Sumo Cyco: A Rainbow In the Dark

Sometimes all you need is a little perspective. With the conjecture around metal attempting to find its place in the mainstream again at an all time high, perhaps there is no one better suited to give some lessons to the genre than Skye Sweetnam. As a transplant from the world of top 40 pop music (Sweetnam opened for Britney Spears on her 2004 tour), her metal band SUMO CYCO is an exciting flash of colour and joy in an often dour and black tinted metal world. And to her, that’s what metal has been missing. “I’m a bright person and I love rainbow colours and brightness, and I think we let the world know that heavy music doesn’t need to be dark,” says Sweetnam. “It can be fun and colourful and not every song has to be about doom and gloom. I think we can bring a lot more fun back to rock.”

And she’s not wrong. The last time rock and metal were mixing in the greater consciousness of society was in the early 2000’s, a time when some of the biggest metal bands weren’t afraid to be a bit more bombastic and lighthearted. SUMO CYCO follows in that tradition, with songs and videos showcasing Sweetnam‘s penchant for soaring hooks laced with attitude and a tapestry woven with a sense of fantasy and pure fun. It’s those hooks that are so important to Sweetnam. After all, they are directly tied into her past and woven into her DNA.

“There are definitely fans out there where hooks don’t matter as long as there are riffs going a million miles an hour and blast beats, which I totally respect, but for me, the hook is everything,” says Sweetnam. “Having people easily grab on to something you’ve done; that’s important and is embedded in me. it’s an instinct. I’ve done a lot of writing with so many amazing people, including Max Martin and I’ve learned writing hooks comes from so many different angles. For me, it’s all about letting my writing partner Matt [Drake, guitars] go crazy with as many riffs as he wants, and I’ll find a pop hook in there.”

For Sweetnam, coming from such an engrained world of sugary hooks and choruses has taught her a lot about the bridges between pop and metal and the lessons that the two worlds can teach each other and what each one can take away, especially in the area of showmanship and crafting a brand. “In the pop world, there is attention to detail in all areas. It’s about building that brand and caring about every aspect of how you present yourself,” she says. “The video aspect, imagery, theatrics. So many metal bands start based on music being the priority, and they don’t think as much about those other elements that they can bring to enhance the experience.”

But why did Sweetnam leave the pop world and go on to form SUMO CYCO in the first place? For her, metal represented a sense of freedom from when the constraints and scrutiny of pop stardom become too overbearing and stifling. “The people in the pop industry, there’s advice and control where everything is scrutinized,” she says. “I was attracted to rock because of the freedom. I could choose whatever record cover I want to put out. I once had a pop record of mine shown to nine year olds on 20/20 and they were giving feedback on it! It was all in the name of curating my brand. But in rock, you get tested by how hard you hit the road and how many years you can survive.”

The challenge was certainly daunting, and it was a difficult road carrying fans over from her pop career to her new band, which certainly in some ways lies on the complete other end of the spectrum. But Sweetnam is living proof that there are ways to win over fans of mainstream pop and get them to expand their palette. “Having fans that followed me from the pop world, I had to convince them about rock music, but I loved being a gateway drug for them.”

In fact, SUMO CYCO is a perfect example of the groundswell of newer artists like JERIS JOHNSON and POPPY that use the cross pollination of pop music and metal to draw in fans that would ordinarily shy away, and draw more attention to the rock and metal world from the eyes of the mainstream fans. “I’m one hundred percent in favour of crossing as many genres as possible,” explains Sweetnam. “Genre has always been a weird thing in the industry in the way everything is organised. I like more of the idea of mood. If I’m at the gym I want pump up music, and that doesn’t have to be all metal; I’ll play a pop song up against a metal song. When I was in Japan, I visited a radio station in Tokyo, and they invited me to make my own playlist. I asked what genre their station was, they said ‘Oh, we don’t have that.’ And that was a mind blowing moment for me.”

