Sanny Veloo

Interview With Sanny Veloo

SBS:  Welcome to our pages!  Whether you’ve been here with us in some way before, or you’re brand-new to the site, it’s probably best to get an introduction from you so that we get everyone on the same page to start.  Tell us a little bit about the history of your music, and what’s happening with it lately!?!

Sanny Veloo:  Sure thing mate!  And good to hear from you again Jer.  I’m a Singapore-born-Australian, Melbourne-based rocker who’s been through bans, breakups, busted bones — and somehow turned all that chaos into anthems for the bold, broken and unbreakable!  I started out fronting a punk band in Singapore that literally got banned by the government, then moved to Melbourne and hit the road with my bands The SUNS and EMPRA, touring across Australia, the US, and Southeast Asia.  I’ve shared stages with Fall Out Boy, Weezer, and G-Flip, and even got to collaborate with Gotye!

After a massive 55-date USA college tour, I took a break from music to care for my late father.  I came back with “A Brighter Tomorrow” — a big, hopeful anthem that landed me a spot in the International Songwriting Competition and packed out the legendary Espy here in Melbourne and sold out my first international show as a solo artist in Singapore.  Now I’m back with the 2nd single from my forthcoming album, “Warning Signs” — a savage breakup anthem for the swipe generation, all groovy and gritty guitar riffs, stadium-sized choruses, savage lyrics, and a Van Halen-inspired solo that basically screams “I’m done with your bullshit & drama.”  I’m really excited about it and have a single launch show at Bergy Bandroom in Melbourne coming up on Sat 31 May.  You’ll be able to watch it on my Instagram Live if you’re up during 10pm Melbourne time 🙂

SBS:  Let’s talk about the before and after of where you’re currently at.  What’s something about the music that you’re making now that you don’t think you could have done five years ago, and what’s something you think you’ll be able to do with your music five years from now that you can’t do today?  How have you grown as an artist/band, and what steps do you take to continue your artistic evolution?

Sanny:  Five years ago, I was a wreck to be honest.  I was still healing — physically, emotionally, and creatively.  After my last band broke up, I lost a lot of confidence in myself…whenever I tried to make music I just kept second-guessing everything and felt like a failure.  I felt like I was done with a music career and I had my shot and it didn’t happen.  I had to leave it for a while and not think about it.  I wanted to be present for my Dad who was terminally ill.  Caring for him was one of the most beautiful and challenging experiences of my life.  But I got through it and it inspired me to keep writing music…  Although I stepped away from the music career, I still kept playing guitar…writing bits of songs, learning guitar solos etc., but I couldn’t have written a song like “Warning Signs” back then, because I hadn’t lived it yet.  These days, I’ve got a better bullshit detector — both in relationships and in the industry — and that clarity is showing up in my music.  I’m way more fearless with my songwriting now — less concerned with what’s trending and more focused on what’s real and authentic.  To put it bluntly, I have no fucks left to give.  And it feels like a very powerful place to create from.

In five years, I’d love to have two rockin’ albums out and a live album that captures the energy of KISS Alive, have done international tours, produced for other artists, and be playing bigger stages around the world.  Right now, I’m in this sweet spot where I’ve got the fire of my younger self, but the wisdom to know where to aim it and a renewed confidence to steer the ship better.

I keep evolving by staying curious and a willingness to keep learning.  I still perform at open mics, still listen to new artists, still ask a lot of questions about music theory and recording/mixing cos it still baffles me.  And I’ve learned that growth isn’t always about adding more — it’s about stripping back the noise and getting to the heart of the song and your soul!

SBS:  If you were to assess the overall health of the independent music scene right now, what would you say?  What are the positives and the negatives about the current state of independent music, and what do you feel like artists & bands can do to contribute to the community & help it grow beyond the music being made?  If you’re not actively looking to listen to the music of other independent artists/bands, is it really all that fair to expect anyone would listen to yours?  How do you help the scene around you grow?

