After blasting onto our radar in 2020 with a fierce and fiery passion, SoSo has quickly been etching their mark on the scene - with a unique take on the much loved Australian pop-punk sound. Whether it be through their enriching attitude or unique perspectives, there is something you have to love about this band and their refreshing set of tunes. Marking yet another milestone since their emergence, SoSo has released their debut EP, ‘I Wouldn't Call This Success… But It's Close Enough’- a collection of both past and future hits that not only offers a dynamic glimpse into the band but propels them among some of our most loved pop-punk acts.
Reintroducing some of our favorite hits, the EP finds a home for ‘The Henry Lawson Jive’, ‘Sky Writer’, ‘Yeah Nah’ and ‘(Shit) Love Story’. Bringing a sense of comfort within this new journey, these tracks, although known to us, stand out in their own right within the EP. Constructing the foundations of the band to this day, these tracks navigate us through the progression of sound, style and in turn, create a story to share not only in terms of the EP, but SoSo themselves! With ‘Jive’ opening and ‘Love Story’ closing, they characterize the EP as a warm hug from the past wrapping its arms around the future hits of the band- oozing all their experience and lessons outward.
Found right in the center of this bold body of work are the two latest tracks, ‘Wasted Time’ and ‘The Great Escape’. Released as the final teaser to the EP, ‘The Great Escape’ is an anthemic pursuit of finally reaching that goal- giving the impossible all you've got. With an infectious and layered chorus, and verses that fluctuate in their tempo, ‘The Great Escape’ is a song with unmissable energy, vigor, and a thirst for courage that leaps from the track, filling you with a sense of warmth. Empowering and reflective, ‘The Great Escape’ shows that even with uncertainty, you can always take that final leap. Our other fresh take comes in the form of ‘Wasted Time’, a track that immediately launches you into a new stratosphere of SoSo sound. Packed to the brim with honesty and vulnerability, and constructed with a sincerity brought by strong self-awareness, ‘Wasted Time’ is not only an emotional journey but is perhaps the pinnacle of SoSo’s honest and personal storytelling capabilities.
Enriched with honesty and submerged in their unapologetic style, SoSo has asserted themselves as not only great storytellers but pioneers of the new Aussie pop-punk sound. Their debut EP ‘I Wouldn't Call This Success… But It’s Close Enough’ has already worn out our repeat button, so to take a break, we thought we’d have a chat with the band about all things ‘Offensively Average’.
Why did you decide to go down the staggered EP route? (releasing the songs as singles one by one, then finally releasing the singles as an EP collection at the end).
To be honest, we really feel like each of the songs is a standout single. I don’t think any of the songs on the EP are filler, so it made sense to give each of them an opportunity to breathe and succeed on their own. It’s nice to build the SoSo narrative song by song too, to show different facets of the band, piece by piece.
The EP cover is really fun to look at and is obviously a collection of personal memories! Do the images show some of the moments that led up to the EP and if so, which one of these moments or experiences can you recount most fondly?
Firstly – a big shout out to our legend of a photographer/videographer Pete O’Dowd of MegamediaTV for creating this artwork. I had to express post him some polaroids (thanks lockdown) and just hope he’d do his usual thing and make something bloody brilliant out of it. Ya know, of course, he managed it! What a legend!
The photos themselves were mostly either taken either at our share house, The Shit Shack, or in the studio (whilst we were recording EP#2 actually). That centerpiece photo of my mate passed out is actually from a pretty raucous Shit Shack party back in mid-2018. He’s been one of my closest mates since high school and is actually ‘that mate’ that’s referred to in the 2nd verse of ‘The Henry Lawson Jive’. He was the first of our group to have kids, and just that dichotomy of him being a great family man but also an absolute party animal (as the photo shows) is just hilarious to us. If that’s not success, what is?
Was there anything you learned from your previous releases that changed the trajectory of the EP, or is it a body of work that continues to follow no rules and knows no creative bounds (which would be very SoSo of you)!
We’re constantly learning and trying to become better songwriters, so the lessons we’ve learned from EP#1 have made their mark on EP#2. Honestly, we write our demos and we’re often saying to one another ‘reckon Stevie’s gonna dig this one when we bring it in and show him?’. We try and get the demos up to such a level that big Stivvs is not only impressed, but able to reaaaallly spend time fine-tuning it. That’s kinda the high bar we try to set for ourselves.
It’s crazy, but we actually recorded ‘I Wouldn’t Call This Success…’ back in April/May of 2019 and had it mixed and mastered by December 2019. We spent a lot of time practicing and getting tight and timed it all perfectly by launching the band in March 2020, straight into a global pandemic…hahaha. Such is life.
After all the processes of writing, recording, finalizing, what has emerged as your personal favourite track of the EP and why?
Geez, tough call. I’m gonna go with ‘The Henry Lawson Jive’ and ‘Skywriter’. I have this really deep connection with The Jive, it’s a really sad song in a lot of ways. It’s about conceding that your teenage years are gone and those days of naivety and young dumb fun are behind you. It’s kinda like ‘okay, life’s a bit more of a mess now, but there’s some solace in keeping my mates close by’.
‘Skywriter’ is just the most raw and honest I’ve ever been in a song, plus it’s an absolute belter to sing and it’s just….different. Unique in a lot of ways, I think.
The 'Stacked As' tour also coincides with this release! How much have you been missing live shows and what can we expect to see at the gigs?
The ‘Stacked As’ tour is our absolute baby and we’re SO keen for these shows. What have we been missing most about live shows? Well, we’ve all been in bands previously but all of us agree – there’s something that hits VERY different about getting on stage with SoSo. Me personally, it’s way more of a kick than anything else I’ve ever experienced. It makes me do dumb shit, like blow out my voice in 2 songs and stupidly jump onto tables and break myself (lol what a way to start off your first headlining show). It’s definitely a high that we’re all gonna keep chasing now.
Expect to see us play ‘I Wouldn’t Call This Success….’ in full and probably 5 outta the 6 songs off EP#2. Yep, seriously.
Apart from the already incredible bill of the tour above, what would be your dream lineup for a show?
Can we be outlandish here and say that we’d love to do a cross-genre thing with like, a couple of huge names and go for:
blink-182
Ice Cube
Tears for Fears
SoSo
I mean, I think we’ve got all bases covered with a lineup like that, right? Hahaha
The lead single came out on Friday! What stood out to you about this track?
‘The Great Escape’ is an illustration of where the band was at. H, Chris and I killed off our previous prog-rock band to start SoSo. We weren’t getting what we wanted from the old band, so after writing a pop-punk tune for a bit of fun and absolutely digging it, we decided to change lanes and give a new band (SoSo) a crack. That was risky as all hell, as we had built at least SOMETHING out of the old band, and even have an unreleased EP we did with Stevie Knight with the old band. Anyway – ‘check this, we still wanna make it’, or something like that….
In one sentence, describe the EP / what we should expect of the EP.
Parental Advisory – Offensively Average Content.
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