SoSoIt’s been all speed and no breaks this year for the Sydney party punk group, SoSo.
Forming in 2020 and releasing a number of singles and EPs since, the group comprises Rhys de Burgh on vocals, Christian Doyle on guitar, Harrison Zatschler on guitar, and Tom Doy on drums. Together, they’ve become unstoppable.
When frontman de Burgh sits down with The Music, he speaks about their debut album, So Much For Second Chances, their bid to be number one, and the relentless ride that is being an independent band.
As far as debut albums go, SoSo went for a not-so-typical marketing campaign that went viral with its call to action. The earnest, grassroots approach of asking their fans to help them reach the top of the charts was sweetened by offering low prices on their CD and vinyl album pre-orders, making down as much as 67% off to get them out the door.
The goal was to be the number one hit across the board – not just for Australian artist categories.
“It came from a place of feeling like we had to twist the arm of the industry to get a look in,” he explains. “And so we thought, if we’re going to do something, we need to do something outrageous. Because there is always going to be an excuse for why we’re overlooked.”
Despite falling just shy of their targeted position, their debut album landed at #1 Australian Artists Album, #2 Vinyl Album and #4 Album in Australia overall.
“We showed that an independent band, with no industry support and no major label backing, can kick it with the big international artists,” SoSo said at the time.
This shared goal between the Sydney outfit and their loyal fans (affectionately known as the SoSo Crew) easily reflects the connection between the two, with the band continuously crediting its fans for their success, and acknowledged that it was a great feat to pull it off.
“We have said it a couple of times on social media. We really do owe it all to them,” de Burgh says. “They really jumped on board with the pre-orders and really wanted to make it happen for us. We're only a band because of them. It's something that we always talk about; the SoSo crew is it.
“I don't think I personally could have done anything else. You know, we couldn't have worked any harder to really make it happen. So very happy and proud of where we kind of landed, absolutely,” de Burgh continued.
We joked that if music doesn’t work out, then de Burgh and the group would have a career in marketing and PR, and he admits that he has, in fact, been approached by other groups.
“Funnily enough, I am getting hit up by a lot of people going, ‘Can you do what you did for SoSo for our band?’ And I'm like, ‘Man, I almost killed myself for this.’ I don't know if I'm up for doing that again, even for us,” said de Burgh.
So Much For Second Chances, which was released in November, offering a diverse listening experience which de Burgh says is the result of the different music styles and tastes of bandmates, and their united belief that genres can be blurred and stylistic guardrails can be ignored.
For example, Friendzoned and Messed Up are such highly emotive songs, whereas Sentimental and Under My Skin have more of a fun, party vibe, and de Burgh says this album's duality was intentional.
“We just really wanted to show that we weren't a pop punk band,” he explains. “We've written pop punk over the past two EPs, and we've been trying to incorporate different sounds and start moving outside of that kind of space. And I don't want to be writing The Festival Song over and over again, that's our quintessential pop punk song.
“Everyone's like, ‘Yeah, I love this, it feels like, you know, it's back in the early 2000s’. And that's great, we did that. But like, let's show that we can write other stuff. We've all been in different bands. I've been in a death metal band with the drummer.
“I think we just wanted to say, ‘Hey, this is what might be coming in the future. Here's a taste of all the different kinds of aspects of what we might do and see how it was received,’” he adds. “And funnily enough, I don't think anyone cared that there were different genres.”
The group wrapped up their So Much For Second Chances tour, with five shows across Newcastle, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Adelaide, with the album dropping halfway through the tour. De Burgh admits that it’s always a treat to see fans singing along to your music, but the Adelaide show fell on the day that the album was dropped, and the SoSo Crew were already across the tracklist.
“That was new for us,” he admits. “We’ve seen it build up over time that we get off stage and we say, ‘Did you see there was a bunch of people singing and getting into it?’ Then this time around, it’s like ‘Wow, everyone is really, really into it and singing,’ which is brilliant.”
Something More is a beloved song that taps into something universally relatable – surviving the 9-5 grind and wishing for something more. They supercharge that relevance with the video clip being a take on Severance, with the group making their way through the bland, vast corridors as they try to make an escape.
Despite it being a well-worn feeling for many, de Burgh has put his money where his mouth is and left a career in law to pursue SoSo. Ironically, he told us that his work-life balance as a full-time artist is more hectic than his previous corporate life, but
“It was a very personal song for me to write lyrically, because that’s kind of what I was looking at,” he explains. “My job at the start of the year was a lawyer earning good money… but it’s very much the golden handcuffs thing, right?
“On the one hand, I need to earn the money to fund the band, but when you are working 55-60 hour weeks and have to turn around and work on the band. It’s tough.
“I think it resonated with a lot of people, that kind of idea of feeling like you're stuck in something, but there is something more out there,” he adds. “Something you wish you could be doing if you were tied to a desk.”
The SoSo Crew will not be waiting too long for new music, we think, with de Burgh admitting that writing a sophomore album is high on the priority list, which the SoSo Crew deserve. Country stans may also be delighted to know that the group has toyed around with a country album in the future the style of Marty Robbins.
SoSo’s So Much For Second Chances is out now.
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