Sanny:  The indie music scene right now feels like a paradox — it’s both thriving and struggling.  There’s more talent, diversity, and creativity than ever, but less high level infrastructure and support.  Algorithms reward pop music artists and trends, but not other genres and not music with more substance and depth.  Venues are under pressure with rising costs and insurance premiums, and it’s harder than ever to cut through the noise without selling your soul — and becoming more of a marketable personality than a musician.

But the flip side?  The barriers are down.  You can record in your bedroom, drop a song, build a fan base from scratch online and monetize that fan base over time.  The power’s shifting back into the hands of artists who are willing to hustle and build something real.  At least in Melbourne now, I think the real benchmark seems to be how many tickets you can sell to your gigs.  People are caring less and less about your followers and streams but wanna see an actual fan base regardless of your music genre.  I think that’s a good thing, it levels the playing field and rewards those willing to work hard and hustle.  It gives artists and bands in less mainstream genres a shot at a career!

I think the best thing any of us can do is show up for each other.  Go to the gigs.  Support your local music scene passionately!  Be a part of a community and build a community around your music.  Do it because you LOVE it…  Share the music.  Shout out the artists you believe in.  If you’re not lifting others up, then how can you expect others to lift you up too?  I go to open mics every week — not just to play, but to connect with people.  I’ve literally built up my fan base here from open mic nights — I play 2 of them each week and every time I meet new people I get a couple of new followers, and then invite them to my band shows.  I repost my friends’ tracks, trade contacts with each other.  I buy their merch if it’s gonna look on me and when money isn’t tight.  I always buy a ticket, I never ask to be on a guest list.  Never.

If you’re not supporting your scene, or investing in the energy around you…then yeah, why should anyone care about what you’re doing?  And don’t listen to any naysayers…who cares what they think!  And what do they know anyway, they don’t even go to shows, so…fuck em!  As long as you are excited about your music and happy to be a part of a music community that’s all you need!  Seriously, connecting with fellow humans at a gig is one of the best things we can do!  It’s so fun and it just always feels good.

SBS:  What do you consider to be the biggest accomplishment or achievement you’ve had with your music to-date?  How do you personally measure your own success – is that something that even can be measured?  Is it awards, accolades, chart position…or is your definition of success based on something entirely different?  Should success, however you define it, be something that artists are continually focused on – or is success something that naturally occurs in the course of doing what you love to do?

Sanny:  The first thing that came to mind was getting this album done!  The whole coming back from everything I’ve been through…a ban by a government, my drummer and best mate Wayne passing away which led to the demise of my band The SUNS…then my last band EMPRA doing a massive 55 date USA tour which was incredible but landed me in huge amounts of debt which took 2 years to repay…and having to take a break from it all to care for my Dad…then navigating Covid…all that stuff…and THEN…to still do this album that I’m so proud of and feel so energized and excited about.  The fact that I’m just so happy to be making music again…this is the biggest achievement so far for me!  THAT…and probably, singing a song with Rivers Cumo on the Weezer Cruise and meeting Slash in LA and getting him to sign my arm so I could get it tattooed!!!  Haha.  I have never been at the level where I got all those awards etc. because it seems like these days only Pop stars have access to that aspect of the industry…not rockers like me…but I’ve always wanted to be on the cover of Guitar World magazine.  ONE DAY BRO!!! ONE DAY IT WILL HAPPEN HAHAH!!!  When that happens, I’m done bro.  Gonna kick back and move to a paradise island in Thailand and just chill by the beach and join a Reggae band and work as a bartender!

SBS:  When you’re working on something brand-new, and something about it just doesn’t feel like it’s coming together the way that you think it should, how do you know when it’s time to give up on it, or how do you know that it’s time to dig in even harder and find a way to make it work?  Are there distinct red flags you can hear when something’s not working?  What are the signs you look for that tell you to stop forcing the material?  What would actually encourage you to keep going with the process instead?

