Upon learning that his friend Juan Mann’s grandmother had died, Sick Puppies’ singer-guitarist Shim Moore combined his song, “All The Same,” with video he’d shot back in Sydney of Mann strolling through a shopping mall as he holds a sign saying “Free Hugs.”
Moore made the video specifically for Mann, an audience of one, but then his band mates saw it, too.
“We went, ‘Ahh,’ ” Sick Puppies bassist Emma Anzai said this month from Portland, Maine, a stop on the band’s summer tour. “We collectively said, ‘Let’s put it on YouTube.’ Because that’s what you do with cool videos.”
Anzai’s reaction to the video was much the same as the 10 million or so people who’ve since seen it.
“It’s touching,” she said. “I know Juan Mann also, because we were all sort of in the same circle. I was like, ‘Ahh, that’s cool.’ I knew he gave out free hugs, so seeing him doing that was cool and having the song underneath was a nice, simple idea that gets straight to the point.”
Moved though Anzai was by the images of Mann’s free hugs campaign, neither she nor Moore anticipated the music video’s worldwide impact.
“I don’t think anyone did,” Anzai said. “It was sort of out of left field, yeah.”
The video’s popularity helped put the previously struggling Sick Puppies on a fast track.
“We’d been doing a lot of showcases for major record labels around the country, but none of them had worked out,” Anzai said. “We were like, ‘Gee, we’ve done the best we can do. What else can we do?’ ”
Feeling like sick puppies, the band was down in the dumps when the “All The Same” clip, aka the “Free Hugs” video, took off.
“Oprah and Leno called,” Anzai said. “They were like, ‘Oh, we wanna get you guys on the show!’ That was pretty monumental. Everyone watches Oprah. They have that show back in Australia, too. And people were giving out free hugs in Russia and Japan and Germany. There were all these other videos. We were doing so many interviews and TV appearances. Stuff went really full on.”
Sick Puppies soon signed with Virgin Records, which released the band’s major label debut in April 2007.
“We were like, ‘Wow. Right place, right time,’ ” Anzai said. “Lucky, too. But all we knew was that it couldn’t have ended badly, because we put so much into it. I guess persistence really does count for something sometimes.”
Anzai and Moore have been musical partners since their high school accidentally allowed them to double-book the school’s music room during a lunch break 12 years ago.
“None of us left the music room so we ended up playing together,” Anzai said. “And then we realized that we liked the same bands and knew the same songs. We both wanted to start a band because, otherwise, why would we be in the music room at lunchtime? Most kids wanna have fun and play with their friends at lunch, but we were in the music room.”
After limited success in their homeland, the rock- and metal-oriented Sick Puppies looked across the globe for bigger, greener pastures.
“In Australia, because it’s kind of like a summer country, everyone has a good time,” Anzai said. “So they’re into dance music. But our sort of music is a little darker, more rock. That sort of music has a better chance in America because more people here are really into it.”
Anzai and Moore decided that if they were going to make a serious go at being a rock band, they’d better move to the United States. They and their manager relocated to Los Angeles in 2005, reluctantly leaving the group’s long-time drummer in Australia. American Mark Goodwin eventually signed on as Sick Puppies’ drummer, joining what soon became a very popular band.
Sick Puppies’ second album, Tri-Polar, appeared July 7. Another disc that deftly blends aggressive metal riffs with tuneful songwriting, it debuted at No. 31 on the Billboard 200.
“We’re in it for life, for the long haul,” Anzai pledged.
Source: http://www.2theadvocate.com/entertainment/53831752.html
