[LOCAL INTERVIEW] Getting Krank'd Up with Set For The Sky!

Calendars are out and the days are numbered as the South African alternative music scene readies itself for this years most anticipated festival, Krank’d 2016. As everyone prepares for the arrival of Norma Jean and Periphery, we had an opportunity to catch up with James Roberts(vox) of Set For The Sky to chat about the band, their build up to the show and ‘Left Behind’, their latest music video.

In the next few months you will be sharing a crowd with 3 pioneering international artists within their respective genres. Can you tell us how it felt when you were offered to play these shows and whether or not their music has influenced your writing?

The mentioned bands are Norma Jean, Periphery & Eskimo Callboy and we promptly wet ourselves as each opportunity was presented to us. All three of these heavyweight bands have influenced us in some way:

Periphery being Trent, our lead composer and guitarist’s, number one favourite band

Norma Jean, such a massive long time inspiration (especially Cory Brandan’s inappropriately sexy vocals)

Eskimo Callboy being Set For The Sky’s wet dream come to life – at least one of their albums is always playing somewhere in a SFTS member’s car/rocket.

What can the fans at Krank’d Up 2016 expect from your set and do you have anything special planned?

People will be paying hard earned cash-money for their tickets and even though the major attractions are the international giants, we are making damn sure that we do our part in giving them bang for their buck. We’ll be bringing some new moves and have one or two value adds which can only be witnessed at this year’s Krank’d Up Festival.

What are you looking forward to most about Krank’d Up 2016?

It’s a toss-up between moshing to Norma Jean and watching Trent watch Periphery, I think. He’ll probably cry.

We’re also really looking forward to seeing our Gauteng followers again for the second time this year!

Can you tell us how Set For The Sky was conceived?

Wow…

The PG version of the story goes that Alex and I wanted to make music that we enjoyed and after auditioning musicians we found the illustrious Trent Richardson who introduced us to his pet Jeandre. Our first show was on the Rock The River festival main-stage (where there’s a will…) and last year we released our debut album “The Machine”.

The not so PG version involves Optimus Prime, Godzilla and Harambe meeting up late one night for drinks and then things escalated.

Do you have a message behind your music?

We have many! Lyrically and musically everything flows from a very emotional well and from this we create little treasures where we can express how we feel. Whether the song is about despair, joy, resolve or endurance there is always a place for you to find your space in the music and lyrics. Everyone has their own war to deal with and we try to expose the hidden hope to get through it all.

With a sound that bridges between metal and rock. Have you had any difficulties defining where you fit into the respective scenes?

It seems that our “genre” hasn’t really had a take-off in South Africa. Either the SA scene is behind or it missed the new punk movement altogether (who knew singing and screaming in the same song was a thing??). There’s also the issue of us clearly not being cool enough for the rockers and way too girly for metal. Fortunately we share a scene with a lot of open minded musicians who dig what we do and this gives us the advantage/opportunity to collaborate across genres.

Tell us about your experiences whilst recording the ‘Left Behind’ music video.

It was 32 hours of no sleep and beautiful disaster management on a budget the size of an eskimo’s ice bill.

Among said disasters were:

Rocking up to our booked shooting location to find it had been taken overnight by a fleet of trucks from the series “Of Kings and Prophets”.
Our main actor cancelling on the day.
Rain washing away the road to our second location.
Basically everything that could go wrong went wrong. The hard-drive with the footage even got corrupted during back-up which delayed release by a few months

On the positive side, it was an epic experience and truly fantastic working with the beautiful likes of Brett Rayner and his team. Big ups to Eric who we forced into acting for us as well. Such a brave yet humble beast.

When can we expect your next album?

Indie albums are always late, so let’s aim for 2017 and see if we can hit that wide open target. We have some music down already and have found our direction for the next album but have become ruthless in the way of scrapping entire songs because there’s a certain standard we demand of ourselves. If every track on the next album isn’t Ian Somerhalder perfection, it’s not going on.

Having played at a number of destinations during your national tours. What has been your most memorable and funniest moments to date?

Doing the milk challenge in lumo green was quite a highlight.

On our most recent trip to PE we had a dance-off rap battle with a street kid on the beachfront which we collectively lost. That dude had skills.

Lastly, If you were all Care bears. What would your powers be?