Immerse yourself in the sonic realm of Black Sonic Pearls, an internationally acclaimed alternative/modern rock band that seamlessly moves between hard rock, grunge and modern metal. Shortly after the release of their debut album “Sonixomnia” on February 23, and after a tour with legends such as SLASH and Five Finger Death Punch, the band’s guitarist Alex Blacksonic granted SounDarts.gr a full interview.
The electrified world of Black Sonic Pearls (BSP), began to form in 2020, and draws inspiration from the iconic Seattle Grunge movement of the 1990’s as well as alternative metal sounds from the 2020’s.
For “Sonixomnia”, BSP teamed up with Grammy Award-winning American producer Michael H. Brauer and the result is a musical masterpiece that promises a fusion of modern classic hard rock, with rich explosive guitar riffs and a surprising mix of rock.
Black Sonic Pearls consists of Alex Blacksonic (guitar), Arseniy Borodin (vocals), Sergey Polyanskiy (guitar) and Mikhael Kiriyushchenko (Drums). In 2022–2023, the band spent most of the time performing at some of the biggest metal festivals including “Masters Of Rock”, “Rock Castle”, “Metalheads Meeting”, “Midalidare Rock”, “Dubai Metal Fest” and many more, having the opportunity to share the stages with names such as: Judas Priest, Ville Valo, Scorpions, Pantera, etc. In March 2024 the band joined Slash on the Asian leg of his “The River Is Rising” tour. In addition, they will share the stage with Five Finger Death Punch and Ice Nine Kills in selected shows, enchanting the audience at famous European festivals such as “Metalfest” and “Metaldays”.
Black Sonic Pearls is not just a band, it’s a sonic experience that transcends time and genre. The journey has just begun, and the stage is already set for them to reach new heights in the world of modern classic hard rock.
Hello Alex and welcome to SounDarts.gr! So, who are Black Sonic Peals and how did you end up in the form you have today?
The Black Sonic Pearl is an international band with a team from all over the world. We started back in 2020, and right after forming the band, we got into COVID. So we had a lot of time to work on the material. All the normal bands at first they release their record, and then they go on tour and play gigs around the world, we did the opposite. We started playing shows, appeared in a few festivals, and then we started to release the singles. Then finally this spring, on the 23rd February, we released our debut record along with the main single “Black Butterfly”. At the same time we released a video for it. So, you can say that Black Sonic Pearls is a modern rock alternative band from all around the world, which is touring around the world. And we hope people will like our music.
Do you have a basis anywhere in the world?
Yeah, we’re living in different countries, and I think, lately we have our base for rehearsing in Czech Republic, which is our favorite country in Europe. Everyone lives in different places. For example, I live in Central Asia, and some of the guys live in Russia, another guy from our team lives in Greece, and others live in the States. So we spread all over the world.
Who lives in Greece?
Oh, I mean, he’s not a band member, but he’s a part of the team of front of house. He’s the greek.
Recently you released your debut studio album, entitled “Sonixomnia”. First of all I would like you to tell me what was your inspiration for the title and what does it mean to you?
Our inspiration for the title comes from a game of words. “Sonixomnia” means Sonic Somnia, it’s like sonic visions. This is literally how the record was written up to some point. During the isolation there was a lot of staying at home, and maybe in the middle of a night, I would wake up with a melody or with a lyric and I’d catch up the guitar, run somewhere where all the others couldn’t hear me, and I’d record it. The songs were coming one after another. It felt like a vision.
What was the inspiration for this album?
We have a lot of inspirations going from classic metal to the Seattle grunge scene of the 90’s, which was the huge vibe at this point. Also Chris Cornell. We dedicated a song to him in this record. He was a huge influence. We can definitely mention his name, because it felt like his spirit was overseeing what’s going on. Audioslave, Foo Fighters, all of these guys. Of course, our main favorite bands like Metallica and because everyone in the band listened to different music, especially the instrumental parts, like instrumentalists, we listen to blues, jazz fusion, some strange stuff. We’re, very into music, not just performers.
I suppose it was obvious that Chris Cornell was a major inspiration of yours since you chose to cover “Cochise”, his collaboration with Tom Morello, for this album. Why did you choose this song?
This song is b-side for a single, “I Know Your Name”, which is a song in memory of Chris Cornell. And we wanted to add something interesting and since everyone in the band is an Audioslave fan, for a long time, we were thinking which song we will pick. Then our frontman suggested “Cochise”, because he loved singing it so much. We started searching for the publishers of Audioslave for the rights, and we got a very quick response that our demo reached the surviving members of the band. They gave us the permission. They really helped us with this and so with their blessing, we released this song on the record as well, not just as a bonus track for the single.
If you had to describe the whole process of creating “Sonixomnia”, what would you say?
I would say it was coming somewhere from outer space, to our heads definitely.
Besides your love for music and the metal/hard rock scene, what motivated you to come together and create Black Sonic Pearls in 2020?
I think that at the very beginning there were just unreleased musical ideas. Everyone had his own project and his own careers in music. For example, our front man, also has a pop singer career, which is he’s doing all of the time and he’s firstly known as a pop singer, then as the rock singer. So, that was his motivation. He wanted to be in a real rock band. We all were uncomfortable in the places we were musically at that point. Then we said “let’s try. Why not? Let’s do the best we can with the best people we can find, just to make it the old-school way”. Nowadays, for a lot of people who love the same music as we do, it’s really hard to find a new band which is gonna be that good for this. New bands in the style of Audioslave, Velvet Revolver, Foo Fighters etc, maybe I don’t see them, but I think they’re not showing up anymore or showing up really, really often. That’s why we decided to try and it just exploded. Then we did or first single, which got really good response and we decided to move forward with this project, and that’s what we’re still doing now.
