Brooklyn-based purveyor of Post Punk 'Biker Psychedelia', Lord Sonny the Unifier, has announced the release of new full-length album, cheekily titled "America's Newest Hitmaker". Upon listening to LSTU's newest batch of well-crafted songs, each one paying homage to greats like The Clash, The Beatles and Motorhead while simultaneously looking to the future inspired by Viagra Boys, the Black Keys and QOTSA, this title hits the mark. Lord Sonny the Unifier's unique rock signature delivers unique psychedelic imagery with a distinct Brooklyn twist, utilizing alternative, post-punk, punk rock, hard rock, psychedelic and classic rock influences to create a cohesive whole. All in all, "America's Newest Hitmaker" is a triumphant, dynamic artistic statement brimming with punk rock swagger and charisma, from an artist who truly lives for it.
By Kamil Bobin
Discovered via Musosoup
Hey Lord Sonny The Unifier, super nice to have the chance to chat with you. What first got you into music?
Hey thanks for having me, I really appreciate the opportunity to chat.
I feel like I was born into it (though no one in my family, immediate or otherwise played music) - it does seem, in retrospect, beyond my conscious control. My mom brought me back a guitar from a trip she took to Mexico. I was 8. I started playing then. It was a fate or a destiny perhaps, or I guess I could have set it aside and never touched it but instead I never let it out of my hands. It was an absolute finger shredder tho, a torture device and I soon got a legit electric one, well, relatively legit, a Univox 335 copy. It had a whammy bar and fed back nicely when plugged into an amp. My teacher was an older Italian family friend maybe 70 years old who taught me how to play “Lady of Spain” and “Never on Sunday” I learned how to read music then. I had no idea you could play cool songs on the guitar. I was so young I thought, well this is it. It came natural to me and relatively easily but the teaching method was really old school. There was no you tube then so you didn’t know how to learn how to play anything! The music books were just a bunch of chords and the vocal melody. You had to listen over and over to vinyl or cassettes to figure out what was going on. I remember trying to figure out some Stones tunes and they just didn’t sound right, I just couldn’t get it exactly, It wasn’t until many years later I was told Keith used an open tuningZ1 What? Man, What an enlightening moment! I had no idea that was even an option. There was just no way to know! None of my friends knew. It was ancient times. I was also a fan of Zappa back then and I just could not figure out his guitar solos . It was again many years later I saw why, he was doing hammer ons! In the 70’s. While Eddie was still in diapers. Man, who knew about that! It’s kind of funny now but it was awful then -just couldn’t figure it out! Of course I never thought to find another teacher and ask them. Things were different and I had no money for that anyway. I was 10. I joined my first band at 12 and that’s when the love kicked in deep. Playing with others and hearing all the parts come together, that was true love. That train roared down those tracks and I was never getting off it! At that point I was playing out every weekend, parties, Church basements, fairs, anywhere. If I didn’t have a gig on the weekend I was miserable, all was lost, life was incomplete.
Coincidentally that Italian family friend guitar teacher also taught Brian Setzer. We grew up in the same part of New York. Now that guy can play! Maybe the teacher was just the right guy after all.
Are there any musicians who inspire you?
What qualities do you admire about them? There isn’t one or 10 or a hundred really there are thousands from all genres. They evolve into us as we evolve into them. That could happen on a daily basis or throughout a long life. Whatever part of our souls and whenever they are receptive to what the music is saying is the time those inner bells will ring. Hopefully we are open enough, sensitive enough to hear them throughout our life. It’s always fun to be surprised, being moved by music or a band or song we never would have suspected because they’d never struck us that way before. You may not have ever liked The Grateful Dead and then one day your saying, hey wait a minute…I never knew those guys did this thing.
Your latest track is 'Don't Be an Asshole'. Can you share with us the background of its creation and did any unusual things happen during its creation?
As far as writing any song, there are always 2 aspects to address: the lyrics and the music. For me, they never come together. As far as the lyrics, I was impress by an interactive dance performance I went to see in downtown Manhattan. The performance had the dancers performing on the same floor as the audience, an open setting, no stage. Before the show the stage manager came out and said, “Ok the dancers are going to be moving about all throughout the floor you’re on, so be aware of who’s moving about and where” etc etc. She went on for a while about safety and awareness, then she said, crossing both her arms across her chest in an X shape, bowing her head a little bit and said, “and.….don’t be an asshole” and I noted that and took it for a ride.
