Hardrock Haven: What do you think are the strongest points of Sonic Divide?
Andy Young: All of the guys in the band have reasonably decent musical pedigrees, with pretty much all of us having done the hard yards in other bands in our earlier days. Importantly, we are not just ‘six blokes in a band’ – we are all great mates as well and although there can be the odd disagreement from time to time re various aspects of songwriting, none of these thoughts have ever led to splintered relationships within the band. We’re also not in our mid 20’s these days so I guess you could say that we have learned a lot over our individual lives and in doing so we’ve learned what it takes to work successfully together as a band towards a common goal. Finally, all six of us share a deep spiritual connection as well and this is also a solidifying factor in the musical road that we are travelling together…
Hardrock Haven: What kind of influence do you think Darren Mullan, the album’s producer, exerted over the album? What was the experience of working with him?
Andy Young: Darren was (and is) an awesome guy! We were more than happy to receive his input into helping shape and mold our music into what you hear when you listen to our album. He has worked with some of the biggest names in Aussie music and he believed in us and our music from day one – we felt honored to have him produce and engineer our album. If it wasn’t for his input, I don’t know whether or not this interview now would have ever taken place!
Hardrock Haven: Do you plan on continuing to work with him on a second album too?
Andy Young: Absolutely, we would consider working with him again! We have a number of new tunes that we have road tested live and the feedback has been fantastic so yeah, when it comes time to hit the studio again we will more than likely sound Darren out again to see where he is at…
Hardrock Haven: You claim the likes of Muse, U2, Simple Minds and Dream Theater to be your biggest inspirations, whereas there’s hardly the trace of such influences in your music. Why?
Andy Young: With 6 different guys from six various backgrounds you are always going to get a wide selection of musical influences. My own musical tastes range from classical music to death metal and I could cite influences from all musical camps in between! But sometimes a particular band may inspire us lyrically or maybe it’s in the way they compose their music or even how they perform live. I guess that’s the beauty of Sonic Divide – we are collectively of one mind as to what we want the Sonic Divide sound to be so our individual influences tend to come together to help us shape the overall product – whether the listener can pick a specific musical connection or not!
Hardrock Haven: If it comes to your music, perhaps the most frequent comparison is to the sound of Bon Jovi. How fair do you think these comparisons are?
Andy Young: Very fair indeed – we were actually talking about the similarity of our sound to Bon Jovi earlier this year. We’re pretty happy to hear people make that connection with our music! Now if only we can get on the same bill as them…
Hardrock Haven: With the majority of reviewers dubbing your album melodic rock or pop rock, how would you define the music you play genre-wise?
Andy Young: Yeah, I would say melodic rock is a fair description. You know, for ages we found it difficult trying to define our style to people when they would ask us what we sounded like (if they hadn’t heard us). I think we cover a lot of sub-genres in our music but melodic rock would probably be the most consistent description I would think. The new tunes that we are working on for the most part would probably be described as more heavy melodic rock – watch this space!
Hardrock Haven: What’s inspired the album lyric-wise? Any stories behind the songs you’d like to share in particular?
Andy Young: A simple answer – life! Like I said earlier, we are not a bunch of musos in our mid 20s these days so the lyrical content of our music has been born out of our collective life experiences over the years – from both the good and the challenging times. And also as mentioned earlier, our personal and collective spiritual walk has also played a major role in shaping us as individuals and as a band, and as most bands write from their own experiences it is only natural that whatever helps shape and define you will most likely find a way into any creative output that you may produce…
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