SiX By SiX burst on the scene in 2022 with their debut record. The band featured Saga’s Ian Crichton on guitar, Saxon’s Nigel Glockler on drums, and 3.1’s Rober Berry on bass and vocals. The band is about to release its new record Beyond Shadowland on April 26 and Robert made his third trip to the site to talk all about it.
Please press the Play icon for the MisplacedStraws Robert Berry interview –
On this record being heavier than the first – The first intention was the first album did so well, and of course, we were happy about that, but that puts a little pressure on you. A lot of times a sophomore effort by a band, they do the same album twice. So, hey, Journey, that’s the album, the next album sounded just like it, with different songs. I love Journey. Don’t get me wrong. We talked about it. So we don’t want to make the same album twice. What are we going to do? Of course, with me, after working with Steve Howe and Keith Emerson, we got that one-of-a-kind in the band in Ian Creighton and we need to feature that more, but I think we need to be heavier. We need to get more power. We’re planning on touring this year. So we got to get that really powerful. It’s all guitar, and you can’t do that unless you have a drummer that can really play to the song and give Ian the freedom. So Nigel was right there. Nigel can play all the fancy bits he wants all day long, but, he knows how to lock it down so that we could make this album tougher, let’s say. So, that was sort of the plan. Although we just do what we do naturally. But that was the thought behind it. Don’t make the same album twice.
On the concept of it being easier to fix an idea than to get one – I have a studio here. I produce people. I’m doing music 24/7 all the time. In fact, when I’m in the car, the radio, whatever, it’s off. I don’t listen to music at all because I get so much of it. A lot of times the artists come in and they say, “Well, we got this song, this song, but I don’t have anything else, and I sort of developed this, “Well, I know you got something “, and they play me a little something. “Well, there it is. What, what’s wrong with that?” “Well, it’s not quite good enough.” “We’ll fix it.” I thought, well, there it is, you can fix an idea, but it’s hard to get it. Sometimes I have to pull it out of somebody.
When we did the first two songs, usually these start, Ian will send me some incredible little guitar riff. I go, “Oh my God”, and with some silly title, which we can talk about too, because a lot of times I can’t change it by the time the song is done, even though it has nothing to do with the lyrics of the song. He sent me a couple of things that went, “Wow, I can do something with this”. Okay. So I started. I sent it to him. “Well, here’s the first part of a song”, because I do the melodies. I put, I glue them together. He calls me, he goes, on Zoom, actually we’re just like you and I are talking, “It’s not as good as the last album” I said. “I know, I know”, “I don’t know why” he goes. “Why? Because you haven’t worked on it again. What we did in the first album, we went back and forth as writers”. You could be here in the room or on zoom. I got my guitars here. You have guitars there. It’s almost like being in person, right? So when we write it, it feels live. It feels in real-time. It is in real-time. I said, “Well, you haven’t worked on it again”. He goes. “Oh, yeah”, “I guess so you need to fix this idea, right? ” So he does a little bit and send it back to me and went “Hmm”, and I wanted to call him and say, “Not as good as the first album”. I thought, “No now it’s my turn. What am I going to do with this?” Both songs all of a sudden came together I sent it back. He goes, “Well, these are great”. It’s almost like the songs that they were, he had forgotten about. These are new songs.
At that point we were launched and the creativity was flowing and we sort of let the pressure of the first album doing so well, that gray cloud that was over, it’s like, Oh, we’ve got to meet the expectations. We sort of left it behind and we said, “Well, we got two that are really, we feel are good”. I have to look (to see which two songs they were). I got to look at it because we’re working on a third album right now. Just at the very early stages of it, but it does mess me up cause I do so much music. It wasn’t “Obelix”, although I had that, which is the new single. I also got two songs from Nigel, by the way, and one of those songs, “Titans” is one of the band’s favorites. “Spectre” was one of them, which again, we thought would be the first single. We like it. We thought, “Oh, this would be the first single. It’s really powerful”. Record company said, “Nope, we’re going to use “The Arms of a Word””. Then they said, “Obelix”, what a slow one. Oh yeah. And they were so right. Anyway, I won’t go on, but “Spectre” was one of the first ones. I won’t go down the list here for the next one.
On his lyrics being about identifying and fixing problems – That’s interesting because as we just said, it’s easier to fix an idea than to get one. So this is about fixing, right? Kind of about fixing. I will say that on the first record, Ian especially liked what he called, when the lyrics get a little more psychedelic. What he means is exactly what you’re saying. Where different people can read different things into the lyrics. Like the song “Titans”. It’s not about the strongest in the world. It’s actually about the silent of the world. That’s a pretty strong base of people that are just trying to live happy lives. They make a difference every day in some way. But a lot of people even Ian himself says, “Oh, I don’t think of it that way at all. I think it was a strong, the Titans, right?” Well, everyone sees it differently.
On the empowering songs on this record – That’s, that’s really cool. I appreciate that. I don’t struggle with the lyrics, but I spent a lot of time thinking about them. Again, more on the first album, things were maybe more complete thoughts were, “Hey, this is what it’s about”. This one, I wanted to make sure that it had exactly what you’re saying, which makes me very happy because I think I’ve achieved that by not being so pinpointed, which is an odd thing? Like the title “Spectre” doesn’t really mean anything, it’s not in the song, but it’s a spectacle, it works somewhat. I don’t know how it works, but you get it and you connect with the emotion and the feel of why it was done. And that’s the gig.
On if the band is meeting his definition of success – The reason I’m still doing it and still try to work at my highest level level is because I probably will never reach my definition of success. It’s an always-changing goalpost. My dream would be like the guy I play with in town here. Greg Kihn, he had two, three big hits. Every summer you go out to play 20 gigs to the people that want to relive those hits. That dream won’t happen for me, but more importantly, now that dream, that goalpost has changed to leaving, I’ll call it, the legacy and music behind of quality and something that means something to people where maybe it won’t be the time in their life that it timestamps that time, but the meaning, like you said, of the songs and what it does applies to how they’re feeling right now.
