Tin Foil Phoenix finally set to bloom

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This article was published 12/09/2004 (7936 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE band formerly known as Sonic Bloom caught a big break with an EP called Hurry. In retrospect, it should have been Hurry Up And Wait. Two years after signing a major-label record deal, this Winnipeg quintet is finally on the verge of putting out a new album, having endured four recording sessions, endless remixes of rock-radio hit Neapolitan and a series of release postponements exacerbated by a potential copyright dispute that forced a last-minute name change to Tin Foil Phoenix.

Given that timing is everything in the music business, this two-year delay might have proved fatal to another band.

But Tin Foil Phoenix is no volatile group of nervous teenagers — co-founders Michael Allen Zirk and Steve Kray are guys in their mid-30s who’ve patiently waited a decade for their rock ‘n’ roll dream to come true.

“I’m actually stunned people have stayed with us,” says singer-lyricist Zirk, eagerly awaiting Tuesday’s release of Living In The Shadow Of The Bat, an album recorded for Nickelback leader Chad Kroeger’s 604 Records, licensed internationally to U.S. rock label Roadrunner and distributed by Universal Music, first in Canada and next month in Europe.

At the time of the band’s signing in 2002, Sonic Bloom was building up a regional fan base. Suddenly, Neopolitan was yanked from radio playlists across Western Canada and Hurry was pulled from stores.

The initial plan was to retool the original recording, made by Winnipeg’s Brandon Friesen, and re-release it with a few songs produced by Kroeger himself. But two recording sessions stretched out into four, with one devoted almost entirely to Neopolitan, whose spoken-word (but not rapped) chorus is unusual in the conservative world of commercial rock radio.

In the end, 10 producers around the world with credits as diverse as Joe Strummer, Faith No More and Uncle Kracker wound up submitting remixes of the single. The band eventually went with a slightly punchy version by Jo Casters, an electronic music specialist, and finished Living In The Shadow Of The Bat in February.

Zirk, drummer Kray, guitarists Phil Cholosky and Fish and bassist Paul Robinson were all set for an April release. But then came a zinger from Roadrunner’s legal department — a U.S. gardening products company had copyrighted the name Sonic Bloom.

On paper, this shouldn’t have been a problem, as there isn’t much overlap between a rock band and a horticultural outfit.

But Minnesota’s Sonic Bloom was making CDs that purportedly help plants grow, a too-close-for-comfort situation that led Roadrunner — still smarting from a massive copyright dispute over Slipknot’s name — to avoid a battle and ask Winnipeg’s Sonic Bloom to dream up a new name.

“It was kind of sad,” says Zirk, at the helm of Sonic Bloom since it began life as a cover band in 1994. “It’s been a decade of turning negatives into positives, and in the end that’s us.”

“People in rock bands are lucky, even if they don’t know it,” he adds. “No one comes up to you at Costco every day and says, ‘Wow, I really like what you did there with the milk.’ You have to find happiness in whatever you’re doing.”

And if it takes an extra year or two, so be it.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca