INTERVIEW: Josh Gyssels of Sound System

Sound System are a ska band from Chatham, Ontario. The three-piece, who are currently promoting their latest single, “Cabeza Da La Seta”, are steadily making a name for themselves within the local scene, and I recently able to speak with drummer Josh Gyssels about the band’s upcoming album, their musical influences and their plans for the rest of 2015.
Howwould you describe Sound System’s music to those who have never listened to theband before?
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say 100%, but I guess I’d want to say fun, happy and, of course, a little badass. Why? The Johnstones. For [myself they] were a huge influence on me when we were writing and forming this band. The songs we’ve recorded and produced albums with always make me feel happy, go-lucky and a little badass. Just like The Johnstones.
However, it’s funny… You asked me to describe this to people who “don’t know the band”. The only reason I say this is funny and a little difficult to answer is because my description of this band and these tune isn’t based off my opinion. It’s based off how I have seen the music affect my friends and people I’ll never probably meet again, so you can imagine my answer is always changing.
How did the band come together?
Well, at the time of the band forming, we called ourselves “SNAFU” and had a jam space with my old roommate, Nick Grande. We later changed [our] name to “Soul Of The Soundsystem” and the band ever since then has consisted of the three members we currently have: John O’Rourke, Colin Sinclair and myself.
We’ve also shortened the name one last time to just “Sound System”, as people would continually mistake it for something really strange. No, really, some really weird names have been stated… For example, “Sounds Of The Solar System” happened at a show in a boutique shop.
The band definitely has a 1960s-1970s rock and ska sound going on. Was it your intention to go this route when forming the band?
100%. When forming this band, we had [the] intention of a 2-tone ska sound, but punk rock and a little stoner jams are something we couldn’t escape either. So you have to believe it wasn’t our intention to ever play that music only. Like most bands I know, we’re doing our best to blend all of our influences.
Ryan Guay of Street Pharmacy, a band at the time known strictly for ska and reggae sounds, once told me with the release of his alternative record, Divorce, “No matter how good the burger is at Tim Horton’s, they will always come for the coffee.” I took from that to never, ever brand yourself to the point of no return, and we never want to do that with our music.
Back in high school, all our friends can agree we were a Sublime cover band, haha. But soon after, we realized that [they weren’t] our only influence, even if [they] were a great one.
Ska music will forever be in our roots as a band, but ska for me is a music style that’s more than welcoming to many others as well. We as a band talk about the “ska waves”, as we’ve seen them go by and the bands that display that era’s ska movement. We feel like, currently and for the past few years, we’ve been lucky enough to see bands and lucky enough to play with/be a part of this “unofficial 4th-wave"… Hope I don’t sound too crazy, but at least with our scene/friends’ vocabulary, this is something that exists to us.
For example, Sublime and Slightly Stooped [are what] we would call 3rd-wave, [while] Specials are an obvious 2nd wave or 2tone ska band. Bands like The Johnstones, Mean Tangerine, Ruthless Ones, Street Pharmacy and Vinny Savage & the Wilde Side [are what] we would consider an unofficial 4th wave.
I feel all these bands have somewhat aimed for the first wave ska sounds, or 1960s-1970s sounds you were speaking of, but at some point or another, I’ve noticed the complexity of each band’s sound expands. I am glad to say I can no longer describe them as a "2tone” or “black and white” ska band, but as the name they have given to themselves. This is the welcoming factor I described earlier, that ska music is so great for offering.
As the Specials said, “It’s a dawning of a new era.”
How would you describe the Ontario scene? Is there a lot of support for bands that play Soundsystem’s genre of music?
From band to band, there is a mutual respect for fellow musicians. However, that doesn’t mean that we and all the bands couldn’t use a little more help. There’s always room to do more, even if we don’t know what that is. All I can say is everyone I’ve worked with, and continue to work with, have done their best to keep the bands playing live, may that be a show we don’t get paid at or a show I get to play with my favourite bands at. All I can say is their willingness to try is the most I can ask for.
Whatever anyone is willing to offer we’re willing to (happily) accept. We’ve got no one to beat, just songs/messages to play for whoever wants to listen.
You recently released your new single, “Cabeza Da La Seta”? How has the response been so far from fans?
Well, I’d rather say the response from our friends: they have really enjoyed it. It’s more or less not ska-oriented at all, which is great.
It’s a song we wrote that is trying to, more or less, display a Queens of the Stone Age sound. Stoner rock is a style of tunes we all love very much and there’s not reason to not try and write something we love.
It’s the same principle for our track, “Knives, Shackles and Nails”. The 60s “do-ops” at the start of the [song] were just something we wanted to recreate. We loved the sounds and we knew a girl [Shelby McFeggan] who could sing - and boy, could she sing. John thought it would sound badass to have “do-ops” and it sure was!
But as for “Cabeza Da La Seta”, as much as it was a song we wanted to right, it was, for our guitar player/singer, a song that I feel he needed to write. In turn, I think that will make it a lot easier for everyone to appreciate, not just our fans.
The band played a few holiday shows this past December. How did they go?
They were great and were a good tie-up before regrouping and finishing our next LP. All I have to say to sum [them] up would be, “we survived the chemical valley.”
I was excited to play alongside Letterbomb. Brennan Dube has been/is my best friend and that was probably the best thing about getting to play those shows.
What are Sound System’s plans for the new year?
To get the vehicle ensured for the new year and summer, get all our gear back up and running, finish [up] our next LP, practice, save up some travel cash and head on another summer tour. Hopefully, we’ll get a few more dates this tour and that trip with Brennan to Montreal. We just need some time to get back in order. Since DIY touring in 2014, we’ve been functioning on pheromones.
If there was one thing you could change about the music industry, what would it be?
I don’t know where to begin. I’m so excluded from “the industry”. To tell them how to run it doesn’t make sense to me and probably wouldn’t make sense to them.
I’d just like to take a quote from a man I’ve learnt most of what I know [from], Fat Mike: It’s a prehistoric music industry. I’m just fucking glad I’m gonna be there to watch it fall.“
What is your opinion on the music currently being played on the radio?
I’d simply love to give all the radio stations and local hockey games my top ten CDs that say something and pump you up, as well as my [own] music. If everyone was forced to listen [to] and think about NOFX’s The Decline’s lyrics and music on repeat six times a day rather than mathematically selected notes and rhythms that have words that do nothing but feed our egos, what do you think would happen?
I hope that tells you how I feel about the collective tunes that are currently on the radio.
Final question: what’s your go-to karaoke song?
I don’t think I’ve ever [been] to a karaoke bar on purpose, but once while on tour in Toronto, a karaoke night was happening a separate room at the end of the bar and I could find John either. There he was, just given'er, drink in hand and singing as if he’s Bradley Nowell.
I sang "I Believe I Can Fly”.
You can find Sound System’s music on Bandcamp, and be sure to follow the band on Facebook.
