Sounds of noise

One of the best things about the Long Beach music scene is the diversity of music that flows from the city. Individual musicians and artists co-mingle and intertwine like blood veins of a creativity-powered juggernaut. The sounds blend together in a magical way across multiple genre’s but every now and then one rises to the top.

Sounds of Noise have been doing their thing, one way or another, for sometime in Long Beach. Their debut album “Hayter” was a mashup of many styles, much like the local scene, but with their new follow up album “Ambulance”, released on January 29th, 2013, they have really found their sound. With a little help on keys from Long Beach’s own Ikey Owens (Mars Volta, Free Moral Agents), Ambulance is a solid album that you can just queue up and leave on repeat for weeks. We had a chance to preview the album before the release and talk to the band a bit about all things Sounds of Noise.



LBI: How did the current lineup of Sounds of Noise come together?

Paul [SON]: We have been together for about 5 years now minus Eric Rubalcava, 5 years in may

LBI: Who makes up the current lineup?

Paul [SON]: Eddie Monroy, Paul Corley and Eric Zimmerman

LBI: You guys have an interesting name, whats the story behind that?

Paul [SON]: Well, one night me and E.R, as in Rubalcava, were in front of the Stardust in Downey, drunk, joking around saying what up son and sound of noise popped into my head. Tthe band actually changed it by putting an “s” at the end of sound and noise rock is what we used to call the music going around the 90's in Pomona so that is where the noise part kinda came from.

LBI: Where the hell is Eric? I heard he bailed from the LB scene? For Portland?

Paul [SON]: Yeah that’s where he leaves lives now.

LBI: So you guys basically drove him out of town with your Sounds of Noise? haha

Paul [SON]: Yeah, lol

LBI: You have some great tunes, what influences you and who does the writing?

Paul [SON]: Music influences us. Eddie comes up with most of the riffs, some he’s had in his library for some time, but we all do our own writting. What you here on the drums Eric Zimmerman comes up with that, and what you hear on the bass I come up with that, so we do all our own parts and it works.

LBI: When it comes to shows where is your favorite place to play and why?

Paul [SON]: That’s a hard one, lol. We really like playing in Pomona and out of state.

LBI: Traitors! You were supposed to say Long Beach, haha.

Paul [SON]: But here locally The Prospector, lol.

LBI: Where in Pomona do you play?

Paul [SON]: Everywhere, mostly Old Town.

LBI: You said you play out of state, where do you go? I hear that pretty much any place BUT SoCal you get great reactions from locals, whats your take?

Paul [SON]: I think the last show we had in Pomona was Pomona and Friends festival we played at Pb & J. Yeah, we blow out Denver when we were there and actually had a show with Rubedo in Colorado Springs, meet them on the road

Paul [SON]: Yeah the folks in other states really dig seeing touring groups… especially from Long Beach, all in all they support!

LBI: Rubedo is a great band, saw them with Wild Pack of Canaries one time. Do you link up with other bands to tour or just go it alone?

Paul [SON]: So far alone… next tour we def have a few bands in mind to roll with..a lot of em have hit us up to take em on the road.

LBI: What do you think about the local music scene in Long Beach?

Paul [SON]: Do you really want our opinion?

LBI: Of course

Eddie [SON]: there’s a ton of talented bands here , but if you ask me its pretty one sided…

LBI: How do you mean?

Eddie [SON]: Well I can’t get into all of that… lets just say you got to know the right people.

Eddie [SON]: On the other hand, bands play what they want every style and so forth but I do love that about this city.

LBI: Ok, Well speaking of touring, you guys have a new album on the way right?
Tell me a little about it.

Eddie [SON]: Yes we do. It is actually done and we’re just making sure we cross our T’s and dot our I’s, but yeah were hoping it will be out by early next month at least for download.

LBI: Whats the title?

Eddie [SON]: Ambulance

LBI: How does this album compare to what you have done it the past?

Paul [SON]: Well I think it’s more one style of what we do unlike the Hayter album which was more of a lot of things we can do. This was way more thought out and just good. We produced this Album ourselves with Victor Salinas.

Eddie [SON]: True, more thought out… We had time to think about this one. We wanted more noise, bigger sound, keys and shit so we got with Ikey Owens, at first he wanted to produce the album but we already had our friend Victor in mind, the price was good and the location was even better!

LBI: You have for sure accomplished that! We got an advance copy and the album comes across as a very cohesive wall of sound. Anything else we shoul - Long Beach Independent