| Sick Puppies |
| May 29, 2010 |
| Shim Moore, Emma Anzai, Mark Goodwin |
Katrina: How did you come up with the name for your band?
Shim: We had a long list of names when we were thinking of names, and it’s important to have a really cool name and I thought of one on a train to visit my dad. I
wasn’t living with him at the time and I thought of this name and I arrived at his place later and he said “I’ve got an idea for a band name. I’m reading a cool and it’s
called ‘Sick Puppy’, what do you think?” and I was like I just thought about that an hour ago. So I told the guys and they thought it was pretty cool.
Katrina: Who are your musical influences growing up and have they changed?
Emma: Silverchair would be one, they were the reason we joined a band. We went to Silverchair school and they’re an Australian band we listened to.
Mark: There’s a lot of music that influenced us, we’re all kind of the same.
Emma: Grunge music, Greenday, Rage Against The Machine.
Shim: They haven’t changed so much, we’ve evolved is the word.
Katrina: Which artist would you like to tour or work with?
Shim: We’ve played with a lot of them now. Silverchair and Incubus would be two bands that would be cool. Or Rage, we played with Tom Morello’s side project so we
haven’t played with Rage. We’ve played with lots of bands that we look up to and we’ve managed to do it that way. Lots we haven’t met yet so hopefully.
Katrina: How do you write your songs and where do you get your ideas from?
Shim: Songs get written lots of different ways. We have a web site called sickpuppiesworldcrew.net and we go on that site, it’s a dedicated fan site and we ask them
what kind of songs do they like, what song they do not like as much, what their favorite song s are basically and what you like about them and how come, why. And
we started getting into it and a lot of people have really valuable comments so we took a lot of that when we were writing the new record. Try and find a common
ground between what we were feeling and what the fans were feeling so it wasn’t like we’re writing just for them but kind of more for us and them not just one or
another, that was the main thing. A lot of it was on acoustic guitars and we knew how it was going to sound, and if the words were good, then we would make a song
out of it.
Katrina: What’s your favorite song to perform?
Emma: Probably “Odd One” because it’s actually our single right now, it’s got a good vibe so that’s my favorite.
Shim: I think that’s all of ours at the moment. Some people when you play other songs they kind of get down, when you play “Odd One” everyone seems to have a
smile on their face. I think a lot of people like it when we do our headline shows. We go to the merchandise after every show. There’s always at least one person that
says “I can’t believe you didn’t play (this) song” and I’m pretty sure a lot of people would be upset if we didn’t play it.
Katrina: What do you like to do to prepare for a show?
Shim: We all have different rituals.
Emma: I just like to stretch , it’s an energetic kind of show so I like to warm up. We don’t have any weird rituals or anything like that.
Shim: And I just do vocal warm-ups.
Katrina: What do you think makes a good live show?
Shim: Energy energy energy energy energy. Crowd participation and knowing what kind of crowd participation is needed is my job. I have to do the front-man thing
and figure out how much you need to talk and how much you need to interact or when to shut up and play the song. When I started I just to talk a lot, you get this
response like come on man just play the song. Then sometimes you don’t talk enough and you realize by the end of the set you could have had a more engaged set.
There could have been a couple more things you could have done as a front man. So finding that balance is important and keeping that energy for people who have
never heard us before, especially in Canada. This Nickelback tour is a lot like that, being able to break into here.
Katrina: What’s your favorite venue to play?
Emma: I really like the arenas oddly enough. There’s lots of people and it’s a huge place. It’s a bands dream to play them and to actually play this is pretty cool.
Shim: I like a little club, like with two or three thousand people in it, but it’s still contained. You have less seating and less seats on the side, it gets more crazy and
there’s more energy. I don’t think it’s the size it’s more the way it’s laid out like when there’s standing room only and it’s cramped that type of energy come out, instead
of people spaced out you kind of disconnect from each other. But when you have to get into it;, it elevates the whole show. Plus usually when we play two to three
thousand people it’s a headline show so it’s for selfish reasons, that’s not to say playing in front of ten-thousand people is not cool, it’s just a little more kinetic when
you’re playing smaller shows.
Katrina: What’s your most memorable moment?
Mark: There’s a lot.