That’s the essence of our relationship with our fellow man…leave everyone the fuck alone. Have respect for what you might not understand and see it as a fluid expression of someone else’s right to be a freak, if they chose, and whatever freak story they want to tell is their right as a fellow traveler. If they’re not knowingly inflicting pain or suffering on anyone else leave them alone. If they are then tag them and put them away for a learning session on acceptance and the rights of freedoms in this world until they can prove how to do this human being thing properly (just kidding about the tagging part). I just finished writing a song called “We Applaud All The Freaks” we’ll see if to makes the cut on the next album.
It was a great show, that dance performance. I am very impressed by people who have ANY control over their bodies.
When writing the music I remember thinking very clearly that I found the cool opening guitar riff and thought OK that’s it but where do I go from here? In fact, that’s the challenge with every song - where do I go after this chord or riff? It’s got to go somewhere. This is where really great songwriters show us mortals how it’s done…in the extreme, listen to what Chopin did. His chord changes lead all over the world in a never ending journey of exploration and discovery. But back down to earth there’s Brian Wilson’s changes in so many songs on Pet Sounds for example. He found the perfect pop elements in those changes. Not that songs need chord changes but something has to change. Sly Stone has some great 2 chord songs, and that shit worked! “If you find the groove don’t leave the groove”- and that man found the groove! So I found a change and thought ok great I’ve got a chorus now and then thought, maybe I’ll make that the first chorus and they’ll be a second chorus as well trying to take it even further to another level of chorus, take things higher, further. You can hear that in a lot of Aretha Franklin songs she had a way of making everything sound like a chorus the verse the bridge the chorus the chorus vamp everything rocked, every change a hook. She just brought it 24/7 in a song.
Which skills have you gained that help you perform effectively as a musician?
Intentional, intense focus, hyper vigilant focus, monomania. Every artist needs to become Ahab, have one intent in life: Killing theThe White Whale. All battles, all storms, every tempest needs to be brushed aside as a minor inconvenience. It’s the only way to get to the heart of songwriting. Constant work, uninterrupted work. Everyone has their own creative process that allows the greatest results. Who’s gonna bring the fire and how does what you’re doing light the fire in another? No one knows. There’s Zeitgeist involved, the spirit of the times that certain artists tap into, but how is that knowable, repeatable, achievable? If Bowie wrote Space Oddity today would it resonate? We can only work at it relentlessly trying to capture the essence of the unknown and unknowable and hope the fire we bring to our art will light the fire in others.
One great way to train your brain to do this is to ride a motorcycle, but I don’t want to digress too far. The reason: One bad error and you’re dead. The rushing pavement 2 inches below your feet will help the brain to hyper focus. I advise everyone to ride a motorcycle. It will give you power. It will exhilarate the soul, and it brings many musical ideas as well.
Understanding our mistakes is very important as well and understanding them sooner than later. The main one for me is spending a lot of time writing songs that don’t punch you in the gut, that don’t light your brain on fire…but continuing to complete the song for the sake of “completion” No. Move on. Write a lot and don’t get attached to that song. Move on and then go back to it to complete it, fine tune it, produce it, add instrumentation and lyrics later. We won’t know a song is good until we wait and listen to it 2 months later and have written a few others in the meantime. Artists are deceived by their creation because we are creating magic, things appear from thin air and that is entrancing, enlightening, fascinating . Where did this come from? How? All of a sudden it’s here. Did I really do this? All those factors, those elements make us think, this is amazing, this is great, look at this, it’s just appeared wow. However, the creation itself might not actually be very good! We just don’t know it yet , we’re being deceived by the revelation itself. Sorry but it could be a really crappy tune… or a mediocre one and mediocrity will get you nowhere, and essentially, mediocrity ruins things for everyone else because now we’re inundated with an overflow of flotsam and jetsam from every wingnut with a computer spewing songs out into the water treatment plant for purification on Spotify. and the better tunes are floating amongst the turds.