Some of the first thoughts after listening to the band’s new record Initiation will surely be pointed towards pieces of media like video games, whose colourful worlds and fantasy compare directly with the bouncing electronics and theatrical nature of Sweetnam‘s voice. In fact, all the band’s songs and music videos take place inside a world of Sweetnam‘s own imagination called Cyco City, a dystopian world full of crazy characters that represent different parts of her own psyche. But it’s not easy to create a whole fantasy world from scratch, and some of that inspiration comes from a most unexpected place.

“One of my favourite social media apps is Pinterest. If you dive into more of the artistic stuff there, there’s some wild stuff that gets in my mind and makes me view the world is a crazy, dystopian way,” she explains. “I’ll think of crazy things like someone with a tongue as long as a yardstick and combine that with environmental issues or emotions humans have against each other like jealousy or pride, and create that world in my mind which is Cyco City. It’s this mish-mash of my imagination and the realworld; a child like comic book fantasy universe where anything goes, and that’s where all our music videos take place.”

But Sweetnam‘s sense for theatricality and pop ethos hasn’t always drawn adoration from listeners, and though the genre brought freedom to her sense of creativity and expression, it also brought one of the most negative aspects that affects the entire genre. “Metal has more gatekeeping than any other genre, where other genres don’t find themselves seeping in,” she says. “I think it’s odd that when people criticize how I look or my theatrics, it must be that I lack the talent to write or my music is lacking if I’m not displaying some intricate riff.”

But in this decade, especially in the COVID-19 ridden world that we currently inhabit, there is more than enough room, and even a dire need, for colour and theatre in metal. SUMO CYCO frames the internal struggles of the band through the pandemic and combines it with a fantastical sense of danger, energy, and storytelling. For Sweetnam, certain songs on the record hit closer to home than others, despite the fun visuals and vocals. “Bystander and Bad News are two that really show obvious truths,” she says. “It’s easy to understand the frustration someone like me would feel being thrust into the COVID world. They’re very much about how I and the band have been coping with the pandemic. I went through a lot of confusion and helplessness about the future and how I was going to manage making ends meet. How much defeat do you feel versus how much you try to overcome. I was even doubting what my contribution to the world was when all this was going on.”

But that ship soon righted, as the positivity she imparts with her music became abundantly clear the more attention the band got from major outlets and fans alike. The band’s new record is the largest project they’ve tackled by far, but a band like this just doesn’t go away. They’ve got big plans for the future, and Sweetnam is here to stay; lending the wisdom of a former pop star to help guide the metal world into its next phase. But what are the biggest dreams for SUMO CYCO?

“I’ll take it pretty far,” Sweetnam laughs. “My first steps would be a story or graphic novel explaining the characters of Cyco City and how they relate to each other and what they mean to me. Like one character represents my depression, and another one is my family, or hope.” And if money was no object? “I would love a full blown movie and action figures and a theme park experience. I want someone to walk into a location that would be like you’ve been transported to Cyco City and the center of it would be a stage that would put on the most killer rock shows filled with stuff going wrong, like the ceiling lighting rig falling down in the middle. It would be amazing interactive theatre!”

But right now, it’s all about getting back on the road. And the band, like most out there, wants to take this show on the road. Only this show involves an imagination that contains the craziest world anyone can imagine. And if that sounds like something that can and should appeal to rock and metal fans out there, Sweetnam wants the world to know that the band’s future is in the hands of the audience.

“We’re in the investment stage of our band, which means that we’re putting a lot of time, energy, and money into this and we’re not guaranteed to get it returned to us. It’s a lot to put on the line. It’s never wracking to think about what happens if it doesn’t get in front of a lot of people, but we called this album Initiation to invite more people into our world and to try to get more people into our band. And I have hope. Having hope is important to my writing. My songs are mantras to myself to help me become the person I want to me. And that’s what SUMO CYCO is.”

Initiation is out now via Napalm Records.

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