Shim: The one that always comes to mind is when Amy Lee cam up and sang “Happy Birthday” at the beginning of the tour we did with Evanescence and it was really
unexpected and I wish I had know and was able to prepare for that moment. Once it was over I was just like wow. She came out with a cake and sand “Happy
Birthday”, it was really cool. I was a huge Evanescence fan, I had a big crush on her when I was a kid. That was memorable for sure.
Mark: The first show we did on the Big Day Out tour was pretty cool.
Shim: Big Day Out is the biggest festival in Australia. There was a lot of people , it was our first tour we did instead of just playing a show here or playing a show
there. IT was our first festival tour that is one of the biggest in the world. We were on the main stage.
Katrina: Have you noticed a difference in fans throughout the world in what songs they want to hear?
Mark: Oddly enough Australia and Canada are markets we don’t go to enough.
Shim: We’ve only come to Canada, this is our second time so it’s not about the songs it’s more how many times you’ve been to Canada.
Katrina: What is one song you wish you wrote?
Shim: (To Mark) You probably would say “Imagine” because it makes the most money. I thin you’re going to pick something by the Foo Fighters. There are two songs
I personally love and they’re not rock songs, they’re ballads. “Drops Of Jupiter” by Train and the other one would be the John Mayer song “Say What You Need To
Say”. They’re just fucking great songs.
Mark: I wish I wrote “Bohemian Rhapsody”.
Shim: “Bohemian Rhapsody” would be very cool.
Emma: I don’t know, there’s so many. “Photograph” by Nickelback, or “Far Away”.
Shim: Or that other song that goes “And I think to myself, what a wonderful world”, they play it on the radio all the time it’s a classic classic song. It’s a song that can
get you out of a depression. And that’s why we like “Odd One” a lot because that’s probably the closest to writing a song like that. It’s a message song that’s
designed to get you out of a funk. Like the chorus is “Hey, it’s going to be ok” and it’s really simple. Usually the best songs are the simple ones. Like that John Mayer
song “Say What You Need To Say”, when you keep hearing it over and over again you get the message to get it off your chest, whatever you need to say or do. Just
like “Hey, it’s going to be ok”. Especially a lot of kids because fourteen to eighteen it can be fucked up and everything is going wrong so you listen to something like
that over and over again, it gets you out of those days.
Shim: We had a long list of names when we were thinking of names, and it’s important to have a really cool name and I thought of one on a train to visit my dad. I
wasn’t living with him at the time and I thought of this name and I arrived at his place later and he said “I’ve got an idea for a band name. I’m reading a cool and it’s
called ‘Sick Puppy’, what do you think?” and I was like I just thought about that an hour ago. So I told the guys and they thought it was pretty cool.
Katrina: Who are your musical influences growing up and have they changed?
Emma: Silverchair would be one, they were the reason we joined a band. We went to Silverchair school and they’re an Australian band we listened to.
Mark: There’s a lot of music that influenced us, we’re all kind of the same.
Emma: Grunge music, Greenday, Rage Against The Machine.
Shim: They haven’t changed so much, we’ve evolved is the word.
Katrina: Which artist would you like to tour or work with?
Shim: We’ve played with a lot of them now. Silverchair and Incubus would be two bands that would be cool. Or Rage, we played with Tom Morello’s side project so we
haven’t played with Rage. We’ve played with lots of bands that we look up to and we’ve managed to do it that way. Lots we haven’t met yet so hopefully.
Katrina: How do you write your songs and where do you get your ideas from?
Shim: Songs get written lots of different ways. We have a web site called sickpuppiesworldcrew.net and we go on that site, it’s a dedicated fan site and we ask them
what kind of songs do they like, what song they do not like as much, what their favorite song s are basically and what you like about them and how come, why. And
we started getting into it and a lot of people have really valuable comments so we took a lot of that when we were writing the new record. Try and find a common
ground between what we were feeling and what the fans were feeling so it wasn’t like we’re writing just for them but kind of more for us and them not just one or
another, that was the main thing. A lot of it was on acoustic guitars and we knew how it was going to sound, and if the words were good, then we would make a song
out of it.
Katrina: What’s your favorite song to perform?
Emma: Probably “Odd One” because it’s actually our single right now, it’s got a good vibe so that’s my favorite.
