UK tech metallers Sikth are heading to Australia for the very first time, as special guests of The Contortionist who are headlining the tour in May. SikTh are one of the Great British pioneers whom have shaped heavy music. The Watford mathcore sextet devised their own Morse code of metal – ultimately leading to the birth of the djent metal almost a decade later. With their latest album “The Future Is Whose Eyes?” released last year, there was much to talk about as we caught up with Mikee Goodman again to chat about the tour and more.
Steve: Hey Mikee it’s Steve calling from The Rockpit in Western Australia, how are you going?
Mikee: Good mate, really good!
Steve: So it’s with great delight and pleasure that we all found out here in Australia that you guys are heading down this way.
Mikee: Yeah it’s always a great pleasure for us to,o we’ve always wanted to go there you know what I mean?
Steve: Sure! When I spoke with you last year that was one of our keen topics I guess you could say, that you really wanted to come down and low and behold here it is.
Mikee: There you go man, that’s a trip! At that stage I wasn’t sure it was happening then we bought tickets and it’s like, ‘Oh cool let’s do it!’.
Steve: So I guess it goes without saying that you’re really looking forward to heading down this way?
Mikee: For sure man, it’s an amazing thing to be able to do like going to the other side of the world like Australia and get to play to fans and getting to play for people who appreciate it. It’s crazy that music can get so far, it’s great. I’m really really looking forward to it!
Steve: Awesome so when we last spoke the new album at that point had just dropped, how has the reception been so far? People seem to eat up your music and rightly so, how have the fans reacted?
Mikee: I don’t know, some fans have gone absolutely mental about the album and then a lot of people haven’t checked it out because we’ve had a change in line up that affected it a bit but the actual people who have given it a chance have gone it’s the best album, it’s amazing and all this stuff. So yeah if people give it a chance, they love it.
Steve: And do you think line up changes and things of that nature tend to scare people off?
Mikee: Yeah I think it can, I think when people like Justin Hill (vocalist) who is one of the voices even though he wasn’t a main writer, me and him were the voices then he left so it was me and Justin and now it’s me and this other guy they haven’t heard of and they really liked Justin’s thing so it might scare people off. I think if people give the album a chance I think they’ll dig it for what it is with the new sound because essentially the writing style hasn’t changed because I wrote it, the lyrics and the vocals anyway so that hasn’t changed. So the only thing that has changed is the other voice and people can appreciate, yeah they might like this about Justin’s voice. they might like that about Joe Rosser’s voice.
Steve: Yeah absolutely and bands do evolve. obviously line-up, sound and it’s to be expected these days.
Mikee: Yeah exactly right! If you asked people what would you prefer, us to break up because Justin’s gone or for us to carry on, pretty much all of them would say carry on so I say alright then, listen to it!
Steve: Sit back and enjoy the show.
Mikee: Yeah it doesn’t take that much logic to think about it, ‘Oh Ok’.
Steve: Sure so now the album has been out for a while, has your mind changed in terms of favourites to play?
Mikee: On the live front we haven’t been playing that many of the new songs. I’d really like to bring the track “Century Of A Narcissist” out to Australia for the first time, I’d really like to do that because we’ve done “The Aura”, “Golden Cufflinks” I don’t know if we’ve done any others actually? So we really should be playing more because we want to play things like “Weavers Of Woe”, “Century Of A Narcissist” but I’m not sure if we will because it’s so difficult for the musicians to play. So we have to see because also other people have other things on like Dan Weller is in America at the moment, he’s a producer and I’m a voiceover artist and casting director, some of the others have other bands. People are all over the place, always doing stuff do you know what I mean?
Steve: Absolutely it’s hard to bring everyone together to get a bit of a plan happening.
Mikee: Yeah sometimes it can be but I really hope we can play “Century Of A Narcissist” over there.
Steve: For the old school fans are you going to play stuff like “Bland Street Bloom”?
Mikee: Oh yeah and “Part Of The Friction” and songs like “Hold My Finger”, songs like that just give the fans a bit of everything off every release because we’ve never been to Australia so we’re going to have to show you all of it.
Steve: Great stuff and have you toured with The Contortionist before?
Mikee: No we didn’t tour with them but they all came to our show in Chicago, or maybe Oklahoma I think it was and we were like, ‘Thank you very much’ and I guested with Periphery. We were actually touring with Periphery, it was a day off, I was guesting with Periphery in London and they were at that show so I’d seen them about before and we chatted to them and met them and stuff so it should be a cool tour.
Steve: So through those chats the seed was planted?
Mikee: Yeah I think to be honest we have the same agent and he said would you guys like to tour together and it was like, ‘Yeah of course, sounds good’. A lot of things are often done behind the scenes, some bands are like, ‘Yeah we are good old mates’ but it’s the agent who is sorting it out. For example I tried to get Toothgrinder on our last UK tour or we are trying to sort out another Periphery tour but more often than not it’s the agent sorting who does this and that and then we are told do you want to do this or this, do you know what I mean? By the sound of it we have some fans in Australia.
Steve: Oh you sure do have some fans down here!
Mikee: Cool!
Steve: So I love to ask this question, what album has grabbed your attention of late? Anything obscure or maybe something the fans need to check out?
Mikee: We got played a band called All Them Witches the other day in the van, that was great! I’m doing my own band Sad Season, I’m buzzed about that. I don’t mind blowing my own trumpet about my own band (laughs), that’s sounding great but that one is a little way off. In terms of sound if you can imagine The Doors and The Velvet Underground gone really warped and even more psychedelic, it’s got a very original sound. It’s savage, it’s hypnotic so it’s well worth a listen but it’s going to be another few months yet, we are recording over summer.
Steve: So a bit of an exclusive then?
Mikee: Yeah mate. Oh and if you remember a band called Cyclefly, the vocalist Declan O’Shea has another band called Mako, really cool stuff.
Steve: Awesome I’ll check it out! Well it’s great speaking with you today, thanks so much for your time, really appreciate it.
Mikee: Not at all mate, thank you and we’ll see you all very soon!
Touring May 2018
Wednesday 2nd May – Brisbane, The Zoo
Thursday 3rd May – Melbourne, Max Watts
Friday 4th May – Sydney, Manning Bar
Saturday 5th May – Adelaide, The Gov
Sunday 6th May – Perth, Rosmount Hotel
Tickets: www.davidroywilliams.com/tours/the-contortionist-sikth/
