From death comes the life of Sick Puppies

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By Kaiya Morrison

Shimon Moore, lead vocalist for the Australian rock band Sick Puppies, has come full circle with his lyrics. From his first song written at just 13 years old, to his hit single “All the Same,” off of Sick Puppies latest album, “Dressed Up as Life,” which was released by Virgin Records on April 3, 2007, Moore has found inspiration where most find tragedy.

“The first song I ever wrote was the story of this girl,” Moore recalled. “Her father had died, in the living room, of a heart attack. I hadn’t talked to her in a couple of weeks because her dad had died and she had to work out all this stuff. She called me one night, and it was the first time I understood being in my own situation of knowing what to do and say. I felt hopeless.”

Moore continued writing songs independently until he met Emma Anzai during a music class while attending Mosman High School in Sydney, Australia.

“I was playing drums at the time and [Anzai] played guitar,” Moore recalled. “It was instant chemistry. It was a meeting that was supposed to happen.”

The duo eventually added Chris Mileski on drums, and Moore moved to guitar and Anzai to bass. Thus the true lineup for Sick Puppies was formed, and it wasn’t long before the band received its first break into the industry.

In 2001, the band won the Triple J’s Unearthed competition. Triple J is a nationally-networked, government-funded Australian radio station, and the competition is slightly comparable to American Battle of the Band competitions.

“I walked in literally at 4:45 on a Friday afternoon before the deadline, and there was a huge box of entries,” Moore recalled. “I had a tape in an envelope and everyone had these huge boxes and bouquets to try and impress people and I had a tape with ‘Nothing Really Matters’ [the name of the song they submitted] written on it.”

“We got a phone call from this lady from Triple J saying we won, and it was the greatest feeling ever,” said Moore.

No doubt the simplicity of their entry was overlooked when the station heard the complication of the song.

“We decided we needed to put together a song that showcases the band,” Moore explained when describing the writing process for “Nothing Really Matters.” “We thought, ‘OK, Emma plays slap bass, so Emma needs a solo. It needs a guitar solo, a drum solo; it needs rap in the verse because nu metal was really big at the time. It needs a good melody in the chorus. It needs a Rage Against the Machine style hook at the end of the chorus that people can sing along with. It needs a tempo shift at least three times because that’s credible and cool. And it needs to be cohesive.”

“We just mashed all of this into one song and recorded it and it turned out to be this song called ‘Nothing Really Matters.’”

“For some reason it worked,” he said in near disbelief. “We’ve tried to do it a hundred times since and it sounds [bad], but for some reason when we did it that one time, someone was in the room helping us, and it was fluid.”

“Nothing Really Matters” was released in 2001 on the band’s first full-length album, Welcome to the Real World. Time passed while Sick Puppies worked on breaking into the American music circuit.

Moore and Anzai moved to Los Angeles, Calif. in 2005 but Mileski was unable to follow. Soon after relocating, the duo found drummer and California native, Mark Goodwin, to fill the open spot. Ironically, the next move forward for Sick Puppies came from tragedy.

“When I came over to the states, I had these tapes [I had recorded], and halfway through making the album, when I was in one of those depressed modes you get into when you haven’t eaten enough, you have no money and you haven’t seen your friends – all the things that goes along with trying to break a rock ‘n roll band – my friend called and said his grandmother died, and she died suddenly and he doesn’t know what to do,” Moore recalled. “I took this opportunity to make a video get-well card for my friend, who did not know what to do. I put our song under it and made a little video, and it became an award winning video on YouTube.”

Known now as the “Free Hugs” video, the footage consists of video documentation Moore had taken of Juan Mann’s “Free Hugs Campaign.” Mann set up in a public space with a sign that read “Free Hugs.” The purpose was to entice random acts of kindness. Security guards, however, did not find the campaign appropriate, and the police told Mann he had to cease activity.

Moore then documented Mann’s petition, which reached 10,000 signatures, and allowed him to continue his campaign.

The song set behind the video documentation is the single, “All the Same,” off of “Dressed Up as Life.”

“It’s kind of ironic that the first song I wrote that sparked my interest in the guidance of my life comes from the death of someone I care about, and then the thing that eventually breaks through and becomes the catalyst for all of the work that I’ve been doing comes from the death of someone I care about,” Moore said. “You could see it as depressing, or you could see it as a positive.”

A simple act of kindness for a friend has equated into international fame for Sick Puppies, with over 20 million views for the video on YouTube. “All the Same” landed in the top 10 of Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks, and the album reached No. 4 of Billboards Top Heatseakers chart.

You can have your chance to check out Sick Puppies at The Varsity Theatre on Monday, Mar. 31.

Tickets are $10 in advance, and $12 at the door. Doors open at 7 p.m. with the show beginning at 8:30 p.m. The Mississippi-based band Saving Abel will be opening the show.

You can learn more about Sick Puppies at SickPuppies.net.

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Originally Published: Issue 601 - March 26, 2008

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