Sumo Cyco the highly energetic, entertaining and super talented band from Toronto Canada, made their way back into the states again this time touring with NonPoint and Butcher Babies.

Before Singer Skye Sweetnam hit the stage, Empire Extreme got to chat with the ever-changing singer.

Empire: I just wanted to say first off, Happy Birthday, I know it was the day before.

Skye: Yeah we were just talking about how I have all the cupcakes everywhere. The whole band tried to keep it a secret but it’s hard to do when you’re living right next to each other while on tour. They abandoned me while eating breakfast and decorated the bus for me.

Empire: How’s the response from the fans been since the album dropped a little over a year ago?

Skye: Fan response has been good, I think it’s a good part 2 of where we left off with the first album. I think slowly and surely we keep developing our song writing. I’ve always enjoyed taking different sounds and mashing them all together. I had it all themed around this train Opus Mar. It actually was my dads uncle who had the old train set, when I was a kid. I asked my dad about it years ago. I asked if I could paint it. It kind of an eclectic train because each part of it is different. You have a missile car, then a clown car, but that’s our crazy world that we call Cyco City. That’s what started the record.

Empire: Do you like making the music videos, you guys have a lot of them out for only 2 records?

Skye: Yeah we are really visual people, if I wasn’t in music I would probably be a music director or get into film making. I really enjoy that aspect of it. When we first started the band we weren’t touring much and thought to put these videos online to catch everyone’s attention. The first album Lost in Cyco City the videos continue along with each other kind of like Alice in Wonderland but done our own way. I kept meeting crazy characters along the way. For our latest video for Undefeated we actually who loved our characters the Terrornauts, which are the skull headed guys who have been kinda like our mascot, and he makes masks for a living and he sent us 5 of these huge skull masks that he made just for us.

Empire: How’s the music scene in your area of Canada?

Skye: I grew up about an hour north of Toronto, and the boys are from Hamilton. People who don’t know the geography of Canada it’s just easier to say we are from Toronto. Hamilton where I live now I think it’s the most rock and roll city in Canada. It’s a steel city it’s on the water and looks like the fires of Mordor when you come into it. They film a bunch of Hollywood movies there, it’s got a kind of outside of NY vibe. The scene of music is interesting, there’s a lot of good musicians and artist because Toronto is becoming an expensive city to live in, that all the artist are migrating there. Every summer we have these festivals there called Art Crawls, the last weekend of every month they have this huge street festival and everyone comes out to showcase their music or art. They close down the streets and have a huge block party. It’s hard to try to break out of Canada, which our band has made it a point to try to place everywhere else our hometown. We have never done a Canadian Tour.

Empire: Do your Canadian fans give you flack for that?

Skye: We do, a lot of it. It’s such a big country and people have to travel long distances just to get to an area where bands would play. You can’t do it in the winter because it’s impossible to travel around that time. So you have to limit yourself to the summer.

Empire: With all the band reuniting, what band would excite you to reunite?

Skye: I’ve seen that System of a Down has been doing more shows and I’ve never seen them. One of my all time favorite bands are No Doubt and I felt so upset seeing Gwen go further into pop music. I love the rock chick and doing push-ups on stage. I want them to come back and do the harder stuff and then I would love to open up for them.

Empire: If you could bring back one dead musician who would it be?

Skye: There’s so many that have died recently. See I think bringing them back, their  music now they have died has more power that they left us. They have only what they gave us while they were here. David Bowie hit me pretty hard. I don’t know who I would.

Empire: No one you want to bring back personally just for you?

Skye: What’s yours?

Empire: If I has to go old school it would be Jim Morrison and within somewhat recently would have to be DimeBag Darrell.

Skype: We played that venue where it happened, they still have the bullet holes in the stage. They still have one room in that venue that they still don’t use to this day. Pantera was a good one, they were who got me into heavy music. I sang pop music when I was a teenager and was signed to Capital Records, I one having dinner with the president of EMI France at this nice French bistro and he was asking what kind of music I’ve been listening to and said I’ve been into heavier stuff lately. He asked if I knew Pantera and I said no, and he left the dinner went across the street to the record store and bought every Pantera album. I loved it. A few of the boys in Sumo Cyco were with me at the time I was doing the Pop stuff and were a bad influence on me with the heavy music. One time they kicked me off stage and gave me a teddy bear and I said “ They think I will be paid off with a teddy bear” (Skye says in a sarcastic valley girl voice) that night we had a ceremony to light the teddy bear on fire.

Empire: Anything like to say to the fans?

Skye: Yeah, thanks for tuning in a caring what I got to say. Thanks for checking out the band and hope you like the music. We hope to meet all of you out at the show.

Sumo Cyco came out to the stage and just exploded, the energy of Skye is matched by the band. Killer songs and such a great on stage chemistry between them all. They demand the stage and make you constantly watch them throughout the whole set. While hanging out with them on the bus, me and Guitarist Matt “MD” Drake we’re discussing whether they should do a cover or not, we both decided yes and that night they did a kick ass version of Red Hot Chilli Peppers “Give it away”. After the set the band came out and hung with crowd and you can tell that this band really enjoys what they do to the fullest. Such an awesome band to see live. I can’t wait to see and hang out with them once again.

About Author

Ron

Ron has keen eye for new talent, a love for the underground, and a tremendous passion for music of any genera. You’ll probably bump into him at a horror convention or some seedy club checking out the next need-to-know band.

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