Shihad turns 20 this year. Frontman Jon Toogood tells Scott Kara the band has spat out the venom and is feeling positive
Jon Toogood has sold his beloved house in Wellington and moved to Melbourne. It was a big move for the Shihad frontman, but it came down to love.Yes, he loves his bandmates, who have lived in the Australian city for years, but this decision was based on love for his wife, Ronise.After five or so years of doing the long distance thing, with her in Wellington and him dividing his time between New Zealand and Melbourne, or being on tour, they finally resolved to live across the ditch together."Basically we couldn't face another year of doing the separation thing," he explains in his usual excitable lilt down the phone from his new apartment in Melbourne.Despite being gutted at selling their house in hillside suburb Brooklyn he's just happy the new Scottish owners were glad to take their cat as part of the deal. "We can go and see him anytime we like. So cool."Of course the move to Melbourne also shows the dedication - and love - he has for the band he started with drummer Tom Larkin 20 years ago when they were at Wellington College. The story goes that Larkin gave Toogood an AC/DC tape and said, "If you like it, we should jam," and the rest is history.
On April 21 they release their seventh album, Beautiful Machine, which is a far more optimistic and brighter sounding one than 2005's fiery and sometimes sombre Love Is the New Hate. That record was about getting back in touch with who they were as a band following some bad decisions and experiences in the early 2000s.You know the story. With ambitions of conquering America they changed their name to Pacifier - taken from a song on 1999's The General Electric - because in post-September 11 times Shihad was too close to Jihad.They released an album as Pacifier in 2002. Then, in 2004, realising the name change was a silly idea they changed it back to Shihad, returned home, and wrote Love Is The New Hate."We got a whole weight off our shoulders doing Love Is the New Hate, which was a good thing, and I love that record and love playing those songs, and it performed a function," says Toogood. "It was cathartic and got all that bad feeling out in the open. We were ready to move on after that, we felt more optimistic and hopeful about the world and our place in it when we started writing this record."I think Beautiful Machine does have dark places at times but it's always followed by something that pulls you back up. It's got balance, whereas Love Is the New Hate was all about spitting venom out. This one's got venom but it also has hope."
Songs like melodic and catchy single One Will Hear the Other is a good indication of where Shihad is at these days.
