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SoSo y’all should like um totally check out this cheeky interview feat. vocalist Rhys and drummer Tom from the slightly unhinged- probable lunatic pop punk band SoSo from Sydney. The boys shared some goss about the band, new EP ‘I Wouldn’t Call This Success… But’s It’s Close Enough’, Rhys’ dirty song secret and their upcoming plans including a second mystery EP being in the works.
Interview Date: Monday 9 August 2021
To start things off, where does the name SoSo come from?
Rhys (vocals): I dunno, I think we just had a real lightning bolt to the dick moment and was like we should call it SoSo. It just made sense. If you think about it right, so you know The Simpsons? It kind of like The B Sharps, you know their band name is kind of hilarious for the first few times you say then you kinda forget that it’s funny… That’s the same with SoSo, cause it’s like
when we are up there (on stage) it’s like “Hey, we’re SoSo”, and everyone just giggles and shit.
Is that the initial response you guys get from crowds?
Rhys (vocals): nah, most of the time people just turn around and walk out haha
Haha I thought that the name would have come from like one time in a group chat you guys were like “So so, whatever, maybe...” like those were the options
Rhys (vocals): well ah what other options did we have?
Tom (drums): I don’t think much thought went into our name to be honest haha
Rhys (vocals): The Tom Doy Extraordinaire Group just didn’t pan out, ya know
Tom (drums): I thought it was good though!
Alright I want to talk about the construction of the EP, I reckon it’s got a little bit of a risky name, did you guys know this when releasing?
Rhys (vocals): Is it risky? *Turns to Tom*
Cause it’s called I Wouldn’t Call This Success… But It’s Close Enough and it’s your debut EP, so what’s going to come afterwards?
Tom (drums): ... hopefully success. Hahaha
Rhys (vocals): at some point please! Hahaha
Yeah, I don’t know, we just thought it was a smartass way to be like ‘Hey this was the best we can do, so hopefully you like it’, that’s kind of our vibe right? And I think that just the way that the name of the EP works with that one picture of my mate passed out- out the back. When I look at that and then look at him, I just think like ‘It’s that’s not success, I don’t know what is’, you know what I mean? It just ties in very well.
How did you guys put the EP together? I know that you worked with Stand Atlantic (StAt)’s producer Stevie Knight and believe there may have been someone else who’s worked with StAt before as well.
Rhys (vocals): yeah we worked with Stevie, he’s been our long time producer, we like to call him ‘Big Stivs’. We also worked with James Paul Wisner he mixes all of our stuff, he also mixes a lot of StAt’s stuff as well. So yeah, we’ve got a good little crew going on.
...and how it came together? Man, we had these songs written a while ago at the end of 2019, and I think that we went in at the start of 2020, early 2020. We had six songs which we thought were good, and we went in and Stevie listened to one of them and he was like ‘Nah, this is trash, you need to write something else’.
Tom (drums): in the nicest way possible
Rhys (vocals): it wasn’t the nicest at all! It hurt my feelings! Haha
Was he just like ‘guys... just do better!’
Rhys (vocals): Pretty much! He was like ‘this is the shittest thing you’ve shown me’, and it was just like ooh *yikes* haha
Then we ended up writing (Shit) Love Story in the studio.
Tom (drums): in like 2-3 days, or something like that.
Rhys (vocals): awah that’s a bit generous for us, it was more like 2-3 minutes haha. It was really quick, like written over night I feel kind of dirty that that’s the song that’s going the best for us. But yeah, we pumped it out and then sat on the songs for 12 months which was weird.
We fully demo our songs, we are kind of meticulous like that. I think that’s because like none of it sounds good until you’ve got a somewhat finished product, right? So we are very much like: get in a room, write together and then start plugging it into the computer on the go. That’s how we do it! And then at least it kind of feels like it let’s Stevie have as much time as possible to refine it, he’s not in there going ‘oh, what do you guys mean?’ trying to interpret what we’re doing, he’s just like ‘this is all sick! You just need to do X, Y and Z, like let’s change these little bits, ya know’.
