by Neddal Ayad

I started working on solo ideas in 2000 when I moved from Australia to London but it took some time to get settled in over here and I wasn’t really focused until late 2002…

Errr...I just made it up. I came up with “-xtro” first and spent ages trying to make something fit with it. I knew I wanted it to be a two part name which possibly rhymed. Then later I googled both words and found out that “sanso” means ‘oxygen’ in Japanese and “Xtro” is some B-rate sci-fi film from the 80’s...which I still haven’t seen by the way!

I started to play guitar when I was 10 years old and started to form bands from when I was 12. I then got the taste for drums when I was 13, my classroom at school that year was right next to the music room so I started getting to school early so I could play the drums before school started. The drums took over from everything and I wasn’t so into guitar anymore, however I continued to play guitar in a few bands here and there until I joined Sin Dog Jellyroll as drummer. This band was a lot more focused than any of my school bands. I left school when I was 16 because I knew that all I wanted to do was play music. Sin Dog was touring the east coast of Australia regularly and we were soon signed to Sony Music. Sadly though two years after signing to Sony the band split…which is the reason I decided to take a break from Australia.

I didn’t move to the laptop! I really only use my computer as a glorified multi-track/editing machine. I like to muck around with a bit of cutting & pasting but I actually play all the instruments and any sounds I sample (from real life, not other peoples recordings!) I play into the track with drum pads. I don’t sequence or use midi ever!
I am first and foremost a live musician.

I sent them a 6 song demo because I liked what they were doing. They are a really nice label which I am pleased to be part of.

Since I started working solo I have been playing a lot of guitar again, mainly acoustic. So a lot of my songs grow out of little melodies or whatever that I write on my guitars. Although I also mess around a lot in my studio with all different instruments and if something good starts to happen I quickly get recording. I’m a bit of a noodler on guitar so I have to record ideas straight away because I’m not likely to remember later exactly what I was playing. I don’t really have a strict process for writing though. I guess it comes from my background of playing in loads of bands where the songs were more often than not born out of jam sessions.

It’s very much instinctive. I can’t read or write music notation and was never really interested in music theory so I taught myself how to play all the instruments that I play. I’m playing all the time, I don’t get much sleep! Err, I’m obsessed with all things music…

I live in an old warehouse in London’s East End where I have built a little studio. It’s big enough to have everything including my drumkit set up which is great. I use a Motu Digital Performer on an Apple Mac to record & edit. And sometimes I use Native instruments Battery for assigning sounds to my trigger pads, but only since I had to sadly sell my Akai S5000 sampler to play some bills last year… I collect old analogue effects pedals so most of my effects are outboard rather than software plug-ins. And I also collect loads of small instruments like bells and stringed instruments, etc... I’m lucky too, in that one of my housemates is a sound engineer and so I have access to some really deluxe microphones most of the time...

I just seem to go that way naturally. I love electronics but whenever I let electronics dominate a song it doesn't feel right for me and I have to go mess it all up. I don't use a metronome for any time keeping, it freaks me out to listen to something which is perfectly in time for longer than a minute or so, especially if it's the same thing over and over! Timing needs to sway in and out of itself so it doesn't upset our heartbeats...

It has everything to do with every bit of music I make. I think mostly rhythmically. The way I play guitar is very similar to the way I drum. I have a bit of a weird drumming style. It's really loose and I love odd timings, in fact I find it really difficult to play straight 4/4 type timings.

Oowh! Tricky question. I have often wondered this myself! I think it most likely would have been different. It would have probably taken a lot longer [to make] too because I spend a lot more time in my studio here in London because it gets so cold here that I don't want to go out as much.

While I was working on the album living in London, I was feeling a little bit homesick. Most of the songs are built around memories of Australian places and nature; insects, birds, bonfires, the beach etc...

A few of the songs I built from the names, so I would have a kind of theme to begin with. But generally it was just that as I was working on a song certain little sounds or whatever would remind me of some place or something. Frangipani Gardens, for example, was a Pub where my family used to go to a lot when I was a kid in Australia, it was near the beach and right in between our house and my aunts’ and uncles; places so it was a kind of Sunday afternoon family meeting place. They had a massive beer garden out the back which was full of frangipani plants and aviaries filled with amazing birds. I remember always being really excited when we were going there.

”Blue Signal” was named that way because one night when I was working on it one of my friends sent me a text message to tell me to go outside to see how amazing the moon looked. And so I did and not only was the moon really amazing but the sky was this incredible blue, so then I went back into my studio and recorded that spooky slide guitar part ! And later when I played it back I noticed that the mobile phone interference noise I heard through my speakers actually recorded when my friend sent through the text message. I left it in there because it seemed to fit in nicely with the song.

Yeah definitely! It's all been very positive.

Yes that’s right. I had always planned for it to be played live as a band. I did some solo shows last year but I don't enjoy performing solo. I'm extremely happy with the way the band has worked out and we've been playing quite a few shows. It's a bit of a multi-instrumentalist instrument swapping affair which is fun. I play mostly guitar, drums, and some ukulele, kalimba & synth. [Bandmates] Nik and Enrico are amazing. I feel very lucky to have them playing with me. Nik plays mostly the synth and percussion/drums plus a little bit of guitar and Enrico mainly plays guitar and live effects processing plus a bit of synth. We are hoping to play some festivals next year and we'd love to do some long haul tours. I'm looking into it all at the moment to see what's going to be possible.

I sure am! Although at a steady pace because a lot of my spare time this year has gone into organizing the band and rehearsing, but now that we are fully rehearsed I'm starting to spend more time on the new material.

I listen to a lot of music. I got an ipod for my last birthday and I think it is one of the greatest inventions ever. At first I was suspicious about mp3's because of the compression but I have encoded mine at the highest possible quality; which means less albums but I can't hear the compression which is very important to me.

Mostly on rotation is:

Greatest Palace Music - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
The Milk-Eyed Mender - Joanna Newsom
Superwolf - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Matt Sweeney
Apple O' - Deerhoof
The Runners Four - Deerhoof
Fat Albert Rotunda - Herbie Hancock
Forbidden Fruit - Nina Simone
Humcrush - strønen/storløkken
Heart of the Congo - The Congo's
Percussion Bittersweet - Max Roach
The Music From Drawing Restraint 9 - Björk
& new unreleased Leafcutter John songs



For more information on Sanso-Xtro check the following sites:
http://www.sanso-xtro.blogspot.com/