Sanny:  For me, if I’m banging my head against the wall about a track for too long, that’s a WARNING SIGN (pun intended).  Music’s meant to move your soul and heart first — if I’m not feeling anything, chances are no one else will either.  But I don’t give up easily.  I usually leave it, walk away, and come back with fresh ears a couple of days, weeks, months and would you believe it…sometimes even years later!  If I return and it still sucks?  It’s getting scrapped or Frankenstein’d into something better.  I’ve had great songs that came together from putting the cool bits of shitty ideas into one cool bigger song idea and then it became less shitty and more cool!

The key sign that tells me to stop forcing it is when I’m editing on a computer more than I’m creating with an instrument — when it’s starting to feel like it’s a repair job instead of art.  But if the idea still excites me and I can hear the vision, even if it’s whack at the moment, I’ll keep pushing through.  Sometimes the raw stuff is good — you just need to change the angle or try a different direction.  Sometimes you just need to work with someone else who can bring a fresh idea or sound and just let go of some control.

And honestly, some of my best songs came out of chaotic moments.  So I trust the process, but I don’t romanticize it.  If it’s dead, I bury it.  But If it’s got a pulse, I’ll still fight for it.  The song “I Don’t Believe The Truth” had 15 different versions before I was happy with it!!!  I have all 15 versions on my computer!

SBS:  One of the points of general consensus in the art of making music, is that we all get our sound from somewhere…we hear what we like, then more often than not, we take tiny pieces of what we love to find our own voice & approach to go on and make music in our own way.  Essentially, what I’m saying is that it’s absolutely natural to be inspired by other artists/bands, and almost every artist/band ends up having that inspiration show up in their own work in some way, shape, or form.  What the real key is though, is retaining your own organic perspective – you still wanna be original too, right?  So how do you go about doing that?  Are there artists or bands that you know have been an influence on your style & sound?  How were you able to incorporate that influence without becoming too noticeably derivative and still be yourself?  Should we embrace and celebrate our influences more than we do?  It’s almost like we try not to admit influences exist in the pursuit of being original, but it’s like, bruh…if it’s there, we can hear it.  We all borrow something from those that came before us to some extent, don’t we?

Sanny:  Of course — we all borrow.  Anyone who says they don’t is either lying, deluded or has never picked up a guitar and tried to write something that sounds great.  Even a genius like Jimi Hendrix borrowed from Muddy Waters!  For me, it’s about taking what lights you up and passing it through your own mojo filter.

I grew up with KISS, Weezer, Van Halen, Green Day, Lenny Kravitz, Led Zep, Hendrix, Ben Folds Five, Guns’N’Roses, Queen,  Oasis…and more recently I’ve been vibing off newer artists and bands like Måneskin, Royal Blood, Eagles of Death Metal.  You can definitely hear bits of that DNA in my music — like that over-the-top, fire-breathing solo in “Warning Signs?”  Straight-up a love letter to Eddie Van Halen.  But the heartbreak?  The weird humor?  The chaotic dating energy?  That’s all from me.

The trick is not copying what they did, but asking why it hit you in the first place.  Was it the attitude? The emotion?  The groove?  Then you build your own version of that.  Sometimes a combination of all your influences and then your own touch could make it sound fresh…but never copy exactly…I mean if you sound like a copy of ACDC, why would I bother when I can listen to ACDC?  Nobody is better than ACDC for the ACDC sound!

We should embrace our influences more.  It’s part of the music lineage.  The goal isn’t to sound like your heroes — it’s to carry the torch and set your own weird fire with it.  At the end of the day…just do what feels like YOU so that when you play it on stage, you will find that passion to deliver it with authenticity and sincerity.  It’s so much easier to be yourself!

SBS:  Has there ever been a time where you wrote something inside one of your songs…maybe it’s a lyrical line, or maybe it’s a riff of some kind…something that you did, where you surprised yourself?  I like to think we all have a moment or two where we can stand back and be amazed by something we created, and appreciate the fact that maybe, just maybe, we exceeded our own expectations of what we thought we could accomplish – you know what I mean?  Get as specific as you can so the fans out there know what they should be paying attention to when they hear it – what’s your favorite thing that you’ve written on the inside of one of your songs, and why does this particular piece resonate so much to you?