What was it like working with Stevie?
Rhys (vocals): it’s always a blast! But we would probably get him in trouble if we were open about all the shit we talk about hahahah
What do you guys mean? What are you doing in the studio with him? Haha.
Rhys (vocals): that’s for us to know and no one else to ever find out.
Tom (drums): it’s all part of the mystery haha
Ah it’s all top secret then? Like a bit of client confidentiality aye?
Rhys (vocals): Pretty much! It’s always good though, we had worked with him previously in one of our old bands, so we have a good working relationship together, both parties know what kind of tom-foolery is gonna go down- mostly his Tom foolery *points at Tom*
You mentioned one of your songs (Shit) Love Story, the title of it reminds me of Molly And The Krells song Relationshit because it’s…
Rhys (vocals): the same kind of vibe?
Yeah because they both have shit, like in the title haha.
Tom (drums): yeah our lawyers picked up on the similarity as well, we’ll be changing the name soon… nah (just kidding)
Rhys: We are drafting letters as we speak!
Where did the idea for (Shit) Love Story come from? As you guys said earlier, that song has been going the best for the band at the moment from the EP
Tom (drums): it was a bit rushed because that was the one song where we had to come up with it in a week or so…
Rhys (vocals): and it was based off your demo right?
Tom (drums): yeah, I had a riff from another song that didn’t end up in that song.
Rhys (vocals): so we took the riff haha, based that song on that riff, and then Stevie was like ‘Nah, I don’t like that riff’ haha!
Tom (drums): ‘get the riff off it’ haha!
But yeah, the song came together and then you came up with the lyrics.
Rhys (vocals): yeah I feel dirty about this song lyric-wise/ melody-wise, because honestly these guys were out there finishing off the instrumentals, and
I’m like ‘alright, I’ll go write some lyrics and I probably wrote it in like 10 minutes’, and I came out and was like ‘here’ and they were like ‘This is sick!’,I dunno I just felt dirty about it, and still do feel kinda dirty,
and that’s why the second verse is kind of like an apology for listening to me like talk shit about my past relationship. So that’s kind of what it is.
Is it about any specific or just relationships in general?
Rhys (vocals): oh no it’s about someone specific! Haha
It’s about a relationship that I had when I was like 20, so ages ago now, and it was just kind of like… I obviously had given it a lot more importance than she did, and even now like she’s still got me blocked on Facebook and socials and everything. I could never understand that, so it was just this dumb thing where I was like you know what? Just let it go, I’ve grown up and obviously they haven’t. It was kind of like a cathartic song in that sense.
I definitely wouldn’t say it’s spiteful, but a small part of me also thinks that it would be fucking hilarious if she heard it and realised it was about her hahaha.
Well lucky she’s got you blocked on everything then, so she wont’ know! Haha
Rhys (vocals): Exactly! Haha
I wanted to also talk about the latest single The Great Escape along with the EP, where did the idea for this song come from?
Rhys (vocals): So that’s very much our transition from our old band to our new band, so we took a massive punt like we had built up a little bit of something with the old band, you know, we had gotten to a certain point where with old band, we had played a few shows with Dead Letter Circus and we just like hit the ceiling and then we ah wrote a pop punk song and was like ‘this fucking slaps!’ and I was singing in an Aussie accent, cause I used to hide that, and we just decided to do it, we just decided to give up on the old band and go for the new one, so that’s all it’s really about like having one more crack at trying to make it.
I wanna know your ultimate favourite song off the new EP, it could be an underdog song, a popular one, one that you wrote.
Tom (drums): yeah, I’m going to have to go with The Henry Lawson Jive not because I wrote it… hahahaha
Oh yeah that was so believable! Haha
Tom (drums): it’s my favourite because I’m a bit of a sucker for nostalgia, I know it’s kind of lame…
Rhys (vocals): he’s trying to make reasons why that’s not ‘oh I came up with the song!’
