That's One Sick Puppy

[Stacey]

http://www.behindthehype.com/interviews ... k-puppies/

Lying before you are some premium snippets from an interview with the Sick Puppies, who on July 14th will be releasing their 3rd studio album, Tripolar. The band was great and love every minute of the rockstar life from what I can tell, and we had a hilarious interview. Also below is the complete interview for your listening pleasure. Enjoy!

Flak: So, first question, I went to the very lazy questions first…First of all, Band name, where is the band name from? I know it seems like the most obvious thing but…

Shim: No no, it’s cool we were rehearsing in a friends garage…well rehearsing in OUR garage, jamming on terrible songs that we were writing and while practicing in the garage someone who lived there, their dog walked in, sat down, listened to the song, and then hurls, projectile vomits all over the floor….and walked out. One of the people in the room says “man, that’s one sick puppy”, and that was it.

Mark: That dog was siiiiick

Shim: And that was it. And now every time I tell that story I have to say in remembrance of Charlie.

Flak: Ok, so what’s the theme of the new album? Tripolar is the name of the album correct?

Shim: That’s right.

Flak: I figure that, again, it’s sort of one of those obvious answers…Tripolar, three of you kind of thing…

Mark: It’s a lot of different things I think.

Shim: What does it mean to you?

Flak: Well being the neuroscience major I, you know…

Emma: Oh no way!

Shim: Alright, alright, did you look it up? Did you know what the definition is?

Flak: I didn’t know there was a definition for TRIpolar…

Emma: Well it’s hard to find yeah…

Flak: Yeah I have no idea, I hated college so…

Shim: *Laughs* No no, but basically meant that you are on the third level of madness…but the concept is like….you’re really losing your sh*t, you know?

Flak: The song, You’re Going Down….whose ass was getting kicked?

Shim: oh yeah it was Sacha…Sacha *edit*…you can print that f*ck name! *laughs* But yeah he was this kid that would f*ck with me in school all the time…then we were at home and I saw him on the side of the road when we were in our big tour van, and I looked at him like “I’m in a rock band going on tour, what the hell are you doing?”

He used to beat me up all the time, and you’d have dreams (of revenge)….and with this song, I had put his face to him

Flak: So it’s basically the anti bully anthem?

Shim: Right, right.

sick_puppies_tripolar_album_art

Flak: Awesome….so I wanna do, you know, questions for the three of you individually…so, Emma ladies first, that’s my mom’s name by the way, great name. Bass guitar, how’d you pick it up?

Emma: Well I started with guitar first, and my uncle had bought me my first guitar and I started learning Silverchair and Green Day songs, and it was only when I met Shim in high school when I swapped over to bass because he sang and played guitar so I thought well “my main thing is that I wanna be in a band so…”

Flak: You can be a bit flexible?

Emma: Yeah, so I picked up the bass, and after a while I really started to like it.

Flak: And you’re a Warwick fan right?

Emma: Yes I love Warwick!

Flak: Ah me too, I’m a bass player as well, but never owned a Warwick, too broke *laughs* but I was inspired a bit by P-Nut from 311 who was playing the five string. Do you ever play the five string or have you thought about it?

Emma: No I don’t play the five, but we’ve all talked about it a little bit.

Flak: Ok, and speaking of inspiration, I’ve read different blogs around the world, that you’re being called the female Flea, I haven’t seen it yet, but I can hear how it could be. Good title bad title?

Emma: Well yeah I think it’s great, I mean I love Flea, he’s amazing, and I think what happened was that we were doing a show in Australia, and after playing one of the announcers said it off the cuff “oh she’s doing a lot of the slapping thing”, but it’s cool and I would really like to meet him…

Shim: Yeah we should get him at the launch party!

Flak: *laughs yeah he’s in a good mood right now because the Lakers are doing really well, and he’s always got his Jersey going…a lot of bass players are Lakers fans..Alright now Shim… Street Fighter…are you a Street Fighter fan?

Shim: I am actually. It’s funny cause growing up, I didn’t play to many video games, but I was a big street fighter fan, and my character is M. Bison, he did that, you know, sliding move that no one could beat, it was like, if you walked into an arcade and saw someone playing as Bison, you would wait thirty minutes until he was done then you went to play.

And when they asked us to write the song, I just remember thinking “we’re never gonna get it” you know, some other band will get in there, or they’ll use a famous song…and it didn’t register that we won until we saw the ad and we were like… “That’s us!!” while watching people fly through the air with hadoukens and all that stuff

(I also talked about Juan Mann and the Free Hugs video that remains one of the most popular videos on YouTube of all time which is below)

Flak: Alight Shim, you’re off the hook for now. Mark, you actually got into the band…through a craigslist ad I’ve read….how does that even work out?

Mark: Yeah well it was pretty simple, I saw the ads and flyers up there and they had gotten here from Austrailia, and they were just like any other band trying to do their thing you know? When I joined they were just in the middle of that…

Shim: yeah I mean I gave him a couple of songs; he played em really well and…

Flak: *nods* And who were you influenced by Mark? Older bands? Any newer bands?

Mark: I like the newer I guess, but obviously there’s the old ones, you know Zepplin, John Bonham and Stewart Copeland (of The Police). And modern drummers I’d have to say like, Grohl, Hodgkins (I believe he is referring to the drummer from As Fast As), Morgan Rose…Morgan Rose is a big one.

(We then talked about their ambassadors program, which is a part of the fan base for Sick Puppies, lead by Susana and Donna, moms that love the band and help promote to find out the biggest fans. Learn more here.)

Flak: Alright, last round….favorite cd right now?

Emma: Right now….hummmm… I have favorite songs right now…probably that Anberlin album, and that song Lifeline by Papa Roach

Mark: Hmmm I’m gonna have to say Green Day (21st Century Breakdown)….I thought it was gonna be a little better…

Emma: *laughs*

Mark: No no, actually I didn’t think it was gonna be as good as it was.

Flak: I didn’t know what to think because there’s a lot of bands from farther back that are changing, like Incubus, completely changing, AFI…

Mark: I like Incubus, I think collectively its one of our favorite bands

Flak: Oh me too, they were my original favorite band growing up

Mark: Yeah me too, some people didn’t like the new direction but… that’s another drummer by the way, Jose..

Flak: And Shim, what about you?

Shim: It’d be Jack Johnson’s latest record…the song that goes “it’s always better when we’re together”

Flak: Ok, so album coming out next month, July 14th, you guys excited about it?

Mark: Yeah ma, we’re really happy how it turned out.

Flak: Well I appreciate you guys taking the time out today, it’s been the highlight of the month….well…this and Transformers..

All: *laughing*

Again to Emma, Mark and Shim, thanks again for taking the time out to get behind the hype with us and figure out what its all about. Thanks again to the Jules Exum from EMI for giving us so much support. Don’t forget to pick up a copy of Tripolar on July 14th, and expect a full interview on its release!

~Until next time my friends,

Flak

[Brittany Brink]

loved the inteview, thanks for posting it =]

[Jessamy]

awesome but sad face for not saying what was discussed about the ambassadors!

[David]

[Lori]

Cool! I love reading these interviews!

[Brittany Brink]

[Katy]

[Brittany Brink]

Ok thank you so much Katy I will most deffinatley look into that