JOEL LATIMER of SONS OF ZION: Fearless Creation Processes
An interview by Sarah Kidd.
Summer is coming – finally – and with it the distinctive sound of certain New Zealand bands who are synonymous with the season of sun, sand and a few cold ones.
Sons of Zion are one such band and with their latest album Vantage Point – their first in five years – and the stunning single ‘Drift Away’ they certainly seem to have captured the essence of New Zealand summer in a bottle, and it’s an elixir that is proving very popular with both their old and new fans alike. Releasing their first ever album in 2009, it’s been a long journey for Sons of Zion but one that has seen them not only grow into accomplished full time musicians but into New Zealand favourites.
When I catch up with Joel Latimer he is in the middle of a rather rare day off at home…
I have to start off by saying hold the phone, Sons of Zion will be supporting Six60 at the massive concert at Western Springs next year!
“Yeah, pretty stoked about that one, that’s for sure!”
What a line-up though! Sons of Zion, Drax Project and of course SWIDT… who are just brilliant!
“Yeah, yeah we love their stuff. Those boys are epic. Pretty stoked to be a part of something – especially as big as Western Springs – that is all Kiwi, and with Six60 headlining. They are the first ever New Zealand act to headline at Western Springs! So it’s a pretty special moment to be involved in that; for Six60 it’s part of their natural progression, they have been selling out tours for the last few years, so I guess it was the next stepping stone for them to just give it a go. You know nothing is saying that they can’t or that it is too big for them.
Everything is saying yes, and it is going to be huge. We’re just excited to be on the line-up.” [laughs]
Obviously being in February it’s going to be the perfect weather for it too … knock on wood.
[laughs] “Yeah, knock on wood…”
But really, that line-up, in February at Western Springs, already has the taste of the perfect summer’s night out! It is going to chilled and it is so going to have that Kiwi vibe, which has to be one of the best parts!
“Well all of the bands on the line-up have been inherently Kiwi sounding since they came out, and I guess that’s a cool thing too. I know that Sons of Zion and Six60, we’ve been around for a few years … like eight years plus now [laughs] I feel like it’s next new wave of music you know?
Like Six60 are really hitting their straps and we’ve just released our album so we’re hoping to do the same; Drax Project are huge at the moment with their singles and SWIDT are owning the Hip-Hop scene as well so I feel like it’s that next generation of acts and I am just stoked to be a part of it.”
Now you just mentioned the album, so let’s talk about that. Entitled Vantage Point, how are we feeling about the fact that it is now out and available?
“Yeah, it’s kinda a weird feeling once it’s done. Previous albums we’ve worked so hard to get to that point, released it and then just kind of sat back and relaxed. But with this one we haven’t really had time to rest on our laurels I guess. We’ve just been moving straightforward into the next project and touring, we haven’t really had time to sit back and just do nothing, [laughs] unlike today which is what I am doing! [laughs]
We’re stoked to have it out, it’s been a few years … I think five years since our previous full-scale album and a few of the songs that are on Vantage Point are three years in the making so it’s good to finally have some of those songs we made three years ago out there. We’ve been sitting on them for so long and it’s been frustrating not to have a project to put them in and release it to the people. I guess that’s probably the biggest thing for us, finally having it done but then moving straight on to the next thing and keeping ourselves busy.”
It’s interesting that as you pointed out Vantage Point is your first full length album in quite a while, yet last year you dropped the EP The Jukebox Suite. It was very popular! What prompted the decision to put that EP together?
“We had a collection of songs that we had created over the years – I mean we have been releasing singles for the last few years in-between projects – but in the terms of an EP which The Jukebox Suite was, we just had a bunch of songs that we had created that didn’t really have a place in what we saw was the album and we couldn’t really release them as singles either…
It’s kinda a hindsight thing, but looking back we were just having fun with the music and doing what was cool to us at the time and we were pretty happy to come away with a product. It kinda also let people know that we aren’t just your standard Reggae band.
You know a lot of people tend to try and put us in a box, but we have never been that in our opinion, so I guess that project was a little bit of a stepping stone towards where we are wanting to head. And that’s just trying to create music that is 100% true to us which we feel like we have done with Vantage Point. We even stuck a couple of songs from the EP onto the album eventually … so they made it! They crept their way in there with ‘Is That Enough’ and ‘In The Sky’” [laughs]
I do love the fact – and it has been mentioned by other reviewers – that even though Sons of Zion started out as a Reggae band you are very genre-bending. There is funk, soul, R&B, dare I say it even a little bit of the blues in your music. Does the band still see themselves as a Reggae Band, or more encompassing of several different genres?
“Yeah I guess we see our early music as reggae, like our first couple of projects were very much reggae, that’s how we started and that’s how we found a place in New Zealand music to make a name for ourselves.
But then we got to the point where with just being in the studio and creating songs; we didn’t want that limiting us in our creative abilities, you know by putting a box around what we do straight away. So we started creating music that we felt and just loved, putting no limit on what we were creating and just seeing what would happen. And that’s what has led to Vantage Point!
