How did you all come together?

Basically, myself, Paul Barnes (AKA Barney Boom) the drummer (Neil McMinn AKA Madfish) and the singer (Laila Khan AKA Laila K) have known each other since school. We played in bands, learned our instruments and music together and since then people have come on board. This line-up (with the addition of James Routh (AKA Jimmy T Boom) and Nick Horne (AKA The Blade) has been together for nearly three years now its definitely the most solid and best line-up we’ve had.

Who are your musical influences?

Well when we got together we were really inspired by The Clash and the way they took punk rock and other genres that were about at the time.

Other bands that really influenced us were the Specials, Streets and The Prodigy.

There’s only five of you so why are you called Sonic Boom Six?

Sonic Boom Five sounds rubbish!

Six is just way snappier! It sounds like superheroes and we think of ourselves as superheroes and we act like ones as well. It’s a talking point and breaks the ice at parties.

It’s a bit like Blake’s 7 – there weren’t always 7 of them!

And that’s another one of our influences Blake’s 7, in fact the entire sci-fi genre.

The sci-fi influence comes through a lot on your new video Virus that has already amassed over 172,350 hits on YouTube

One thing we didn’t want to do with the video was spell out the lyrics. The lyrics have got a real message to them but with the video we got Jesse Davey to direct it.

We said to him just make it look as exciting and cool as you can rather than do a video that puts across the lyrics. A video is a visual medium in itself, shallow and commercial.

We decided on shallow and commercial and look cool.

What can people expect from your live performances?

Well it’s like a cross between Rage Against The Machine and Aqua live on stage and we’re firing live rounds of music out at the crowd and none of them have got bulletproof vests!

And plans for the future?

Onwards and upwards. Next year we’re going on tour with a band called The Blackout. We’ve got a lot of stuff in the pipeline but one thing is we’re going to go to America in March and promote our new album.

Keep in touch with Sonic Boom Six online:

  • sonicboomsix.co.uk
  • twitter.com/sonicboomsix