HARD NOISE: SONS OF APOLLO // How To Polish A Record In Ten Days

At the start of October, the newly founded Sons of Apollo kicked in the doors of the heavy music community, strutting straight up to the bar and stylishly ordering—nay, demanding—a shot of something top-shelf.

This wasn’t only due to the fact that Sons of Apollo is comprised of former Dream Theater members, including Mike Portnoy, and Derek Sherinian, former Journey frontman Jeff Scott Soto, and former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Bumblefoot. It was also due to the fact that the debut album was goddamn awesome.

The release was modern-day rock, empowered and enlightened by an old soul. The debut album, Psychotic Symphony, bears all the marks of a classic release, leaving the band so pleased with their sound that they’re going full speed ahead with their new project. Following the release, we spoke to Derek to learn more about how it all came together.

HYSTERIA: How is the reaction so far?

DEREK: I think so far, it’s been five days, and people are freaking out. The buzz is overwhelming, worldwide. I mean, we can feel it online at all the socials. The record company are calling us daily with great reports of pre-sales and everything, and we’re looking forward to seeing what our first weeks numbers are, but we are all confident that this is gonna be a great success, and it’s gonna be a lot of people that come see this band live.

Hell yeah. You touched on the sales thing there, and where the numbers are at. I was really interested to know, when I was reading up on this, about the project from the announcement, what mark of success would you guys be looking for with this release. If people come to shows? If they know the words?

I mean, the main thing is you have to make a great record. Without that everything just kind of peters out, and dies a quick death. If the record’s buzzing and resonating with the people, that warrants a worldwide tour, we believe that if we stay out there and grind it out long enough, that the fans are gonna build up greatly in every city, and it’s just gonna get bigger and bigger. There’s not a band out there that does what we do, and that plays as good as we do, and has the pedigree. We’re filling a huge void in the rock world right now. There’s no new bands doing what we do.

I hate to be objective about your work back to you, but my takeaway from Sons of Apollo is that it’s modern music. It’s modern, it could have been released by a brand new band and still be very much of this time and age, but it’s got this kind of, I guess, spirit about it; this kind of energy that’s just timeless. What’s it like when you have seasoned veterans in the studio?

I mean, there’s different processes for every band. We knew that we had ten days together in the studio to write and record, so knowing that, I had three months in advance where I was just writing and accumulating riffs, and song ideas, and starting points, and Bumblefoot was doing the same thing. We were sending stuff back-and-forth. Then when we got in the studio, we would just listen to everything, and see what was resonating, and if we were banging out, and we’re all going, “Fuck, this is great!” Then we would learn those sections that were demoed out, and then we would expand on it, and write the solo sections, and just kind of construct the song-form, then go to the next song.

That’s how we did it. We just went song by song. There was one song that I brought in that I was the sole writer of, and that’s God of the Sun, which opens up the record. It’s a trilogy, and when I first sent that to Mike, he goes, “This is amazing.” He goes, “Just leave this as it is.” He goes, “This is going to be the album opener.” I go, “Mike, we haven’t even written the rest of the record yet.” He goes, “Trust me, this is going to open it.” I go, “Okay, whatever you say.”

We just all believe in Sons of Apollo to the point where we cleared our schedules for 2018 before we commit on doing the work that’s necessary to make this band a success. That’s how much we believe in it.
[DEREK]

Whatever you say, Mike. Whatever you say.

He was right. It opens up the record amazingly, so I thought that was a good call. I thought it was very courageous, too, to open up a record for a debut band, with an 11 minute song.

As a fan, hile a three and a half minute, four and a half minute track might be easier for us, every time we come across an 11 minute track, we’re suckers for it.

I’ll tell you this. We don’t write long songs just for the sake of writing long songs. We feel the song is the song, and if it’s three minutes, or if it’s 18 minutes, you have to let the song write itself. Some things are a little bit shorter. That doesn’t mean that we’re being commercial or whatever. Some things are not gonna have unison lines, or odd time signatures. Some things are gonna be straight, and some things are gonna be out of this fucking world, like Opus Maximus, the instrumental on this last record. Tell me that that’s not, you know, pretty sick.

Considering the experience you guys all have writing music and releasing albums, what was it like doing it with this particular record, with all these peers and contemporaries around you? Did you find yourself getting kind of nostalgic and thinking back to some of the previous albums, and thinking about how different things were?

We didn’t think like that at all. We had ten days to write and put a record together, so we were full speed ahead and we’re having to make crucial song-form decisions and harmonic decisions then, in the studio before moving on to the next thing. So it was very concentrated. It was interesting in that I had only met Bumblefoot on the first day in the studio.

Oh wow.

Imagine that. So, I mean, right away I knew that there was a chemistry there creatively, ’cause he was just very easy to get along with, and his facility on his instrument is just insane. It’s freakish how good he is. But we just connected with him right away, and it was just a very exciting, intense, ten days.

It does seem like you guys get along really, really well. I’m sure you’ve crossed paths many times over the years, but watching some of the videos of you guys just kind of chatting, you can’t really bullshit that kind of friendship.

Mike and I are the co-founders of this, and when we put this band together, we knew for sure that Billy Sheehan was our choice for the bass, because he’s just one of a kind, and who else would be able to do this gig? So then the next step, Mike brought in Bumblefoot, and Jeff Scott Soto. I’ve known Jeff for many years as an acquaintance, and Mike had played had Bumblefoot, and Mike knew Jeff as well. So we all have history together in different capacities, so when we brought those guys in and they fit so well in to the music. We just all have a common goal and mission that we’re on. We just all believe in Sons of Apollo to the point where we cleared our schedules for 2018 before we commit on doing the work that’s necessary to make this band a success. That’s how much we believe in it.

What does the future hold for Sons of Apollo?

The world tour is being booked as we speak. We should be announcing within the next couple of weeks. You can follow us at sonsofapollo.com, also Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and we will travel around the world, maybe twice. Hopefully twice! We want to bring this music to the people. We know that we have fans all around the world. We see it, we feel it every day, and you will see us. We will come down under, in 2018, absolutely.