Resurgent SikTh play Brighton

They play Brighton’s Concorde 2 on Thursday, December 7.

Drummer Dan Foord joined the band in around 2002, around a year after they got together first time around.

“The name of the band is a question that comes up a lot, and I wish I had a better answer to give you. The name got created before I joined. The two guitarists and the original singer came up with the name, and they have never given us a proper actual answer as for why. I think they just decided on the name because there were six of them in the band.

“The guitarists Tim and Dan had a band which I think was called Malpractice, and the singer of SikTh had a band that was going around at the same time. And then at the same time both bands fell apart, and they decided to get together in a new band. I have never been in any other band like it. It’s quite unusual. People usually get to know each other and then make friends and then start bands whereas we were much more self-manufactured. A bunch of people with a lot of ambition wanted to get together to make the best band that they possibly could rather than just friends coming together. Usually bands just fall apart when your best friend gets thrown out. We have been a bit more ruthless which is why the band got to the level that it did get to, because of that level of ambition that it had from the start.

“Of course, we are friends, but it is not like most bands that start as a very close-knit group of friends that decide they want to embark on forming a band.

“The band formed in 2001, I think, and I joined in 2002. Then the band then split up after about seven years in 2007 and then reformed in 2014. In reality, the singer decided that he didn’t want to be in the band in 2007 after we did our second record.

“The band had a level of success which happened very quickly. Within a year or two, we got a management deal and a record deal. We had a lot of success in the first couple of years and then things slowed down. We went to America to make our second album, but the singer decided he didn’t want to be in the band any more. Both of our singers left. We tried some other guys, but it just didn’t work out.”

So the band folded.

“But the reason we got back together again was because the band had generated such a big cult following. We had become lauded by our contemporaries, and lots of bands were citing us as influences on them. In the time that we had been away, we became much bigger than we had been.”

Before, they were struggling to fill a 700-capacity venue. They came back and were filling a 1,400-capacity venue.

“I think in the time away, people just came to appreciate the band. That puts pressure on us to deliver, but we have always put pressure on ourselves. In terms of the band’s success, we are bigger now than we ever were before we went away. It has been great. It has worked out really well for us.”

SikTh are: Mikee W Goodman – vocals and lyrics; Dan Weller – guitar; James Leach – bass; Pin – guitar; and Joe Rosser – vocals. www.sikth.band.