I caught up with the lead singer of Sonic Boom Six, the band that takes ragga, hip-hop, bhangra and jungle, adds a blast of dub and reggae and detonates with a heavy helping of hardcore punk rock. Great desricption there! Read this interview now people and be prepared to be amazed by the powers of the late, great Sonic Boom Six!
Introduce yourself to the people – who are you and what do you do in the band?
I’m Laila and I’m the main vocalist/mc in Sonic Boom Six.
You are extremely open minded as musicians but surely you must have a favourite sort of genre. What is your favourite genre of music and more importantly who are your favourite band/artist?
We are extremely open minded and that’s why that is such a difficult question to answer… Personally, gigs wise, I love to go to punk gigs and rock gigs like Queens of the Stone Age, Capdown, King Prawn. Even though I love listening to them bands at home, I also listen to NERD, JayZ, The Coral, Blur, you name it. When I’m out I love going to drum and bass nights so it’s all very varied.
You recently released a new EP, the ‘Turbo EP’ on Moon Ska Europe. It has had extremely good press from many of the top websites but what do you personally think of this CD?
I’m extremely proud of it! It still brings a smile to my face when I listen to it. It was so good working with Ace and he totally captured our sound. It’s good to have a record that actually sounds like the live SB6 that people see. We’ve learnt in the past how difficult that can be to do.
What have you learnt from this EP and what will you change in order to improve on what you already have for when you record the album?
We’ve learnt that Ace is god and we’d be stupid not to use him for the album. I think we’ll learn to be a little more prepared than we were. We were really organised but we decided to change some of the lyrics right at the end. Even though no one else can tell I was still unhappy with them.
How do you think Moon Ska have done with the recording of your CD?
I think they’ve done well. We sold a shit load on the Whitmore tour and we have loads of people emailing us for a copy. I think it’s benefited Moonska too as it shows that they’re prepared to take a risk by signing a band that’s like us and who don’t fit the typical ‘ska’ mould.
It was about the time of the London show on the Smash It Up tour that you were in serious talks with Moon Ska – how pleased were you when they finally decided that they wanted to sign you?
We were very pleased. In Britain at the moment they are the biggest indie label that we could have signed to and the relationship between the band and Moon is really good. We’ve wanted to be signed to Moonska since we were 18 but we were in a shit band then so when we heard that they wanted to sign us we went for it.
Have you always been a fan of the label and the masses of work which they do to promote the bands on it?
Yeah. I’ve always wanted to be on the label and we’ve played with alot of Moon bands and they do a hell of a lot to promote their bands.
What is the best gig that you have ever played and what made it so special for you?
More recently we played in Leeds and being from Manchester it isn’t that far away but we didn’t realise what a following we had there. The last couple of times we played Leeds we were so late we literally had to get out of the van and onto the stage! The last time was amazing though. There were people with home made SB6 T shirts on, people knew our tunes and the whole place went mental. York was the same too. Must be a northern thing.
Your live shows are extremely energetic and you can really tell that you are putting your heart into it – how much do you enjoy playing gigs?
I love playing gigs more than anything in the world. On this last tour I was dying from the flu for 2 weeks. Normally I wouldn’t get out of bed but I managed to squeeze myself into the back of a Peugeot 205 with the rest of the band, travel for hours and still do gigs. I was literally dying some days. On the way to Cheltenham we were ready to cancel the show cause I’d gone grey and was shivering in the back of the car! But I troopered on. The thought of not playing made me wanna get on stage and play the gig like it was my last ever one. There were loads of times when I was sick when I got off stage cause my body was just saying NO but its cool. Sweat it out.
You are a female vocalist – there are not really that many female fronted bands around but two female fronted bands are really coming through at the moment – No Comply and of course yourselves, Sonic Boom Six. Do you feel that there should be more women taking an active interest in getting involved in making music?
Yeah. For sure. It’s amazing how many girls come up to me after gigs and say that they are inspired by us and No Comply. It’s the coolest thing to see… I mean, surely it should be at the point now where it doesn’t really make any difference. One thing that gets on my nerves is the way people still always insist on comparing us and No Comply with No Doubt. I mean, I see why they do it, but its so lazy and gender-obsessed. Its like comparing say, 5 knuckle to Green Day simply because have a male singer. Oh yeah, and big up Strike of 59.
With all the bands splitting up at the moment – what do you think of the current Ska and Punk scene in the UK?
I don’t really know what to say. It’s a shame that bands like Light Year and King Prawn had to split. I actually cried when I heard about KP! One thing that makes me laugh is how some kids assume that you make loads of money off it when you are living on a few quid a day literally. In terms of the scene theres still a load of great punk bands and Capdown are still holding it together, so are No Comply and Farse and Howards Alias in terms of ska-punk. Theres loads of great bands but the support in terms of sales and gigs is apparently dwindling. And yet you have all these bands like Busted dressing up as punks that are blocking that way for genuinely talented acts. I mean on the scene Whitmore get a lot of stick for being quite poppy or whatever, but I would be over the moon to see ‘Alison’ on Radio 1 rather than ‘Been to the year 3000’ or whatever. Its just ridiculous that people don’t see that, and you got those nay-sayers laughing when P-Rock went down. I mean, yeah maybe they didn’t play mega underground stuff but it was real bands on there, a lot better than the mainstream major label stuff. There is the talent and self-belief in the scene but we can’t fight amongst ourselves. It has peaks and troughs. United we stand divided we fall. We are gonna be doing this for a while and we just all have to find a way to keep the scene fresh and diverse and relevant. Which we are doing.
Many thanks to Laila for answering these questions for us!
UK based film graduate with a huge passion for music, sports and video games.
