Hardrock Haven: “I Wonder” was illustrated with the video. What’s prompted this particular choice and what can you say about the video itself?
Andy Young: We recognized early on that creating a great video can help take your music and name to the next level – we decided to shoot a clip and asked for feedback from some significant industry experts (including a six-time Grammy winning producer!) as to which of our songs we should use for the clip. The overwhelming response was ‘I Wonder’ so we set out to see how we could best capture the sound, feel and lyrical content of the song. The song speaks of walking through life and getting so caught up in the mundane day to day existence that we forget to notice the beauty around us, and before we know it we arrive at the end of life and realize that our lives has been unfulfilled because we forgot to pay attention along the way. We thought it would be cool to shoot around a lonely country road somewhere and find the ruins of an old house to represent the ‘end of the road’ so to speak. The town of Burra in the mid north of South Australia had everything we needed to help our concept come to life, particularly the old ruined homestead featured in the clip which if you think looks familiar you would be right – it is the exact same old homestead featured on the front cover of Midnight Oil’s ‘Diesel and Dust’ album from 1987! The location is so iconic – Midnight Oil fans (and rock music fans in general) come to visit and photograph the old house all the time because of the Oils’ connection so to get permission to shoot at the site was incredible! The farmer who owned the land that the homestead is located on (and his family) were so accommodating to us – in fact the entire clip (with the exception of one scene shot at the old Burra railway station) was all filmed in the same property owned by this farmer. And our video producer Jason Mildwaters of JLM Studios Productions has such a great eye for detail – he took the beauty of the landscape and turned it into the amazing video that you see today. And we really feel that the video captures some of the best landscapes that South Australia has to offer so hopefully the clip inspires more tourists to visit Down Under and South Australia in particular!
Hardrock Haven: Coming from the land of Oz, what do you think is the current state of the Australian music industry? Is it fairly independent, or maybe influenced by the foreign music market, e.g. the US?
Andy Young: I think it is dependent upon the style of music that you are creating. For melodic rockers like us, there’s not a huge market here I must say. We are hoping that we might be able to play in role in changing that but I don’t think it is likely in the foreseeable future. Australia tends to imitate the US in many ways culturally (including music) and in that sense we feel that the music of Sonic Divide would probably be better appreciated by a US audience, as it appears to already be doing to a small degree. But trying to do that here is an uphill battle – there was a local progressive rock band form Adelaide (now disbanded) who toured Europe and played to packed out venues – some very large – yet I attended a show they performed in Adelaide and you could count the number of people there on two hands. I wish Aussies would get out and support local music to a greater degree – particularly us melodic rockers – but it doesn’t look likely in the foreseeable future unfortunately…
Hardrock Haven: What do you think are the chances for promotion on a local and global scale for an Australian band? Is it mostly the self-promotion via the social media that does the trick these days?
Andy Young: I think you need the right people in the right places with the right connections to make it work. Our social media impact has had mixed success –we hit number one in the Aussie rock charts on Reverb Nation (and number 50 globally) back in August this year but unfortunately we did not notice a huge increase in album sales. And the I Wonder video was added to a number of US internet/TV show playlists but again, not much return in the way of album sales. Social media, in and of itself is simply one tool that if utilized well can certainly have a positive impact for a band trying to make a name for themselves but I truly believe that it is most likely a case of ‘who you know’ that will get you to where you want to go.
Hardrock Haven: Is there any act of the Aussie music scene you find particularly interesting or promising? Is there anything worth being recommended to our readers, perhaps?
Andy Young: Dead Letter Circus from Brisbane is one Aussie band that all of us in Sonic Divide are into- awesome songwriters, fantastic live presence. Fellow Adelaidians Squeaker are another awesome rock/alternative band to keep an eye out on – they are a great bunch of guys who also write brilliant music – check ‘em out!
Hardrock Haven: Do you plan to venture out of Australia and thus expand your concert territory?
Andy Young: Well, the opportunity to do that would certainly be welcomed for sure – but one thing we would need to factor in, though, is that all of us are husbands and dads with day jobs and as such it probably won’t be that easy to just say “let’s head overseas for an extended period of time”. We’re all keen to consider doing a week here and a week there if the opportunities present themselves and it won’t impact on our families too much. But we are all family blokes first and foremost though so our families will definitely come first!
Hardrock Haven: What the future holds in store for Sonic Divide?
Andy Young: We’re keen to ride this wave as far as it will take us! We are currently exploring a potentially exciting opportunity for 2015 and beyond which may have a good chance to get our name out there on a much wider scale so watch this space! It’s been an awesome ride thus far and while it would be cool to perform a few short international tours we would be still be content if the journey were to end today. But we feel there may still be some exciting times ahead for Sonic Divide as a band…
Hardrock Haven: Any last words?
Andy Young: We wanna say a massive thanks to the Hardrock Haven crew for checking us out and for considering us worthy of an interview and album review – it is much appreciated! To those who have never heard Sonic Divide – check us out and let us know what you think! And feel free to spread the word!
Visit the band online: http://www.sonicdivide.net/index/