Tom (drums): It’s also my favourite because it’s Rhys’ less favourite hahaha
Rhys (vocals): that’s not true!
It’s my Mum’s favourite! You’re just trying to get at me man! Like ‘my favourite song is the same one as your Mum’
Tom (drums): Your Mother and I have something to say to you… haha
My second favourite would be Wasted Time, because when we are playing live it gives me a slow intro to just chill out and have a drink haha
Rhys (vocals): I think Wasted Time for me. But, I dunno, I go through stages you know, I go through stages of liking different songs, they all kind of have their own vibe for me. I really try to tap into a feeling and hit that through the lyrics the whole way through. Wasted Time is actually really sad, in a lot of ways it’s really sad, and that’s the funny thing, when people read our lyrics they realise that they are deeper songs. They sound so wistful, fun and happy whatever…
Just like how pop punk should be, it sounds really happy but it’s also full of really dark, really deep lyrics.
Rhys (vocals): yeah and with Wasted Time I guess it’s got this kind of umm.. Like man I fucking hated a lot of people who I grew up with, you know, they gave me a lot of shit, I coped a lot of shit through my teenage years, and that song is kind of me just like thinking back on all that shit and my “hometown” kind of vibe, and being like you know what at the end of the day there were some good times in it and in a way it’s kind of like forgiving/ accepting what they were and who those people are. It is what it is, and life goes on.
I wanna talk about the upcoming ‘Stacked As’ Tour which will hopefully go ahead in August (Tour is currently rescheduled new dates TBC) with Wishful Thinking and Drastic Park.
Now, SoSo weren’t originally on that tour line-up, you guys have crashed Wishful Thinking’s One More Time Tour, how did you get onto this Stacked As Tour with them and Drastic?
Rhys (vocals): Funny story! Ugh how do I put this? So it wasn’t actually us crashing onto theirs, it was kind of like this good opportunity that came up because they had to postpone theirs, and then in the background we had been putting together our EP release tour.
We had gotten in touch with Drastic Park and their booking agent (Jayden- Yeah That Agency!) so we started to put these shows together, and then Wishful’s got post-poned their booking agent just said ‘Hey how about we just go 3 bands on the 1 bill, let’s just fuse them all’. So, it kind of like became something bigger than all the rest of it and it became the Stacked As Tour.
We are currently looking at rescheduling some stuff so it will definitely go a head, but just depends on what date and when.
Initially we booked these shows ourselves, we booked a headlining tour, and then we booked the EP shows for NSW ourselves as well. So we just go out there and get things done because we just wanna play shows! Back off that headline tour we had a lot of trouble trying to book venues and stuff like that but we just did it ourselves and sold it out! And we thought well we’ve got to go one bigger for the EP. I had started looking around and Manning bar actually reached out to us and they were like ‘hey do you guys want to play a Century Venues venue?’ and I was like ‘yeah, let’s look into it!’.
Yeah so they gave us Manning Bar, then we added the other two NSW dates and it was at that point Jayden reached out and was like ‘I wanna get Drastic Park up to NSW’ and I was like ‘Hey good timing man, I just booked us three dates for SoSo’, and he was like ‘I’ll book some dates down in VIC, and let’s do a gig swap!’.
A bit of mutual interest and co-operation made something extremely sexual and big! It’s good business, ya know! Haha
And now it’s literally STACKED AS, this big beautiful Stacked As tour! Haha
What can fans expect at these shows provided they go ahead? What are you guys like on stage?
Tom (drums): Things can get pretty wild… the things that happen off stage when Rhys jumps on them that can get a bit wild.
Rhys (vocals): I got hyped man!
Tom (drums): he does a lot of dancing on tables and then falling off them haha
Rhys (vocals): That wasn’t dancing! I wasn’t even on there for like a second haha
Our first headlining show, we sell out Lansdowne, we finally got a headlining show and in like the first 10 seconds I jump off stage, jump onto a table, and just crushed myself…
Tom (drums): you didn’t miss a beat though!
