Interview with Anthony from Sinocence by Jen

I got your CD for review last year, Acceptable Level of Violence and I think the whole thing kicks ass. You also just released Beautiful Death Scene. Tell me a little about those releases, when the songs were written, when the album was recorded, who produced it, etc.
Cheers....the songs really started taking shape with the introduction of Davy (Drummer) to the band around Aug 03. We just hit it off with him creatively and got stuck into the writing. His style really suited were we wanted to go and basically we haven’t stopped writing and trying out new things since. “Violence” was the first CD we all played on as there were substantial line-up changes for the first few years of Sinocence. We had to shake things up and switched studios to record in one of the top Music studios in Ireland with a well-respected producer Frankie McClay (Einstein Studios). “Violence” was recorded in Dec 03 & “Death Scene” in Aug 04.
Beautiful Death Scene was also released in 2004, the same as Acceptable Level of Violence. What prompted two releases in one year?
We were actually going for a trilogy of CDs in one year but kinda bit off a bit more that we could chew. TBDS turned out to be a really experimental CD with one of the tracks featuring a grand piano piece. That took a bit more time to record and with so much going on the tracks as a whole we decided to just concentrate on the structure and recording and not worry about deadlines.
Overall, are you happy with the outcome of both discs? Is there anything you would have done different?
Yeah, were happy with them as demos and they get our point across very well. I think any band would change little things or think Fuck! I could have sung or played that better but at the end of the day we’re still financing this ourselves and good studios cost money. In that respect we gotta get in there and do it! They’re rock solid CDs so yeah we’re happy with them.
What has the reaction to the CDs since they have been released?
Couldn’t have asked for better to be honest. We’ve sent them all over the globe and have got great reviews. “Violence” was a good icebreaker for the band and has served us very well in that respect. All the reviews have been really positive and encouraging so its good to know they are being equally well received in the USA as well as Europe.
In my review for Acceptable Level of Violence, I said you guys were real unique, but if I had to pick, I said you had a guitar sound that reminded me of Shadows Fall and at some other parts, you reminded me of Skid Row. What do you think about that comparison? Do you think that would remand the same for the new release?
We love Skid Row, so that's cool for you to say that! But then again we grew up with Slayer, Pantera, Machinehead, White Zombie and the like. The comparison is good because Davy and Kaxxx(Bass) would lean more towards Rock whereas myself and Moro(Singer/Guitar) would be more Thrash in our approach.
How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard you?
Solid Metal songs with groove, power, melody and dynamics.
You have a few other releases, Thank God for Satan released in 2002 and Embracing Decadence in 2001. How do you feel that differs from the releases you put out last year? Did you release any others?
They are totally different, the band as it stands now has only one original member left. So the music is very different and it is so far removed from what we’re doing now its like a different band. They had a very old school metal style to them and the band at the time weren’t really functioning well at all. There has been a lot of progression from those releases and a lot of lessons learnt from them. Havin said that we got to record a Promo Video/DVD for one of the tracks of Satan “Alone with the Devil” and was featured on a covermount CD for International Metal magazine Terrorizer in 02.
What plans are in store for 2005? Tour? New material? New release?
The completion of the trilogy of CDs is Paramount. We’ve about 4 tracks at the minute that we’re working on and were aiming for May/June time to go into the studio to record 6 tracks. We got through to a UK wide battle of the bands and are competing in the Final in London in March. Hopefully that will open a few doors in to the UK. We’re also looking at gigs in Italy, Germany and the USA. Depending upon what way things pan out we’ll decide which ones are the best for us to do. We haven’t send to much out to record labels so this will be pretty important as we’ll start looking for a deal or distribution in earnest this year.
I have never spoke to a band from Ireland before, how is the scene up there like? Is there a lot of places to play? Do you travel to the UK a lot? How far is that for you? Are their a lot of kids that go to the shows?
The scene here is fucked up, as there are literally hundreds of bands here. Anyone with long hair or wears black is in a band! There are no where near enough venue in the North of Ireland to play and Dublin has a pay to play thing going on so it can be hard to get good gigs. The vibe between the bands is good as we’re cut of in a sense to the mainland UK we tend to play a lot together and do our own thing as opposed to seeing established bands. The kids are were its at over here, a lot of them can’t get into the shows and we’ve had some cases of more kids outside the venue rather than in it. The rural towns are really enjoyable to play as opposed to Belfast because they just let loose and aren’t to worried about acting cool they just wreck the place!
What other countries have you gone to for shows?
We’ve gig traded with bands in London and that worked out well as we could offer them gigs in the North of Ireland and get them some exposure that they wouldn’t ordinarily have got. The same works for us. The are very few labels in Ireland so we are going to rely on trading show so help get noticed by someone of influence in the UK.
Do you have a favorite show experience? Any horrible experiences you would just like to forget?
We got asked to play with Machinehead on the bands only Irish date for the “Ashes” tour last June in Belfast. That was fuckin amazing!!! We’re not from Belfast and thought we might have got a bit of stick of the crowd but they had our back the whole way through. Just to share the stage with Machinehead and hang out with them after the show on a professional level was an honor! Still blown away with that. Horrible experiences, the only one that springs to mind is a gig in the Hard Rock in Belfast everything just fuckin broke on stage, guitars pickups failed, spare guitar way out of tune, drums falling apart, monitors not working. Absolute nightmare, spent quite a bit of money after that one!!!
Have you ever traveled to the US, either for vacation or for shows? Even if you haven’t, is there any comparison you can give from just dealing with the US fans, compared to the fans in your home country?
I’ve been over to LA a couple of times on holiday and went to a few gigs. The fans in the US I think would be harder to win over because they get to see so many excellent bands rolling through town. I Ireland the fans are maniacs because we might only get 4 or 5 real Metal shows a year. That might seem hard to believe but its true so when one comes along its and event.
You have a track on The Distortion Project- Looking Back at the Present Comp, which was released in 2002, how did you go about getting on that?
They are the main promoters for underground metal bands in the North and run a gig every Sat in Belfast for local bands. We all know each other her and generally get on very well so with playing the DP show over the years we asked to contribute. There is a real DIY attitude in the Metal scene here so when something like the Comp CD happens we’re all there.
Do you have any label interest right now? Any you are pursuing currently?
We’ve had some interest form SonicAge records in Athens,Greece and are talkin to them about maybe some distribution. A few labels such as Metal Blade and Roadrunner have asked for more material. We’ve started receiving mails from Record label A&R street teams so at the minute its pretty limited to a few. We’ll be going after the labels this year.
Anything else you would like to add?
If any of the bands that are on you site want to send a few CDs over here and get a bit of contact established with us feel free to e-mail the band at sinocence13@hotmail.com . Thanx for the interview Jen, keep it Metal!!!!
http://www.sinocence.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/sinocence