We’ve been fans Clutch for a long time and they’re a massive influence, so hopefully that’ll translate to the Clutch fans. There are a lot of other influences as well, including Alter Bridge, Black Stone Cherry, Orange Goblin, RATM/Audioslave, Soundgarden, Kyuss, The Parlor Mob and loads more!
How did you end up being asked onto this tour?
We basically saw they were touring and phoned our manager to see what our chances were of getting on as a support. The rest was up to him, and we got the call a few weeks later!
I know you won the Ultimate Band Contest in Dec 2010, but when did Sons actually start?
Me (Alex – Bass) and Andy (lead vox + guitar) are brothers so we’ve always been in bands together since we were in school, which is where we met Quilly (drums). We met Steve (lead guitar) at college in Guildford in 2009 and completed the lineup as ‘The Fury’. We actually re-launched as SOI on the night we won the Marshall competition!
How long was the whole contest and how much of a boost has it been for you?
I think the contest ran for around 3-4 months all round, I could be wrong though! It gave us a great head start as a band, from the word go we felt that Sons Of Icarus had something that people wanted to get behind because our fans really stepped up and showed a massive amount of support throught the competition. And we’re still using the same gear we won that night.
As a relatively new band how did you deal with going from playing smaller venues to the pressure of supporting the likes of Orange Goblin and playing at Download and Sonisphere?
It was pretty mind blowing, but we love playing live, so it came fairly naturally to be honest. It’s all we know how to do, so rather than seeing it as pressure, we just got our head down and played some really great shows!
You’ve come a long way in a short time, what would you attribute that to?
We’ve put a lot of hours into this band, and our respective instruments so I’d attribute it to that, and good management. Our manager is great at cracking the whip and making sure we don’t fuck about.
And what would you say/recommend to new bands at there?
We’re not really in a position to be doling out advice, but if you’re in a band and it’s not hard work… You’re doing it wrong! Don’t get me wrong, we love every second of it, but it’s hard work! You play a lot of shit gigs to no-one, but you never know who’s gonna be in the audience, so play every show like it’s your last.
We recently played a show to about 5 people, but those 5 people all said it was one of the best shows they’ve ever seen – Which meant a lot coming from guys that saw Kyuss 20 years ago!
Are you Clutch fans yourself, and what are you looking forward to about the tour?
We’re all big Clutch fans, Steve in particular (two of his all-time favourite albums are Robot Hive/Exodus and Blast Tyrant), so we were looking forward to just seeing them, never mind sharing the stage with them four nights in a row!
Do you have anything specific you’d like to say to the Clutch fans before next week?
We’ll have a Guinness… Haha no… Well yes, but on a more serious note we just want everyone to have a blast, enjoy some rock’n’roll and then come say hi to us after the show!
What’s next for Sons Of Icarus?
We recorded our album last year with producer Dan Weller (ex Sikth + the wizard behind some great albums by Enter Shikari, Young Guns, Jettblack & loads more) so we’re working on getting that released at the minute. Then hopefully loads of touring so we can get out there and show people what we’ve got!
Check out more on Sons Of Icarus here:
Sons of Icarus support Clutch on the following dates:
8th July 2013 – Waterfront, Norwich
9th July 2013 – Rock City, Nottingham
10th July 2013 – The Ritz, Manchester (please note this date moved from Manchester Academy II)
11th July 2013 – Forum, London
Check out another short Q&A with the other Clutch tour support General here.
Leave A Comment