Rhys (vocals): I DID NOT miss a beat! No, so I’m pretty proud of that, but I had a massive bruise and everything. If I didn’t have adrenaline in me I would have probably died haha.
What can people expect? Lights, fireworks…
Tom (drums): we got dances. We’ve got like a ninja appearance at one stage, you just gotta keep an eye out for him.
What’s a ninja appearance?
Rhys (vocals): it’s someone who’s really sneaky making some sort of an appearance somewhere, but you know you gotta keep an eye out for it.
Tom (drums): We figure that if we don’t know what to expect, then people don’t know what to expect and it just happens out of nowhere.
Rhys (vocals): and then when good stuff happens we can be like oh yeah we meant that haha.
We are going to play the first EP obviously we are going to play it in full, but we are also going to play the second EP (unreleased) which we’ve got completely mixed/mastered and ready to go. So there you have it 12 songs of goodness.
What can you tell me about the second EP?
Rhys (vocals): it slaps!
Tom (drums): it’s really good!
Rhys (vocals): It’s got like synths, it sounds like lasers in a lot of it, it’s really cool! It’s poppier, but then there’s a song that sounds like Foo Fighters…
Tom (drums): yeah it’s got a little bit of Dave Grohl in there
Rhys (vocals): yeah so we are pretty keen to release it, to say the least
Is Dave Grohl ninja appearing on it? Haha
Tom (drums): he could be haha
Rhys (vocals): yeah he lies in bed thinking about dem SoSo boys!
I don’t know what to say, cause like you don’t wanna sit there and blow smoke up your own ass right, ya know? But like we are just proud about what we did with this one and it’s just super pop and I love that.
We are going to try to get back in the studio this month or next month and maybe try to do like an unplugged version of the songs like again, cause we did (Shit) Love Story unplugged and that’s going pretty well, we might even do a cheeky cover maybe? Just to give people something to keep them interested in us, if they are interested.
The second EP is kind of dependent on when stuff gets lifted, like we’re gotta tour this, we gotta play shows to this.
Do you guys have any final words on behalf of the band, about the I Wouldn’t Call This Success… But It’s Close Enough EP, about this second new mystery EP, or anything you’ld like to say to fans?
Rhys (vocals): okay what do we want to say to our fans?
Tom (drums): ah please buy our merch (SoSo has recently dropped new merch, so hit up their socials to suss it out)
I would like to thank our fans for support, since we’ve started, cause it’s been very overwhelming
Rhys (vocals): I was gonna say that!
Tom (drums): Well, get your own response!
Rhys (vocals): The leaving words I’ld like to leave... haha, it’s been wild and we’re just going to keep pumping out stuff for everyone, that’s our job to fucking make everyone sing and dance and make them interested so we’re just going to keep doing that, and if people continue to enjoy it like… that’s been the craziest thing, we get messages from all over the world of people who are vibing our stuff and it’s just like… even if it’s just those people who are enjoying the songs then that’s awesome, that’s all you could hope for right? And me personally I’m making a lot of new friends from this, from all over the world as well and that’s SICK!
So we are going to keep doing this, and hope people enjoy it, and we love them all!
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That was Rhys and Tom representing their band SoSo from Sydney chatting to Jess from Moody Music Blog.
The Stacked As tour is currently being post-poned with new information coming soon, the I Wouldn’t Call This Success. But It’s Close Enough EP is available right now! And also go check out some new groovy SoSo Merch.
Keep up to date with all things SoSo by following their
SoSo SOCIALS
FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/sosopunx
INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/sosopunx/
SPOTIFY https://open.spotify.com/artist/4bdIMnDadxc6M1bnaHieL0?si=smcWdUb_RyaZvBlKeUTRvg&dl_branch=1
SoSo TOUR DATES
The ‘Stacked As’ Tour feat. Drastic Park, SoSo and Wishful Thinking
August/ September 2021 dates / Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra, Central Coast, Sydney & Brisbane are all POST-PONED with new info coming soon