The Sonic Dawn's new album is a graceful psych-rock odyssey. Drummer Jonas Waaben talks songs, sound and vision with Duncan Fletcher
“A lot of the album is about the end of the world, the idea that everything is coming to an end, we're fucked with the climate crisis, there won't be enough food around in a few generations, all those doomsday ideas which have a rational foundation,” says Jonas of 'Forever 1969', the lead single from The Sonic Dawn's new album Eclipse. “But change on a major level is possible if people come together. In 1969 you had Woodstock, also the largest peace marches against the Vietnam War, all that stuff. It's possible to turn the shit around, that's the message of the song.”
Drummer Jonas along with childhood friends Emil Bureau (vocals/guitar) and Niels 'Bird' Fuglede (bass) formed the band in Copenhagen in 2013. Eclipse is their third album, one which focuses on the art of the song. “We tried to really sharpen the concept for each song, make it sharp and shorter. On the previous albums we definitely had longer escapades whereas here we tried to go where we wanted to go immediately... Eclipse is in a way back to the roots of our own inspiration, a lot of that is sixties music. We admire that strange combination of a short, three-minute pop format song that can be trippy as fuck!”
The influences of The 13th Floor Elevators, Red Krayola, Country Joe & The Fish and more can all be heard on the album. Another defining feature is its subtlety and grace, achieved in part due to the tastes shared with producer Thomas Vang. “We tried to accomplish something far removed from a stadium rock sound or a modern, hard-hitting, bass-driven rock sound. It's much easier to work with someone like Thomas, he's a trained jazz musician and has produced a lot of jazz records out of his studio. He has a much better natural feel for how the group sounds in the room and how to capture that. Then we will try to push it further production-wise - 'hey man we need way more echo here' or 'it needs to get crazier.' But a good natural sound for the drums, he has an ear for that.”
The band are hitting the road hard in 2019 but a word of warning to anyone who hitches a lift with the trio - “If we see a hitch-hiker we will pick them up and continue playing stuff like Trout Mask Replica or Red Krayola or Beat Of The Earth. Just insane music and nobody will say anything. The hitch-hiker will just sit there frozen - 'who are these maniacs!?' haha! It's a very delicate form of torture, one that I take great pleasure in I must admit!”
Eclipse is out on February 1st on Heavy Psych Sounds
Click here for The Sonic Dawn's website.
Click here for Heavy Psych Sounds Records.
The Sonic Dawn are :-
Jonas Waaben – drums
Emil Bureau – Vox/guitar
Niels 'Bird' Fuglede- bass
(Click over the jump to read the full unpublished interview)