What are your favorite musical genres, and are there any you dislike?
I think we have an innate, deeper, everlasting connection to the songs we heard as our brains were still in their actual, literal growing stage. As our cells grew, and we listened to those songs, the cell roots implanted these songs within them and they are still deeply embedded in those roots of our brain cells. In my case it’s mostly the rock classics, thankfully. Those the deep soul root stem cell songs we can’t deny but there’s also what we learn too later on, what we recognize as fire burners, soul shakers, mind rockers and every genre has them. What we all love are the songs that lift us and bring us to a place that’s extraordinarily human. profound humanity. Those songs are essentially saying, we can become greater. We can be lifted and this is how we do it through song. That is the goal of any artist and some bring it with such a profound jolt it’s incomprehensible as to how it was accomplished. Step into the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona or the Sistine Chapel or the Van Gogh Museum and you’ll see it. Hear Beethoven’s 9th and it’s in that incomprehensible grandeur (written when he was completely deaf) . It’s also in the smaller gems like Elmore James Rolling and Tumbling or Son House John the Revelator I hear it in The Music Machine’s Trouble and Ace of Spades by Lemmy of course . Iggy’s I Got a Right written in 1972 before we even connected the word Punk to any genre. Have got it. There are way too many to list, that list is endless and growing by the day, thankfully. Every genre has the ones who Bring It . Usually it’s the Iconoclasts , the lone wolves , the madmen, the ones who started without any seeming influence from any other, they were their own catalyst The Spacemen.
As far as disliking any particular genre, the issue is more: who is telling their own story, in a way that only they can tell it, express it, as powerfully and as honestly as they can, a story so unique no one else has told it or can possibly tell it in that way. And I don’t only mean lyrically I mean musically, artistically. Who is doing that? Anyone in any genre who is doing that is what we all love. If you’re starting from a place using a formulaic base, commonly used chord progressions, cliches and moon june soon lyrics. Please go off to another planet and sell your wares there You’re not welcome here. That’s what made the early 60’s and 70’s music so interesting. Up until that point you had the Rock and Roll, Rockabilly, and Blues chord cliches but the freaks started writing music and had to catalysts to jump from except what was erupting from their own domes and look what emerged…today w’re still using those tropes and progressions…For me I think the Punks and Post Punks up until the very early 80’s ended the era for Rock. It was taken over by the more virulent Rap and Hip Hop, rightly so, You really won’t hear a more Punk album than Ice Cubes Everything’s Corrupt from 2018. If you’re wondering what happened to Rock just listen to that album and you’ll get your answer.
I can say this, I had to sit through a “New Country” concert once (I won’t name the artist) It was at a Lollapalooza type show I got free tix to. I don’t know what that genre is really? It’s massive in the US. Is that country rock? country, soft rock? What’s with the 4 on the floor bass drum? That shit made me get inwardly violent I was so repulsed by the condescension, the patronising, the formulaic bamboozlement , the cheap, cute, “clever” lyrics. It was vile. Not one original, expansive notion was expressed not one unique moment, not one expression of soul. Those songs are mostly written in Nashville in conference rooms with 7 people in the room contributing they’re own chocolate chip idea of a “song” element meant to attract a listener enough to shove the entire cookie down their gob holes. A friend of mine has a songwriting workshop in Manhattan and I used to sit in on it for shits a giggles. I heard some of those Nashville writers say off the cuff the most anti-artistic things I’ve ever heard. For example, one week a guy comes in and states definitively “no more guitar solos, the station managers in Nashville radio are saying no more solos” Oh really? How about Fuck You. The next week, “no more bridges, bridges aren’t used anymore in Country music”. Someone was critiquing a song and he said maybe to expand the 2nd verse as it was only a half a verse and to tell the story with more depth the 2nd verse should be as long as the first, i.e: a full one, The guy responded, “ In Nashville second verses should be half verses now”. I was thinking, Man, imagine if Bob Dylan thought that? What kind of art are you guys making? What are you making and Why are you making it?I was never so repulsed in my life. Songwriting is serious business, it’s life or death. ask Joe Strummer , ask Eminem and the thousands of great artists who kill for their art to tell their story. If you just want to sell something please go make cookies, stop corroding music. If more than 3 people are credited to writing a song be very wary. Some Rap and Hip Hop tunes have over 13 credited writers and I love Rap and Hip Hop but damn, is someone getting a writing credit for writing a hi hat part? “Jimmy got the sandwiches let give him writing credit” How is that possible?
