Sweet Pill On Tour With New Bloom Fest

‘I’ve said a lot of random things, like thongs are flip flops, apparently? You guys say ‘don’t be a bludge?’

Zayna Youssef, vocalist of Sweet Pill, is describing what the band have been working on in preparation for their maiden trip to Australia next month for New Bloom Festival. Australianism.

‘I am excited to hold a koala, but I don’t really know much about Australia. It’s all of our first time going there. So, I have a feeling we’re going to see a lot, learn a lot. It’s a huge country. We’re going to discover a lot in the moment. I’m so excited to just keep going to new countries. It’s cool that music can bring us to these kinds of places. The UK was incredible. We’ve discovered Nando’s. You guys have Nando too?’

Yes, Zayna we do. As you can tell, Zayna is effervescent, fun and has a zest for life. That energy flows throughs the bands output with three EP’s and an album all released within the last three years.

‘Sugar is weird in the UK. I had a Pepsi in the UK and it just was not the same. So, I’m excited to see that in Australia too. But overall, it’s just too much to take in. So much is happening. Sweet Pill constantly has new things on the horizon. Last year we were in the UK, so now I’m still processing that and I’m like, okay, now I’m going to Australia. Who knows what’s next? Not only are we going to Australia, we’re going to Australia with these insane bands that I look up to and we’re sharing the stage. It’s unreal!’

Ah yes, the reason for the chat. New Bloom Festival is back with a stellar line up including Drain, Balance And Composure and Basement to name a few. Sweet Pill fit perfectly within these bands so much that Ryan from One Step Closer told me last week, Sweet Pill was the band he wanted to see.

‘Oh, that’s so sweet. Every time we played with them, it was a situation where our sets were too close, they were playing and I had to get ready or they were coming off and we were going on. I haven’t really fully caught an entire set of theirs and I’m very excited for that!’

‘I have seen everyone except Drain, and I know Drain’s going to be wild, so I’m very excited. I’m a huge Basement fan. Balance and Composure fan. Glitterer came to my college when I was younger. It is just people throughout my life that I have gone to see shows. Now I’m on the other side with them!’

The bands creativity lines up with the bands touring ethic. The non-stop drive fuelling more shows which fuels the need for more music and so the cycle continues.

‘We have constantly been touring since the release of ‘Where the Heart Is’, since 2022. So, when we have those cracks of time in between tours, we are trying to write, we trying to do stuff. ‘Starchild’ happened very fast. We were writing and we didn’t have time to write an album. So, we were like, let’s just release something. We put out what we were currently writing as an EP, and then because we were touring so much with these songs, the songs changed a little bit, like the way I sing it. Then we kind of wanted to show a different side of this. That’s why the ‘Unraveled’ EP is acoustic, just us trying to reimagine what already exists before we introduce the new era. Which is coming up very soon because we’re writing and we’re going to record an album after we come back from Australia.’

‘Every time we leave and go somewhere, even in America, we come back with new insight, new inspiration and we just address new music that way. When we go to Australia, I know it’s going to do something to us and we’re going to come back and be influenced by it and make some more music.’

Zayna is a Hayley Williams tragic, with the Paramore lead giving a shout out to the band on Williams podcast and also recognising Youssef when in Nashville last year, that though is a extraordinary interview all on its own. Much like the band shows, which Youssef describes in her own unique way.

‘I would describe a Sweet Pill show as a bouncy ball. You just took a rubber bouncy ball, you are in a room and you just pegged it on the ground and it went. I drink a whole can of Red Bull before we go on and I’m having a great time. The point of Sweet Pill is for everyone to just have a good time because the world is not that great. So, if you can jump along, be yourself and feel something, whatever it is, together, then that’s it. That’s the point!’

We finish how we started, and back to the most Aussie of musical colloquialisms, the ‘shoey’.

‘I won’t do a shoey. I might end up doing it though because I want to impress, I want to impress Australia. So, I might in the moment, I might be like, alright!’

Interview By Iain McCallum

Catch Sweet Pill at New Bloom Fest on the following dates, tickets from Destroy All Lines…

Also on tour with Bad Neighbour on the following dates, tickets from Destroy All Lines…