So that’s my success, which you’ve made me feel very successful today. Just with what you’re doing. I’ll just complain a little bit, the first album went way beyond expectations. It really did well. People loved it. But then the record company, they just let it go after that. These record companies have windows. I looked at all the record companies. Well, they all do the same thing. You get your three months when they’ll put stuff in, then you’re on your own. Well, we weren’t ready to tour last year. So we wanted to get a second album out before that. So the momentum just went away. So when we did this release, I’m like, “God, we got to start from zero”. Evidently, we didn’t start from zero because people jumped on it right away. So they didn’t forget us, but we need to keep climbing that ladder. The only way to do it is to play live. We have three shows, book two in Germany, one in Netherlands for the anchor dates. They’re going to fill in a bunch more. We’re hoping to come to the U S with a couple of things. So I think that next step is happening. It’s going to be a very, very difficult step for this band as we have to, we’re going to try to remain at three-piece, which means I have to do everything Geddy Lee does, and I’m a big fan of his. I don’t know how he does it, but I got to do that. But then again, Ian has never played more guitar in anything he’s done. This sound is all him. Nigel, the beauty of Nigel is he has that feel. A lot of drummers can play stuff but they don’t feel. John Bonham could just go boom, boom, and it felt like, “Oh my God, how does he do that?” Nigel’s got that thing. That’s going to come across live in a much bigger way. So I’m excited about it. But again, like you said, our success will be determined by the tour we do. By the time we go out September, October, we have half a third album sort of in the can, at least songwriting-wise, because we’re actually surfing on this momentum we’re getting right now with like a big smile and some energy that’s bringing to life some new ideas
On if they will play songs from their past live – Ian, before he won’t even talk to me. “No, we’re not going to, we can’t”. Now I said, If we were to do “Arms of a Word”, and at the end, just do the riff and end it, crowd go nuts, right?” He goes, “I like that idea”. So I’m making inroads, little ones. Now Saxon, I don’t know the material as well. There’s got to be their biggest song that we could take a riff from that people will know. We’re going to have an audience from all those draws, the Emerson, Lake, and Palmer people that I have as fan base. It’s gonna be interesting.
On if the visual aspect of the band is determined before or after the songs – It’s definitely after. The album covers are designed and presented, even the album title, by Rob Fowler who’s done all my stuff, my website, everything, forever. He is so embedded in not just the success, but the feel of this band. He came up with Beyond Shadowland. He goes, look, “First album, put those little guys in the sidecar and stuff, who knew who you were, these guys. I just did some art and it made something compelling”. People go, “What is this? “But this time with the success of the first album, you’re coming out of the shadows. We’re actually on the cover. There’s little, you can see it way back there at the far corner. That’s us. We’re coming out of the shadows, got this airplane, which has a set of numbers on it, which somebody is going to figure out what that is. People have said, “So, what’s the next one going to be on a train? What are you on?” It’s up to Rob, Rob decides those. He does such great work that we go,” Oh my God, what a beautiful cover”. We’re in, the record company management, band. We all go. “Whoa, this guy is so embedded in the feel and the look”.
To answer more of the question, I have no idea live what we’re going to do as far as projections and stuff. If anything, we might go up there like the Beatles and just say, “Here’s the music guys, this is our first time. What do you think? ” Something inside of me says that being a three-piece, that people are going to want to see a band that’s working really hard and they don’t want the distractions. They want to see it played, want to see how we pull it off. The rest of it is more like a show that maybe they wouldn’t be interested in as much, at least with this band right now. I don’t know.
On if there will be another companion graphic novel – I started on a graphic novel and what was odd with the first album is the songs were all written. We were recording them, everything and J. C. (Baez), the graphic novelist, got ahold of me and said, “I really want to work with you on something” I said, well, “I got this new thing”. We decided to do this graphic novel. He goes, “So what’s the story?” I went, “Story? Oh, there’s like nine songs that are all individual”. And I said, “Give me a couple days”. And a story just fell together. I went, “Wow”. Now this one, as I’m writing the songs, I’m trying to think about a story and it’s part of that stifling at the beginning. I just, a song is a song, and it means something at the time, it’s a space, place in time, a place in space, it’s a mark of that day, how you feel, whatever it is, it can’t be, “Oh, in a graphic novel story, how would that fit”, at least for me. So once I cut that loose, and we had a few images and a few ideas on a story. When I cut it loose is when the song ideas really started flowing. So I’m not sure. We still want to do one. I want to do another one, but right now with the tour and everything, all the plans and I want to do it though. I mean, I think we need a second one.
On upcoming plans outside of SiX By SiX – SiX By SiX, honestly, even though Saga is still playing Nigel’s out with Saxon right now, this is a real band. We want it to be a band that takes over the other things. The other things become the part-time performance things and this is the real touring thing. If that happens or not, we need to prove ourselves to make that happen. But I do have an Alliance album We have 16 songs, 10 of them finished and we want 12. I don’t want to interfere with the momentum of this by putting that out. So I have that going. The studio is really busy right now and I wish it wasn’t. It’s always busy. I say that all the time, it’s booked five days a week. I’m in the studio and I have to cut out clients to do my stuff, the SiX By SiX stuff. Alliance is done just about. But it will probably be after end of this year, maybe it goes out. We’re not sure with the record company, or if we might do it ourselves this time, because the record companies give you a three-month window. They get you interviews. I can get ahold of you and say, “Jeff, Gary Pihl wants to talk to you”. You go, “Yeah, put him on”.