Sitting in the audience that day I was trying to think of a worse contemporary genre, because that “New Country” shit ain’t Hank Williams or Johnny Cash or George Jones Country…which is as soulful and great as any music ever written. I thought well, 80’s Hair Metal is pretty awful but this is worse by far. Sorry, but that shit gets my goat. I am very sensitive to music I guess….
What is the background of the music video? Where did the idea come from?
I thought a humorous juxtaposition of those 1950’s/60’s sci-fi cheese ball monsters harassing pretty actresses would be an effective visual to help highlight the reality of assholes. Attaching images to song lyrics is a tricky gambit, and it’s one that’s difficult to come out ahead of. Analogies work sometimes, bizarre disconnects can work too, as long as there’s some connection. It’s film making though and most musicians are not filmmakers….just as they’re probably not poets but are asked to write lyrics. Leonard Cohen’s we are not. You can have an all performance video, but that’s a bit boring and perhaps a cop out and anyway how many times can you do that? It’s also disrespecting the artistic expression of “film” to not use the expression of film as opposed to a documentary of the song creation (though that would probably be a recreation anyway) Narratives work best to keep the viewers eyes on the song longer which, if you check the YouTube analytics of videos is really upsetting : For mine it usually ranges from 30 to 1:20 seconds per view per song on average, disheartening indeed.
What are your long term goals?
I’d love to make enough money from Spotify to build a rocket and make it out of the atmosphere, at least once. It’s got to be a very special rocket that guarantees there will be no turbulence tho- I couldn’t stomach that.
What is it about music that makes you feel passionate?
The most interesting thing about music is it has no physical presence, it’s invisible and moving and this unknowingly enlivens us. The sound waves cannot be perceived except in extreme cases. Of all the arts we only need ears. We don’t have to be in a specific place we just have to be. This seems to give it an element of the spiritual. We don’t have to learn German to understand Wagner or Bach But we have to understand German to read Mann. We have to go to the Louvre to see Corot but we don’t to hear The Stranglers. It touches us by being invisible. I think this element makes it all the more profound. It taps our spirit directly like the spirit of anything enlightening, It’s from that part of the ether it connects us to the Spirit.
How do you feel the Internet has impacted the music business?
I try to think of the positive aspects of it all as the devil has already been let loose and he’s not going to be entombed back into the bowels of the inferno anytime soon. I’m a bit of an autodidact and a believer that we can, with our own will, bring what we want into our lives. As an artist, being dependable on others to create our work is hell. Unacceptable. Imagine needing to be signed to a label to get into the studio and have your work released? Even if you paid for your own recording and album try distributing that. Lots of costs and lots of PR. That is why I had my own recording studio from day one. So the idea that we can write and record music and put it out on the major platforms and by the miracle of the great Houdini have people find it and listen to it is in the positive column. It’s absolutely criminal that Spotify and all the other platforms pay virtually nothing to the artists. Where’s big government when you need em? It’s very interesting to look at the difference between Netflix and Spotify. Netflix has about 30% more subscribers but they are both the head honchos in their field and they both cost about the same per month per subscription. But Netflix spends a shit ton of money producing content and advertising and paying for the content they don’t produce etc. Spotify does Fuck all! We give them everything for free. Where’s all their subscription money going? Scam of the century. So, we’re either kissing the asses of record labels or handing over our free content to Spotify… we might have more of a chance of making money with a label tho…well, not anymore. Not if your music’s any good anyway.
What are your plans for the future?
After I return from my trip to the edge of the atmosphere. I want to continue to write music until I’ve written a song as great as (fill in the blank with your favorite song) Then I will feel a sense of accomplishment. Done!…until I hear another great song and think, “ Damn, I’ve got to write a song as great as that one….I KNOW I can do it if I just work hard enough at it.” Then I’ll start all over again.