Shim: I think that’s all of ours at the moment. Some people when you play other songs they kind of get down, when you play “Odd One” everyone seems to have a
smile on their face. I think a lot of people like it when we do our headline shows. We go to the merchandise after every show. There’s always at least one person that
says “I can’t believe you didn’t play (this) song” and I’m pretty sure a lot of people would be upset if we didn’t play it.
Katrina: What do you like to do to prepare for a show?
Shim: We all have different rituals.
Emma: I just like to stretch , it’s an energetic kind of show so I like to warm up. We don’t have any weird rituals or anything like that.
Shim: And I just do vocal warm-ups.
Katrina: What do you think makes a good live show?
Shim: Energy energy energy energy energy. Crowd participation and knowing what kind of crowd participation is needed is my job. I have to do the front-man thing
and figure out how much you need to talk and how much you need to interact or when to shut up and play the song. When I started I just to talk a lot, you get this
response like come on man just play the song. Then sometimes you don’t talk enough and you realize by the end of the set you could have had a more engaged set.
There could have been a couple more things you could have done as a front man. So finding that balance is important and keeping that energy for people who have
never heard us before, especially in Canada. This Nickelback tour is a lot like that, being able to break into here.
Katrina: What’s your favorite venue to play?
Emma: I really like the arenas oddly enough. There’s lots of people and it’s a huge place. It’s a bands dream to play them and to actually play this is pretty cool.
Shim: I like a little club, like with two or three thousand people in it, but it’s still contained. You have less seating and less seats on the side, it gets more crazy and
there’s more energy. I don’t think it’s the size it’s more the way it’s laid out like when there’s standing room only and it’s cramped that type of energy come out, instead
of people spaced out you kind of disconnect from each other. But when you have to get into it;, it elevates the whole show. Plus usually when we play two to three
thousand people it’s a headline show so it’s for selfish reasons, that’s not to say playing in front of ten-thousand people is not cool, it’s just a little more kinetic when
you’re playing smaller shows.
Katrina: What’s your most memorable moment?
Mark: There’s a lot.
Shim: The one that always comes to mind is when Amy Lee cam up and sang “Happy Birthday” at the beginning of the tour we did with Evanescence and it was really
unexpected and I wish I had know and was able to prepare for that moment. Once it was over I was just like wow. She came out with a cake and sand “Happy
Birthday”, it was really cool. I was a huge Evanescence fan, I had a big crush on her when I was a kid. That was memorable for sure.
Mark: The first show we did on the Big Day Out tour was pretty cool.
Shim: Big Day Out is the biggest festival in Australia. There was a lot of people , it was our first tour we did instead of just playing a show here or playing a show
there. IT was our first festival tour that is one of the biggest in the world. We were on the main stage.
Katrina: Have you noticed a difference in fans throughout the world in what songs they want to hear?
Mark: Oddly enough Australia and Canada are markets we don’t go to enough.
Shim: We’ve only come to Canada, this is our second time so it’s not about the songs it’s more how many times you’ve been to Canada.
Katrina: What is one song you wish you wrote?
Shim: (To Mark) You probably would say “Imagine” because it makes the most money. I thin you’re going to pick something by the Foo Fighters. There are two songs
I personally love and they’re not rock songs, they’re ballads. “Drops Of Jupiter” by Train and the other one would be the John Mayer song “Say What You Need To
Say”. They’re just fucking great songs.
Mark: I wish I wrote “Bohemian Rhapsody”.
Shim: “Bohemian Rhapsody” would be very cool.
Emma: I don’t know, there’s so many. “Photograph” by Nickelback, or “Far Away”.
Shim: Or that other song that goes “And I think to myself, what a wonderful world”, they play it on the radio all the time it’s a classic classic song. It’s a song that can
get you out of a depression. And that’s why we like “Odd One” a lot because that’s probably the closest to writing a song like that. It’s a message song that’s
designed to get you out of a funk. Like the chorus is “Hey, it’s going to be ok” and it’s really simple. Usually the best songs are the simple ones. Like that John Mayer
song “Say What You Need To Say”, when you keep hearing it over and over again you get the message to get it off your chest, whatever you need to say or do. Just
like “Hey, it’s going to be ok”. Especially a lot of kids because fourteen to eighteen it can be fucked up and everything is going wrong so you listen to something like
that over and over again, it gets you out of those days.