Sanny:  Yeah, that moment happened with the chorus of “Warning Signs.”

“Oh my valentine, all I see are warning signs…”

That line literally came to me the last time I walked out of a toxic relationship — the real final time, not one of those break-up-get-back-together rollercoasters.  I remember shutting the door behind me, heart racing and heartbroken and those words just landed in my head like a whisper from the rock Gods.  It was clarity, like my gut finally put everything I was feeling into a lyric.

It was the first time I wasn’t writing a breakup song to vent — I was writing one to reclaim myself.

And then that solo?  That was me telling the story without words.  It starts with these Slash-inspired, bluesy bends — crying out the pain.  Then comes the finger-tapping chaos, full Eddie Van Halen mode, like all the noise and bullshit and endless arguments crashing down.  And the Tom Morello-style whammy part?  That’s me screaming: “Fuck you. Fuck this. I’m done.”  It’s cathartic, and it’s a mash-up of all my heroes — but somehow, it ends up sounding like me.

SBS:  I’ve been having a lot of great debates lately about whether or not everybody that’s making music has the right to be heard…and you’d probably be surprised by how different people seem to feel about this issue.  I know where I stand on it, and I think you can all probably get an idea of what my position would be from this free interview we’re doing here & the way we run things at sleepingbagstudios…but regardless, I’m putting this question out there to you, because I’m interested in YOUR perspective.  Just because you’ve made a song, does that mean people should listen?  If your answer is yes, do your best to explain why you feel that way & why we should make a sincere effort to listen to the music of others.  If your answer is no, explain why you feel that way, but also explain why people should still be listening to your music if that’s the case – what would make your music the exception, and not follow the rule?  Is there any value to an idea that’s not finished, or a song in its demo stages, or maybe something that’s not recorded in a top-shelf studio or with good equipment – somebody still took the time to make that song to the best of their ability with the means they had to create it – should that be listened to, or not?

Sanny:  I think everyone has the right to be heard — but not everyone will be heard by a huge audience, and that’s the tough truth.  Just because you made a song doesn’t mean the world owes you an audience…but it does mean you’ve got the right to put it out there.

To me, music is your soul’s expression — it’s someone trying to make sense of their chaos, their joy, their pain.  And that’s always valid, even if it’s a voice memo recorded on a cracked phone in a bedroom.  The value isn’t in the production quality, it’s in the intention.  That demo, that rough idea, that 2am half asleep chorus someone recorded with a sore throaty voice and a cheap acoustic — there’s heart in that.  And sometimes, that’s more powerful than a polished radio hit backed by management and labels and agents etc…

That said, I don’t expect everyone to listen to my stuff just because I made it.  I work my ass off to earn those listens.  I play live heaps, I work the social media thing, I try to connect with people and get to know them as friends, I share the stories behind the songs.  What makes my music worth hearing — hopefully — is that it’s real and authentic.  It’s not made to chase a trend or be cool.  It’s made to connect and uplift by telling stories of my life journey and the stories of the people close to me through my songs.

So yeah — listen when you can.  Lift up the people around you, even when you’re feeling down because in doing so you lift yourself up as well…  When one of us gets heard, or one of us succeeds in a big way, it opens doors for all of us.  Like when Nirvana and Metallica opened the doors for Grunge and Metal to be in the mainstream!

SBS:  There are ups and downs in the dynamics of almost every album we listen to, with very few exceptions.  Even those exceptions, probably still come down to more of a personal preference about what we enjoy about music and how we personally hear it, rather than anything being completely and totally “perfect” – you know what I mean?  Does an album actually need to have some kind of up/down dynamics in terms of what’s appealing to the masses in order for the best of the best songs in a lineup to be fully appreciated?  Wouldn’t every artist & band avoid the ‘down’ side (less accessible/less popular for example) if they could?  Does the ‘down’ side represent something else perhaps, like the story of an album or journey of an artist?  Is the ‘up’ side of a record as potent or noticeable if it doesn’t have a ‘down’ side to go with it?  Would a completely balanced album somehow be boring if it didn’t have the ups/downs that most have?  Do we HAVE to like every single song on a record for it to be considered complete?  Are the dynamics of an album something anyone can really steer in the direction they want to, or are all artists & bands simply going with the strongest material they have created at the time?

