. We had to make a missing persons report and finally the sops called to say that he had been in a car crash and was in a coma. It’s shocking when one of your friends gets hurt like that. So we spent the month of January visiting him in hospital. So we had to postpone the recording for a few weeks but then we decided with his blessing to continue.
Thankfully Joey is doing a lot better now. He actually came and bailed us out in Switzerland last summer. We had a fill in drummer that got cold feet and he left 24 hrs before our show. Joey came and saved the situation. He was a total rock star even though he couldn’t move his wrist. He put his drumstick up his plaster cast and played as well as he could. So we had those setbacks and that was the type of stuff that inspired the record and recording process. We had all the songs written but songs like ‘Stronger Now’ take on a whole new meaning. Even the lead track ‘Shivers’ one of the lyrics I wrote was ‘ the slow motion car crash ending’. I wrote that before that had even happened.”
You can kind of tell with ‘Neon Void’ how you’ve progressed your music keeping it sounding fresh and up to date. I think quite a few people have also picked up on how amazing your videos are too, they always have been but especially the recent ones for ‘Shivers’, ‘Villains’ and ‘Asteroid’. How did you go about making them?
“Thank you. I take a lot of pride in the visuals. I really love the lore. I love to create a cohesive story line that brings all of the songs in an album together. For ‘Neon Void’ I felt one of the main concepts was the feeling that you’re kind of lost in this in between space, the feeling that you don’t really know what’s coming next, that you can’t predict things. Like a pandemic, you can’t predict your friend getting in a car accident. It feels like there’s this looming dread in the future, that something is going to go wrong. But you’re also pining for these past moments, the feeling of joy and celebration when we’ve been able to live some of our dreams, like when we were able to play Download. The feeling of will that happen again and what’s going to happen next. I constantly felt that time was slipping away from me in these moments, like I’m in some kind of purgatory where nothing is real and everything feels surreal in this world, especially with what’s going on in the big picture with climate change and wars and politics. You can’t control any of it and it’s like a spinning tornado and you’re in the eye of the storm.
That’s how ‘Neon Void’ felt to me but I always go back to everything in life being a battle with yourself. Sometime you realise that you can control that storm and navigate your way through. ‘Neon Void’ felt like a maze we had to navigate. So with the music videos I wanted t it to feel like we were going through surrealist landscapes, like a maze. Like some kind of purgatory place where you’re not really in the real world any more. I started off with a very clear vision for the song ‘Villains’ which was our lead single, I really wanted it to feel very theatrical. I come from a theatre background from when I was a young girl. I was very excited about making a villainous character that I could dress up with, with a big cloak and lots of crazy make up and red contacts in my eyes. We created this world with black spikes that come out of the walls and come out of the ground. I call it the villains forest. It’s all made out of foam, big sheets of insulation you can get from a hardware store. It’s very cheap and light so it’s easy to move. Then we have like a heated wire which cuts through the foam like butter. So you can make lots of cool shapes. We kept it simple and everything was triangular. We have access to this warehouse which is one of the biggest assets for us as far as music videos go. It’s pretty much abandoned unless we are there so it gave us the time to create a bit more of an elaborate set. We had a lot of great help to make these videos come to life and we’re really proud of what we were able to achieve.”
You’re back in the UK now and you have toured the US and Canada prior to coming here. Obviously there’s a major cost to playing here but based on this tour are you looking to return again quite soon?
“Right now we’re still playing by the seat of our pants to get everything planned for the next few coming months. We do have some songs that we’ve worked on with a few collaborators in LA which we are waiting to get back to the studio to finish up. I have also had some amazing suggestions from our fans who have come out to the VIP shows, that we record some of the acoustic versions that we’ve been performing. We have put out two EPs before but not since we put out the last two albums so we have lots to draw on there. We are excited for hopefully some more tour opportunities. We invested in our own tour bus for North America. That makes it a lot easier to get out on the road there. Having this tour and seeing that we could come back after seven years and still have the amazing support of the fans and the crowds to come out to see us is definitely a check in the box. Hopefully the promoters and venues we are playing now will notice we still have a vibrant fan base. So hopefully we’ll be invited back and play some more shows here. That’s the plan.”
Would you like to say something to the fans buying the music and coming along to these shows?
“I don’t think people understand how their support by buying a t-shirt, by buying a physical copy of a record and coming out to the shows makes the world of difference. Being involved in the fan base helps the band survive to make the next record. Every single little thing helps. It’s beautiful the relationship we’ve been able to cultivate over the years. Seeing people seven years later and their kids have grown and they bring them to a show, a new generation coming up. It makes me feel a little old but it also makes me feel like we’ve made enough of an impact in those people’s lives that they’re still excited to come to the shows and hear the new songs. I feel very blessed on this tour to have such great support.
Interview by Gary Trueman
Photos by Sophie Harris
