Interviews

Interview with Skye of Sumo Cyco

Published

6 years ago

May 16, 2018

Ron

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.

See author's posts

Related Topics:Baltimore MD Empire Extreme featured Skye Sweetnam Soundstage Sumo Cyco

Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Interviews

INTERVIEW WITH MERCURY OF PRIEST

Published

7 days ago

April 23, 2024

Ron

Empire Extreme got to sit down and talk to Mercury of Priest when the band came into PA at LoveDrafts.

The show was amazing all the bands that we seen put on a great show for the fans. Vampires Everywhere killed it once again. Last time we seen Priest we only got to see them open for Powerman5000 and got like 6 songs, this time Priest was headlining and we got to see much more which I was excited to see.

Priest played a good mix of old and new and even a few songs off the album “Dark Pulse” which is out in May. We got to see 13 songs played and even Mercury come out into the crowd a few times and when they played “Obey” even blessed some of the crowd. It was great hearing songs like “BlackListed”, “Signal in the Noise”, “History in Black” and “Vaudeville”. It was such a great night of music and a great conversation with Mercury. If you get a chance to see this band play in ur town, it’s a must

About Author

Ron

See author's posts

Interviews

INTERVIEW WITH OF VIRTUE

Published

2 months ago

March 4, 2024

Ron

Where does the band name come from? Wanting to be the best version of yourself at all times. The name is a reminder to hold ourselves accountable.

How is the music scene in Michigan? The Michigan music scene has always been vibrant and in my opinion, important. Do we get the credit we deserve? Absolutely not. But for the state that brought you Motown, Eminem, Lizzo, The White Stripes, I Prevail and so many other incredible artists – it’s kind of hard to believe that Michigan remains a hidden gem.

How’s the reception from the fans of the latest album “Omen”? It’s been incredible. From seeing people singing along at shows to us seeing new supporters of all different ages, colors, and creeds joining the journey. Omen has been a pivotal album in our career and we’re proud of it!

If you could tour with 2 bands, which bands would you want to tour with? Spiritbox and Bad Omens. They’re both making waves, changing who the metal audience is, and surely they’d be fun to hang around with.

Where do you draw inspiration for the lyrics? Honestly, the lyrics are our stories. The stories of our struggles, our trials and our tribulations.

What’s been your favorite tour or show? We just got off of a tour with our labelmates, Any Given Day. They treated us to a handful of sold out shows over in Europe, which at this point we call our second home. Those were great shows, but any show we’ve done in Europe is typically one for the books!

If you could bring back a dead musician, who would it be? Prince for sure. An incredible musician I would love an opportunity to chat or make music with!

About Author

Ron

See author's posts

Interviews

INTERVIEW WITH TWIN TEMPLE

Published

2 months ago

February 16, 2024

Ron

Being Married and being in a band together. Do you feel that makes it easier or harder?

We love to do the Devil’s work together so for us its a match made in hell.

What’s your favorite horror movie?

That’s hard to narrow down but the first few that come to mind are Rosemary’s Baby, The Devil Rides Out, Wickerman, The Devils Reign featuring Anton Lavey, Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, anything starring Vincent Price. We also got to see an advance screen of “Late Night with the Devil” featuring a very evil performance from our friend Dave Dastmalchian. We’re also looking forward to Bryan Fuller’s “Dust Bunny” and are positive it will be a new favorite. The list goes on…..we are huge horror fans.

Favorite Non Horror Movie?

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (which is horror/noir adjacent) and The Burbs (also horror adjacent…haha.)

All of Quentin Tarantino’s films- our latest favorite is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, because 1960’s LA…

What misconception of Satanists would you like to educate people on?

We’re not here to proselytize, force our beliefs on people, or educate people on them Selves, Satanism or anything else. If people are interested in exploring Satanism, we encourage them to do their research and question everything.

If you could bring back any dead musician, who would you pick and why?

We would have loved to do a song with Ronnie Spector who recently passed. Also would have been amazing to collaborate with Jack Nitzsche who arranged so many amazing songs.

If you could tour with any 2 bands, who would you want to tour with?

The Ronnettes & The Shangri-Las.

What has been your Favorite Tour so far?

The God is Dead Tour that we’re currently on is definitely the most evil and blasphemous tour yet. We find it very pleasurable to be able to continue expanding the rituals and seeing our nightmares come true on stage.

You were on “Dragula” with the Boulet Brothers, how was that experience?

It was a fiendish delight to collaborate with some of our fav monsters.

What was it like Touring with Danzig?

Another nightmare come true! We’ve both been fans for a long time and we’re obviously inspired by the wicked world Glenn has conjured. So to get to spend time with him and watch him live every night and to now call him a friend is completely surreal. He’s a legend— but was also one of the coolest, kindest, most unholy people we’ve had the carnal pleasure of touring with.

How’s the reception of the last album “God is Dead”?

Personally, we love the record and are very proud of what we’ve accomplished. As far as other peoples’ reactions…. we don’t know and don’t care! We pleasured ourselves and that’s what matters most.

What got you interested in the style of music you play? And how would describe your music?

We’ve always loved classic American music from jazz to blues to country to rock and roll and so on. We also love the pageantry of heavy metal and theatre. So for us it was a very organic culmination of our obsessions. Rock and roll has always been the devils music.

Have you visited the Satanic Temple in Massachusetts?

No we have not but Lucien did attend one of our rituals so we had a chance to share where we get our babies blood and all things Satan.

Have you had any bad encounters at shows because of the misconception of satanism?

No! We purposefully foster a live show environment where all are welcome, all should come being the most important person in the world which is themselves, whatever that may be. Even Christians! We believe music is meant to bring joy, transcendence… We just want to share the things we love; pink, rhinestones, big hair, great rock ’n’ roll, Satanic ritual, you know… but we have had churches assemble outside our shows, screaming through distorted PA speakers that God is not dead & wishing us all a “terrible time”. Why would their God not want us to have fun? This kind of behavior is only makes us more proud to be who we are and do what we love.