Apart from Arseniy, your singer, did you all have a discographical background?
Yes! First of all, the second guitar player, Sergey, our drummer, Mike and me, we were in one band together. Sergey was a session guitar player. Me and Mike, were playing some sort of metal core stuff. Our frontman from this band left and we were going to play slightly more melodic stuff. We were thinking for a long time that we wanted to pick up and I sent Arseniy a message the same second. He replied that he was very interested, and we started to do that. For example, Sergey, has his own band in Russia, which is called 5diez. They’ve already released many albums, and they’re pretty big there. So, everyone has had recording experience, concert experience, and touring around Europe experience, so it’s definitely not our first day in the job.
By watching you, we find that touring is part of your life. Is that something you enjoy more than recording in a studio?
These are two different worlds. Studio is a more creative process. It’s less physical, less exhausting. It is about vibes. Touring is about the physical conditions. First of all, you need to sleep enough. You need to feel good. Well, in our late thirties, we need to be still energetic and in working conditions. Touring is also about seeing other places and meeting the people. While touring, the time on stage is the most precious time we can have in our lives, besides the time we have with our loved ones. It’s some sort of a drug. If you’re coming back from the road like we did right now, you’re standing weak at home, and then you’re thinking about the next gig you want to book. We just did Dubai and did Asia but then we think what else we can do, like “hey, let’s go to Istanbul, let’s go to Greece”. I think these are two worlds which in the end, one cannot exist without the other. Writing music in the studio, and then promoting it on the road. Only these two things can bring balance in our minds. So we love them both.
You were the special guests on Slash and Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators’ for their Asian tour. How would you describe this experience?
This was really amazing! I can use all the words in English that will describe just one: absolutely wonderful! Touring with bands that are that big, and we had a lot of experience with touring with huge bands, is usually like, you’re in position to breathe, when they allow you to breathe, you walk when they allow you to walk, you play when they allow you to play. Here from the first second, we were welcomed like a family even before the tour. Todd Kerns, the bassist of the band, an absolutely amazing person -and we love you Tod, if you will see it someday-, did a welcoming video for us, which encouraged us a lot. He said, “We’ll see you guys on tour” and a lot of other stuff. We went there, knowing that this is not going to be the usual “ big band experience” and when we arrived, we felt absolutely welcome the first day when we were invited just to have drinks, chat, and spend fun evening of stories. The second guitarist, Mr. Frank Sidoris is an absolutely amazing person as well -Frank we love you, too- and Slash himself and Myles Kennedy, who were every day, twice a show saying from stage a lot of good stuff about our band, promoting us basically to the people. Slash said so many good words and then he would talk with us, very warmly. A rock star of his size can afford to behave however he wants, but he was absolutely great. I will not stop saying this, these people are amazing and by “people” I mean the audience. Asia is a crazy place. There are crazy good venues, crazy good production, crazy good promoters, crazy good people, and very welcoming. These were our first shows in Asia and people already knew the lyrics while singing to our songs, they were buying T-shirts, stopping us near the venue etc. so, yeah, it was like a 100% full rockstar experience. As I said to the guys when we were saying our goodbyes, if someday they’re anywhere in the world and they want to play with us again, we’re gonna be there no matter what it’s gonna cost to us, no matter what we’ll need to do. In two words, it was absolutely amazing and I hope in the future we will play together again.
Well, this could be one of BSP’s milestones in their short life so far! Is there another moment that you consider it to be a milestone for the band as well?
There are definitely a few significant ones which are on the way because we will open one show that’s already confirmed, but there are gonna be a few of them, for Five Finger Death Punch. Also we’re gonna play in a few really good European festivals too like the Metal Fest in Czech Republic, the best one. Again, Czech Republic feels like a family. The whole fest, the promoters are like a family. It’s a really, really good festival.
Looking back, another milestone would be the first show we played which came suddenly out of nowhere and our first show in Europe as well. I would say every step is a milestone at some point. Finding the visual director with who we’re working right now, Mr. Josh Graham, working with Michael H. Brauer, who has mixed our record, an absolutely amazing mixing engineer. He’s one of the best in the world. We’re thankful to him so much because he did gigantic job on the record, but I would say that the greatest milestones and steps are yet to come.
How do you imagine yourselves in ten years from now?
Playing a split stadium tour with Metallica. Not less.
Do you have other professional plans for the future, apart from the live shows and the festivals that you mentioned earlier?
We just released the record. We will work on one more cover song by one of the biggest pop stars in the world. We already have the arrangements. We’re thinking about the guest appearances and who they might be. Also we’re working already on new material. We have like eight to ten songs for our second album. We’re gonna be contacting the producers who are gonna work on it and hopefully during autumn and we will fly to the States to record it because right now we’re in the middle of a writing process. That’s pretty much it! Developing everything, growing bigger, working our asses off to deliver the best music. The general plan is to play music. There is no life without music.
What information can you reveal to us about this next album of BSP?
It’s going to be slightly more heavier and more melodic at the same time.
What is what your motto in life?
Interview: Theodore Kolliopoulos