So you got some reggae in there because we still love reggae, but the upbringing of the whole band comes from many different musical backgrounds so it would be a shame to have kept that withheld from everyone you know when that is what we were brought up on and raised on so yeah I guess it is a maturing of the music, not letting the fear dictate what we would create. We branded our creation process as ‘fearless’ which basically means having no fear, just creating what you think is cool and hopefully other people will too” [laughs]
It’s a good philosophy to have because if you get too caught up in the worry of what other people might think or if your music fits the genre you are indeed going to stifle your creativity…
“Yeah, definitely. Saying ‘We need to make a reggae song’ immediately puts a limit on what the song could be. So we entered this whole project with that mentality of just taking each song as it is, one at a time and just really experimenting and coming up with a feel that felt good to us and that still sounds like Sons of Zion, so pretty happy with that.”
Can we talk about the single ‘Drift Away’ I am loving the intro, for me it really has elements of the song ‘Fast Car’ by Tracy Chapman which pulls you in…
“Our bass player wrote and composed that entire song, and he said in retrospective he also felt like – when he first listened back to it – he kinda got that Tracy Chapman vibe as well. So it’s good to hear that other people have picked up on that vibe, because it was completely unintentional!
It’s always a good thing when a song like ‘Fast Car’ gets referenced to your song. It’s like ‘Wow, people actually can kinda compare it’ which is very cool.”
Also the song is very vocal centric which is not only very appealing but also demonstrates the calibre of the band because there is no hiding behind instruments in that song; there are obviously instruments in there but they are very much in the background. It is the voice, the vocals that are coming through to the forefront and that is brave in many ways because if your vocals don’t meet the grade you can be condemned pretty quickly!
[laughs] Thank you! We are quite fortunate to have three lead vocalists in our band so with that song especially it really catered to Caleb’s voice who sings the song. And Matt who composed it he’s like a super producer as well, so he really had to try and drill into him how he wanted it to be sung and the emotions in his voice.
Singers will sing things the way they feel it should be sung but because it was Matt’s song he really was like ‘I need you to sing it like this, with this kind of inflection in your voice’ and it was a real eye opener to get that deep into a song that has next to no elements like you were saying…
Very stripped back very laid back and yeah we did try to produce it up to make it like a full pop song you could say just to hear what it could be with the full band and so forth, but we just decided to go back to the original version, just the acoustic version felt the best. We felt it captured the whole essence of the song; so once that was done we were pretty happy to release it.
We were a bit nervous you know, to send an acoustic track out to commercial pop radio and hope that they play it because there is almost no beat to it, no full band or instruments or electronic beat to it so you know we are pretty happy that it was like the number one played song in New Zealand radio for five weeks…”
You guys made the right decision, it’s a wonderful track and it’s nice to hear those stripped back tones as usually that is something you only get treated to at live shows. It is lovely, and it is exposed and most importantly honest.
“Thank you, that’s exactly what we were going for!”
Brilliant! [mutual laughter]
Obviously you guys are on tour and I think it is great that the tour is spread over August and September – the transition of winter into spring – it’s almost like Sons of Zion are ushering in that promise of ‘summer is coming’.
[laughs] “Yeah we’re pretty fortunate with the way that timings have worked out; we dropped the album and we were able to get across to Australia first and do an Australian tour. So that was a good kinda testing ground to I guess learn the new songs and how they work live. Not to mention the States and touring for a month there…
And then we get to do the Vantage Point tour so we’re pretty stoked because we wanted to give the album a little bit of time to let people get familiar with the songs on there before we started touring it and August / September works out good because it also leaves room for touring around summer as well
If we put it too late in the year it would be too close for a tour and a summer tour as well, a lot of people would have seen us and be like ‘Oh we just saw them three weeks ago’ you know?”
Lastly Joel, New Zealand is full of some beautiful talent…
“Yeah, it really is…”
… who for you personally are some kiwi artists to watch out for?
“It’s kinda hard because Six60 are already one of my favourite bands; I think on the come-ups as well – but they’re also really successful at the moment – would be Drax Project. I’ve listened to their EP and its killer, it’s really good, good production, really good songs. Oh and of course SWIDT!
I guess the whole line-up from the tour poster! [laughs] I think all those acts are just smashing the scene right now. It’s kicking off for Drax Project especially, they will probably take off and do some pretty big things live.
There has been a whole bunch of New Zealand music that’s been coming up, Katchafire just dropped their new album as well, that album is pretty killer and Sons of Zion had a lot to do with both the record and production. Pretty stoked and happy to help out on that and produce a few songs for them!”
Sons of Zion are in the middle of their ‘Vantage Point NZ Tour‘, with a show TONIGHT in Auckland, and shows remaining in Kerikeri, Dunedin and Christchurch. Tickets are still available for all shows from Ticketmaster, but get in quick as they’re selling FAST!
If you enjoyed this content, please consider donating towards the running of Ambient Light, covering expenses and allowing us to expand the coverage you love by clicking the red button below (Desktop) or visiting our PressPatron page (Mobile).