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Sonic Syndicate: Giving The Power Back To The Fans

We caught up with vocalist Nathan Biggs to talk about the internet and how much he loves listening to his own band...

Sonic Syndicate's new album 'We Rule The Night' has taken up residence on the Rock Sound stereo for about a month now, so we had a chat with vocalist Nathan Biggs.

You can read more from him in the new issue of Rock Sound, onsale now.

Had you existed 30 years ago without the internet, how would you have operated as a band?
“It’s all about the passion for the music and enjoying what you’re doing. It would have been exactly the same but without some of the benefits – we love to play live, and that’s what bands relied on back then. But we’re old-school too, whenever we go to a new city we find a music store and do meet-and-greets. Whenever we do get downtime you do forget to check email or MySpace for a week, and then you think, ‘Oh shit!’ and it’s all piled up. You turn your back on it and it’ll crush you like a massive snowball. But it’s a lot of fun. The principle is exactly the same as before, I think, and you can see the results yourself rather than being told by your management or label. Getting direct contact from your fans is brilliant, it’s so rewarding or it tells you to get your act together.”

So what happens if you put out a record that your fans don’t like as much?”
“We enjoy doing it so much and we’re so proud of it, so our true fans move with us and we know who they are. Perhaps people who are locked more on the metalcore scene might not like the album as much as other people, but we’re a modern band and so many people are on the same wavelength as us. Kids don’t just listen to one genre of music any more, the ones listening to Slayer are also listening to My Chemical Romance and hip-hop, rather than just being the kid in the Saxon T-shirt.”

When you listen back to ‘We Rule The Night’ is it hard to disassociate yourself from the fact you’re listening to something you made or can you just enjoy it?
“There’s always that balance – you’re enjoying the music because you made it, but you’re so close to it and it’s your project, your thing, and you can’t wait to hear what other people think of it. I’m into a lot of different types of music and there are a lot of people who are into the same genres as us, and I’m confident it sounds really cool. I’m not worried…”

What’s your favourite song on the album?
“Probably ‘Beauty And The Freak’, the opening track. It’s pretty heavy and melodic with a big-ass chorus, and very memorable too. ‘We Rule The Night’ is an epic one, but the lyrics in ‘My Own Life’ were really personal to me and I loved writing and recording it. We made a music video out of it so hopefully more people will see what it’s about.”

Ben Patashnik