Sonic Boom Six Interview

• 30th May 2007

After reviewing an excellent Sonic Boom Six (SB6) gig recently, I took the opportunity to interview bass player Barney ‘Boom’.

I started by asking WHO would you most like to have as a support act on tour?

Recently we have had the luxury of being able to choose our own supports, it makes all the difference to have a band you enjoy and find inspiring playing before you every night. For sheer fantasy I’d say it would be ace to tour with some old-school weeded-out hip-hop troop like the Pharcyde or Cypress Hill. You know they have all the fun. We might get some of their weed and honeys.

WHAT, if anything, could make you stop making music for, in order to pursue another interest?
If someone paid me to put my face on a pasta sauce bottle I’d run with that. It’s deadly serious that pasta sauce money. Ask Lloyd Grossman. OK! In all honesty, I know one mans pasta sauce is another mans processed tomatoey mess in a jar.

WHERE will you play your career peaking gig is my next poser. The answer I get is reassuringly earthed, with no mention of charity bash’s concerned with the cultivating of bamboo in China or Save the Shrimp gigs in Atlantis.
Probably in the upstairs room in a pub in Hull. Everyone knows that little gigs are better than big ones. There’s definitely a lot that’s cool about looking down on 3000 people doing a circle pit. It would be awesome to headline massive venues but its never quite as amazing as a jam-packed room with sweat everywhere, having to fight for the ability to sing into your own mic'.

WHY did you guys decide to amalgamate your different influences and form the band you are?
It didn’t really seem that mad to us at the time but now I listen back to our old stuff I do see it was kinda hectic. But that’s cool, 'cause we’ve grown and hopefully people will get into our next record and go back and dig the older stuff.

Finally, I ask WHEN will you know you’ve made it big? The answer shakes my very soul and its disbelieving foundations.
Barney replies, ‘When I have my face on a bottle of pasta sauce’.

Maybe, just maybe, the day will come when Barney Boom pasta sauce is a family favourite. For now, we should all focus on his bass playing, as we should with his SB6 counterparts and their splendid musical output.
I’ve included a closing thought from Barney. I think it’s only right to share his insight and wisdom concerning life itself! “Life is nothing like a box of chocolates… it doesn't come with a piece of paper explaining everything.”