After Mixtape Festival, I sat in my car in the back of the nearby parking lot with the heat blasting, because for whatever reason it was snowing in March. Jon Gusman, the drummer of Long Island indie rock band, Soda Bomb, was kind enough to round up some of his bandmates and meet up with me after the show to answer a few questions. They pulled up next to me in a truck full of equipment, and Richie (guitarist, 21), Nick (bassist, 22), and Jon got into my much smaller car- after a long day, no one was about to stand outside for an interview.
The band formed around 2012, shortly after Jon and their vocalist, Taylor, graduated from high school. Originally they were a two piece band, then acquired another bassist. “We had that line up for a little while, probably about two years, then we added Richie because he came to a show, and then we got Boston Market, and then we kind of liked the same things, so three days later I just texted him like, “Hey, you wanna play guitar in Soda Bomb?” and he was just like, “okay.” Jon said, and he added that it was around that time period they parted ways with their original bass player. They met their current bassist, Nick, after playing several shows with Nick’s other band, Bad Donor. Nick joined the band around October 2014. Jon says, “It was definitely really, really gradual, but also a very natural thing.”
Nick is no stranger to Soda Bomb, he says that over the last few years he’s played in a few other bands, “but every band that I was in, Soda Bomb was like, lingering close by. Whenever I needed to play a show with someone, I would just hit up Soda Bomb.” The band was also recently signed to Broken World Records and will be playing Broken World Festival on April 25th at The Outer Space in Hamden, Connecticut. Jon says, “Broken World was definitely kind of a freak thing… we didn’t really think that someone like Derek (head of Broken World Records) would take interest in us, but apparently they were like, thirty seconds into one of our songs and they e-mailed us right away. It was honestly a huge help for us, and now they’re putting out our full length, Wanna Jam?, on April 7th.” The album is already available for pre-order and will be available on the Broken World website.
When asked for tour survival tips, Jon stayed real about it. “One, save money before tour… try your best not to piss each other off.” He advised. Thankfully, they’ve managed to keep from doing that, but they’ve had their fair share of bad moments. “We’ve had some weird situations, this was before Nick and Richie were in the band, where like, someone gets too drunk, throws up and goes to sleep, there was one time, the show got robbed… our money got swiped, the cops were called, but apparently the guy who took the money already had a warrant out for his arrest… but other than that we never really have problems.”
Jon also reminds anyone going on tour, “definitely just realize why you’re there, you’re there to play music and have fun… As shitty as it is to drive however long and not shower as often as you’d like to, that’s what you have to do. That’s the prerequisite of this life.”
As far as final words for the interview, the band says to like them on Facebook for good jokes and don’t forget to pick up their new album, Wanna Jam?, coming out April 7th on Broken World Records!
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