Sumo Cyco Talk New Album, Making A Murderer and Skindred Collaboration

Rising Ontario stars Sumo Cyco have something special in store for their second album.

Few bands exploded onto the rock scene in 2015 quite like K! Fresh Blood stars Sumo Cyco. Their debut record, Lost In Cyco City, arrived on the scene like a firestorm of charisma, packing big metallic grooves, infectious pop choruses and a DIY work-ethic that saw them make, oh, about 10 million music videos. The good news is that all of that was just for starters.

In the new issue of Kerrang! you can read all about Sumo Cyco’s new PledgeMusic campaign for their second album – including loads of amazing bundles ranging from an exclusive pin-up calendar to disposable cameras full of unique, one-off shots. But there’s much more to the story than that. We caught up with SC singer Skye ‘Sever’ Sweetnam to talk about their new record, a collaboration with Skindred’s Benji Webbe, and why the hit TV show Making A Murderer has proved an unlikely source of lyrical inspiration…

Hello! So what stage of recording are you at with the album now?

Skye ‘Sever’ Sweetnam: “We’ve pretty much been writing on and off for the last couple months! We’re about seven or eight songs in with a bunch of instrumentals that are kind of my responsibility to take from there! But it’s been good, we’re getting really into the nitty-gritty parts and we’re always trying to give a diverse roller coaster ride when you listen to the record so that it’s not exactly the same from beginning to end. Everything is going really well, I’m really stoked!”

Are you trying anything new this time round?

“This time around, I’m really pushing myself to go harder than I have been as far as being aggressive, and, at the same time, I’m trying to lay down crazy-fast flows for some of the intricate verse parts. That’s been really challenging, but cool. I love taking some of the fast rapping parts and adding melody to it.”

What’s inspiring you lyrically this time around?

“Making a Murderer actually inspired a couple of songs…”

Go on…

“I love writing about social issues, but in a way that it can be interpreted to someone as a personal issue or something that can be interpreted as something bigger – like taking one specific court case, but then thinking about it as [representing] injustices in the world in general or injustices in your life.”

Is there going to be a song about Making a Murderer, then?

“Yeah, because I actually watched a bunch of the episodes when I was supposed to be songwriting! I retreated to my grandparents’ house on a lake in Ontario and I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going there to be by the water and zone out, and kind of go through some lyrics’, but they had Netflix! I got totally sucked into Making A Murderer, so I was watching the show when I should have been writing. I was like, ‘Okay, at least now I have something to write about!’ I’m not sure what the title of the song is going to be, but there is one that was pretty much written while watching that TV show… I think the meanings and the overtones of that show kind of carry through some other songs, too.”

You’ve also announced that you’ve made a song with Benji Webbe from Skindred for this record – what can you tell us about that?

“We recorded it in April or May last year, but we didn’t actually get to meet Benji – it was just correspondence over email, and so when we finished our last tour, we were in South Wales and I gave him a call, and said, ‘Do you think you might have an afternoon that you might have available to shoot a quick video?’ We’re very DIY with that kind of stuff, and he was like, ‘Yeah! Come to Newport, I’ll show you around!’ I was so stoked. It was really funny to me, because Benji and Skindred are such big influences on our music – they really inspired me to start this band to begin with. It was really kind of cool that he was so open to doing this. He was this super-cool, down-to-earth dude – he showed me his house, his bathroom has a tonne of memorabilia from Skindred’s tours and their Kerrang! Award. Every inch has got like leopard print fuzzy walls and stuff… it was so cool! We went and did the video and everything was really great! I was having moments where you can actually see my smile’s so big that I’m not even being cool anymore in the video – I’m just having such a good time!”

How would you describe the Benji collaboration, then?

“You can definitely feel the Skindred influence, it’s really got kind of Dancehall vibes, mixed with a metal chorus, but the chorus is very rhythmic and for the bridge we get all aggressive. We’ll make the rooms jump when we perform that one live, for sure. We can’t wait to release that one.”

When do you think the album will be out?

“I’m hoping for June. That’s when I’m thinking it’ll realistically be out. We’ve decided that we’re going to do a bunch of music videos and promo material before we even release it so we have a bunch of stuff to release right before the album comes out.”

You don’t have a name for the record yet – but if you had to give it a name right now, based on the experience of making it, what would you call it?

“Well, we have a joke that every time that I’m singing what we call a ghost melody – to try to help write the song – I always end up using the word fire every single time. So every song is like, ‘Ooooooh fire!‘ and then the next song is like ‘FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!’ I just sing fire to everything and so I think that I would call the album Fire!”

You can watch Sumo Cyco’s latest music video below and don’t forget to leave us your comments.

To pledge your support to the album, head over to pledgemusic.com/projects/sumo-cyco now!