Interviewed by Brian Rademacher
Date: June 2009

Sal Scoca: Hey Brian it’s funny I was looking over the list of interviews we had today and I saw your name and said I know Brian why would he go through our press agent when he can contact me direct.

Brian Rademacher: Yeah I figure since you are paying for a press agent why not let them do their job, so Jodie Wilson at VQPR contacted us and offered different artists interviews and I know you guys have been really supportive of our site and SWEET CYANIDE has a new CD out let’s do it.

Sal Scoca: Yeah man that’s cool we have a lot of good shit going on.

Brian Rademacher: Tell me about it because we hooked up first with you in CRASHBOX in 2006 and you helped us out with the autistic benefit and now you have the new release in SWEET CYANIDE.

Sal Scoca: Yeah you guys were one of the first to give us a great review .you loved the record, guess you were on to something and we haven’t got a bad review yet. This past month has been crazy for us. We were offered a slot on Cruefest , unfortunately because we’re semi-indie, financially, we couldn’t swing it. Basically you'd have to take out a second mortgage on your mom's house to buy on. Live Nation is running it now. The price was jacked up big-time!

Brian Rademacher: Yeah I heard that was the same for Rocklahoma, I heard last year it was $10,000 to buy in and this year the price dropped to $5,000 and lower if those quotes were true.

Sal Scoca: Yeah this music business seems more business then music these days more than ever.

Brian Rademacher: So tell me about the debut SWEET CYANIDE CD?

Sal Scoca: The official date was July 7th and we been getting great reviews and kicking up some dirt. We gotta couple labels coming after us; we got a couple shows with EXTREME which is awesome. I’ve been a big EXTREME fan since i was ten. We did a show with L.A. GUNS in Hartford recently at The Webster Theater, that was also sick! The past month has been full of all good shit; radio stations allover have been playing "American Me" and "Crash Theory". We're going to radio officially in the fall and we’re also going to have a video coming out this fall for "Crash Theory". We're also waiting to finalize all the dates for our tour, should make for an interesting fall and winter.

Brian Rademacher: I just saw a video interview with you on YouTube.

Sal Scoca: That was on a Rock and a Hard Place. I always hated doing live to tape interviews. I get real self-conscious and start to watch every single word I say. But I had lot of fun with that one.

Brian Rademacher: One thing I always wanted to ask you, when did you guys start getting into the make-up faze. Like you guys don’t overdo it, just some red around the eyes and some smeared make-up on your faces.

Sal Scoca: The initial concept of the band was to be over the top. It started out being pretty outrageous but it got toned down a little bit. We were always big Glam-Heads anyway. We wanted the extravagant look but with so little time before a set, we had to tone it down. I think it adds to the live effect of our show and the fans like it. Bands that we've played with are kind of boring and look way too drab; we want to have a look and a real show on stage! How many times can you see some sad-sack stand up at a mic and cry about some nonsense? That makes for a shitty experience for the fans.

Brian Rademacher: Your exactly right, especially myself and other photographers. How many times do I want to see a band that stands there with a t-shirt and jeans playing the same songs! When you guys played our show you guys even did a few wardrobe changes.

Brian Rademacher: How are the sales of the CD going?

Sal Scoca: It’s going good; we sold quite a few up till now. The digital downloads are doing extremely well.

Brian Rademacher: Is it really hard doing self promotion?

Sal Scoca: It’s really interesting. It’s very humbling because you have to go up on stage, set up your own equipment so that whole rockstar image disappears. It's funny, we'll go on stage first in our roadie clothes and set up and then we go back get changed, do our make-up and hair on and get ready for the show. It’s a little hard to self promote but we do it pretty well. We saw what went wrong with our past bands and what worked so we are sticking to a formula of the shit that did work.

Brian Rademacher: You guys working on the next release?

Sal Scoca: I have half of the next CD ready for SWEET CYANIDE II and the songs sound fucking great.

Brian Rademacher: Well I feel listening to the new CD I get a sense of you guys bring the past back. I hear sounds of T.Rex meet THE BEATLES and with all the CD’s we get in per week if I go to the SWEET CYANIDE Myspace and listen it pumps me up.

Sal Scoca: There are a lot of good bands out there but you need a band to stand out and take charge. I feel SWEET CYANIDE is that band. Not only do we have great material but our live show bumps us up a giant step.

Brian Rademacher: So what’s the next move for the band?

Sal Scoca: We have some festivals coming in September. The first is in Cincinnati; we have a show coming up at The House of Blue in Atlantic City. We are also releasing a single to radio in September either "Crash Theory" or "Heart Breaker". "Heart Breaker" seems to get the crowd going not only in our hometown but everywhere we go. It seems to be the track that pumps everyone up.

Brian Rademacher: How do you guys work around your day job?

Sal Scoca: Ha-ha, we don't! But you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. Gotta feed the addiction. A day job is just a hindrance. I’m always doing music, writing, at the studio, rehearsing. For me, this is a 24/7 job.

Brian Rademacher: Do you feel that you guys will be stuck in the New York area?

Sal Scoca: I think that is where our publicist comes into play, they’re doing such a great job, and we have been getting a ton of attention. We are not going to be pigeon holed as just a NY band. . That is also were websites like yours help out. Now with MySpace, Face book and Twitter we have a lot of options. What also helps is the CD reviews. We get to hit a lot of different genres because one site will put us in rock categories, the next will say alternative, next will say pop or power pop. This all helps broaden the spectrum for SWEET CYANIDE. We are getting a lot of radio air-play, granted they might be small rock station but they are still rock stations in places that we never been to, which is a huge plus. We get a lot of hits on MySpace but so does every band, the thing we notice is that we are getting a lot of hits on our official site which means if people are checking us out at MySpace then check out our official site, that's where it counts. They also come to our official site to check out the new CYANIDE girl that we post every month. Last month we got 13,000 hits just on the CYANIDE girl’s page. So what if they come check out the girls, they still hear our music and that’s all that matters.

Brian Rademacher: Will your sophomore CD come out this year.

Sal Scoca: I’m going with the KISS battle plan. Every six months or so, drop a new disc. So I think the next one will be out this year. But with the labels interested, I’m not sure they would allow us to do that, I guess we will have to wait and see.

Brian Rademacher: Hey Sal thanks for taking the time out to talk with us and we hope everyone goes out and supports the SWEET CYANIDE CD. Would you like to say anything in ending?

Sal Scoca: Sure thanks to everyone who has been supporting the band; check out our MySpace and our official site with our CYANIDE girls, pick up our new CD and if we are in your area come down and see us live we put on one heluva show, later Bri.