Sanny:  Yeah, I get this question — it’s something I’ve wrestled with myself while putting together my album.  I think the ups and downs on a record are what give it a soul.  If it’s all less than 3 minute tunes written specifically for TikTok with the hook at right at the start, or just bangers all the time, it starts to feel formulaic or like a best of, or “this is” playlist — not a story or a journey.  The quieter, weirder arrangements, or more vulnerable tracks — what some might call the “down” moments — aren’t there to kill the vibe.  They’re there to help tell a human story through a work of art in songs.  They make the highs hit harder.  I think it’s important to have variety in an album too…  It makes it interesting and allows the fans that you want to reach to really connect deeply with your music.  I mean I still love albums and love listening to albums from start to finish.

And yeah, in a perfect world maybe every song would be instantly lovable, but the truth is: not every emotion should be instantly lovable.  Some tracks are meant to challenge you, surprise you, piss you off, or give you a breather before the next punch to the gut or burst of euphoria.  That’s where albums become journeys, not just collections.

I don’t think we have to love every single song for an album to feel like the album is a great album.  Sometimes it’s the song you skip today that hits you six months later when you’re going through something.  This happens to me a lot by the way!!!

Artists try to steer the dynamics, sure — but most of us are just building the best album with the songs we’ve got at that time.  And if you’re honest with what you’re putting out, those highs and lows won’t just feel natural — they’ll feel necessary and will be part of the story…you just have to be really honest and sincere with yourself!

SBS:  I wanna send out a shout-out to YOU from me personally – I appreciate everyone that has taken the time to talk tunes with me throughout the years, and I appreciate the time YOU have taken with this interview too.  Because this one’s a little different in the sense that it’s been sent out to multiple people and is a little more generic in that regard, I have no doubt whatsoever that we probably didn’t get to talk to you about something you wanted to talk about – so let’s fix that!  This final space is what we call the SBS Open Floor – a spot where you can say anything else you want to say to the people out there.  It can be anything at all…your main websites…something else you want them to know about you and/or your music…your favorite bands in the scene right now…the secret 11 herbs and spices to the Colonel’s secret recipe – you get the idea, and it’s probably best you choose something that suits you rather than take any of my suggestions, but feel free to take the SBS Open Floor for a ride.  Whatever it is you want the people to know, now is the prime time for you to tell’em!  Thanks again for everything – keep in touch!

Sanny:  Massive thanks to you Jer and SBS for holding space for indie artists like me to share our stories — it means the world.  I’ll use this Open Floor to say this: if you’ve ever felt like life was getting too hard, you were too heartbroken, tired and felt like giving up, or relationships got the better of you or that you finally found a way to pick yourself up to have another crack at life again…my music is for you.  My songs are anthems for the bold, broken, and unbreakable.

If “Warning Signs” hits you in the feels — or in the face — I’d love for you to check out my other past singles.  There’s also a full album coming later this year, heaps of shows on the way in Australia for the moment, but plans to come back to North America next year are in the pipeline.

Best way to stay in touch is sign up to my email list on my website at sannyveloo.com or follow me on my socials here https://sannyveloo.com/linkinbio

Also shout out to every artist and band out there!  I respect and admire your hustle.  Let’s keep lifting the volume of our music — and each other — up.

And finally…don’t ignore the red flags.  But if you do — at least scream-sing about it afterward with my new single “Warning Signs.”

Once again.  Thank you sleepingbagstudios for this incredibly in-depth and thought provoking interview!

If you dig what we do at sleepingbagstudios & want to be part of the madness, by all means click here to be featured on these pages of ours!