Review Fix Exclusive: Sunshine Riot’s Johnny O Talks ‘Interstate’ And More

Review Fix chats with Sunshine Riot’s Johnny O, who discusses the band’s new single, “Interstate,” as well as the band’s origin, goals for the future and creative process.

Review Fix: How did the band get together?

Johnny O: It’s a weird and long story of drinking, throwing up, throwing things, screaming at one another and getting into fist fights, and that’s literally just elementary school. Jeff and I first met in second grade and started making music together in eighth grade. After being terrible for a long time, we formed Sunshine Riot with friends in 2007, where we improved, but only slightly.

After several substitutions, we met Mark Tetrault, who is now our current guitarist since 2011, after which the music improved dramatically. In 2011 we also met Carl Smitty Smooth, who sings with us when he can, and it’s been amazing Steve joined in 2016, and again, the music got amazingly better. Steve was a huge part of this album, which is kind of like his welcome to the band party, honestly.

Review Fix: How did you get involved in music?

Johnny O: Mark first got into music through the punk and hardcore scene but has become a huge follower of the Delta Blues. Steve has been involved in music since he can remember. Steve loves Queens of the Stone Age, and that’s why we love him like a mother brother.

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Johnny O: A person comes to practice with a riff or a tune or an idea and we all explore where it could go together. Anything has potential, but when we all get into the nuts and bolts of it, that’s where the song itself finds a voice. It becomes a living thing, and we just try to water it and feed it fertilizer and other shit. Our songs have always grown with us, and by the way the writing process never stops. It just keeps going.

Review Fix:
What inspires you?

Johnny O: At first, it was the idea of trying to make it big, like kind of a kid’s idea of what the music industry is like. But then the music became something we were proud of and with each successive song we wrote, whether we put it on an album or not, inspired us to keep going. We became our own inspiration. We’ve rewritten songs for that reason too, because if it’s good, can it be better? No, is usually the answer but we try anyway.

Review Fix: Why is “Interstate” a special track?

Johnny O: It’s fun to play and people seem to move to it, and no one person seems to agree to a genre on it. The lyrics are simple but can be striking if they hit you in the right mood, and the dynamics in the song are pretty complex and it was really run to write.

It’s also heavy, got a cool beat and you can slamdance to it.


Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you?

Johnny O: I would describe it phonetically at first, and try to sing each part of one of the songs individually and then say, just imagine all those parts together. If that doesn’t work, I would say we sound like something you’ve heard before, but you can’t really say what, but you know you might’ve heard it in the 90s. We take a lot from the 90s, but we use any tool we think sounds good from whatever generation

Review Fix: How are your live shows different from your studio work?

Johnny O: We don’t ever really do a song exactly the same. You know, if you stop developing a song for the live show it just kind of dies, it’s not a living thing anymore. It’s set in stone and it stays that way forever. We try to do them a little differently, where people will recognize the song, but might notice some variation somewhere. It keeps it interesting. Also we do a lot less swearing in our studio work.


Review Fix: What are your goals for the rest of 2018?

Johnny O: Not dying.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Johnny O: Tour. Pulling hair, gnashing of teeth, poking of eyeballs, going insane and trying not to get alcohol poisoning.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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