Sydonia

They’ve won over Lamb Of God and they’re good mates with Stone Sour – chances are Melbourne alt-metallers Sydonia are going to leave a lasting impression on nu-metal giants Korn too when February comes around. In the meantime, vocalist Dana Roskvist says the band are crossing their fingers that album number two will be just around the corner as well, following the release of Sydonia’s new single Ocean Of Storms .

“We’ve already got pretty much all the material ready,” he states. “I can tell you this much – the second one will bury the first one, without a doubt. Especially, if Colin (Richardson – Slipknot, Machine Head) does it. We’ve developed so much as a band in seven years. We’re able to identify the strongest parts of the song, the good hooks, the stuff that makes the track, and our pop sensibility has also gotten more sharp.

“Having said that,” he qualifies, “there’s still going to be some eight-minute songs; it’s just that the average length will be around four minutes. The main thing right now is to see if Colin can do the album. He did the single for free and he and his management really seemed to love it.”

With Richardson on production and Ted Jensen on mastering, Roskvist says Ocean Of Storms is at once heavy and melodic, serving as the perfect heads-up to the upcoming album. However, as is often the case, money is the ultimate decider as to how long it actually takes for the album to get made.

“The idea is that we’ll manage to find some kind of backing at this point, because originally it all happened very randomly,” says Roskvist of his hopes for the album. “The single is also mastered by Ted Jensen who’s probably one of the most popular mastering guys on Earth – he’d done like 10,000 albums or something.

“It all just happened after we talking to this sound guy in Melbourne and he said we were really good and we should just shoot high. He said we should just write to a bunch of different producers and see who loves it and who is willing to do it on a budget if they think the band is actually good.

“Colin’s management replied and fell in love with it, even though we only sent some crappy demos! They said the songwriting was amazing and that’s how we ended up doing the single with Colin. But it’s just money,” he points out. “And to launch internationally you really should have a label behind you. When you’re in Australia you’re so far away, you can’t just get up and tour America or something, unless you’ve got radio play or management behind you.”

And Roskvist is fairly familiar with just how America works at this point, having toured the U.S. with good mates Stone Sour. While he describes the experience as one of the band’s highlights, he claims it was memorable for some not-so-great reasons too…

“Stone Sour in America was the biggest thing we’ve ever done and it was just amazing,” he recalls. “We had an awful time at the same time too! We went with a really dodgy transport company. It wasn’t our wish – it was the wishes of our management at the time who just wanted to save money obviously.

“It started with the first truck breaking down, and by the time we were done, we’d gone through 13 different vehicles in America. At the same time I got sick with a hideous virus and was shaking and shivering because I was so ill. Another guy who was supposed to be our driver ended up just wanting to hang out until he decided he didn’t want to drive the truck anymore and he told us to get our shit out otherwise he’d call the cops. We managed to get him to drop us off at our hotel at least,” he shakes his head.

“It was amazing but it was awful all at once.”

And while Sydonia will not be touring with Korn during their entire upcoming Australian trek, Roskvist claims landing the Melbourne support slot for Jonathan Davis and co. is a bit of a dream come true.

“Well, I love their first three albums a lot…” he says. “I remember when I first saw Blind on TV and it blew me away. That was around the time the ‘Pumpkins released Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, and I was like, ‘what the hell is this stuff?’ Korn was scary and powerful and unlike anything I’d ever heard before… I just fell in love with it. Especially me and Adam [Murray, bass], we’re probably the biggest fans out of all of us. I’m sure we’ll have a good time, I just don’t know if we’ll actually get to meet the Korn guys.

“Sometimes you never know what you’re going to get with bands – sometimes it’s good sometimes not.

When we toured with Slipknot we already knew Jim and Corey in America, but we didn’t know Clown… And he was a strange guy! He was lovely and cool but he is a very strange man. Like, every now and then you’ll catch him doing weird stuff like just looking at a shadow or something and he seems completely in his own head…

“Yeah,” he laughs, “being the support band you don’t really know what you’re going to get.”

SYDONIA launch their Earth-shattering new single Ocean Of Storms at The East Brunswick Club this Friday October 8 – with friends Dive Into Ruin and Bronson along for the ride. Tickets from The East, 9388 9794, or eastbrunswickclub.com. Check out Ocean Of Storms at myspace.com/sydonia.