Sydney’s SUNSET RIOT Lead the ‘Uprising’ Down Under

Let the riot begin…

Sydney, Australia’s Sunset Riot take a page from the AC/DC, Airbourne playbook, delivering up a feel good hard rock groove that carries over to their high energy live performances. The band blends a style of classic 70s hard rock with the swagger and hairspray of 80’s metal: Think Aerosmith meets Guns n’ Roses with a bit of Jet in the mix.

Having recently finished their second American tour, the five bandmates from Sunset Riot are now back home in Australia, but they aren’t stopping to take a break. Dellacoma (Del) Rio, the band’s frontman, recently a took time out from his busy schedule to sit down with me for an interview.

“We’ve definitely been staying busy since returning home. We’re still promoting our latest album, Uprising. (Released in March 2012 and produced by Mark Opitz, who’s legendary for his work with the bands INXS, AC/DC, Kiss and Bob Dylan). “Our next plan is to film a video for the song, ‘Stir Crazy’. We would also like to go back and film a video from a song off of our 2010 self-titled album, (produced by Steve James who’s worked with Airbourne and the Screaming Jets.) We’ll still be touring in Australia, of course, and we’re getting ready to do what we call our ‘band camp,’ Rio laughed, “where we basically just go away for three or four days to do more song writing.”

Congratulations are also in order for Mr. and Mrs. Rio. After returning home, Del married his girlfriend on the one year anniversary date from which they began dating. Del is quite the romantic. “We were married on a boat which is something I’ve never seen before and thought it would be pretty cool. Even though we’ve only been together for a year, getting married is something we’ve talked about doing for a while. I’m not interested in any kind of frivolous relationship because I felt that would just be a waste of time. I wanted my plans for the future to include someone that I can be with forever.” We wish both of them the best for their future together.

Rio is also looking for a long, continued future with his bandmates in Sunset Riot, including lead guitarist, JP, rhythm guitarist Ziggy Scott, Resh playing drums, and new bassist Simmo.

“We’re all really glad to have Simmo with us now. The U.S. tour,” proclaimed Rio, “was sort of our trial period for both sides. We knew that Simmo already knew the songs from our first record because he really liked it, but touring internationally is very different than touring locally. From [Simmo’s] perspective, we didn’t want him to just jump on and say, ‘Yeah, I’m in,’ and from our perspective, we wanted to see how it would work out over a longer period of time. You learn a lot about somebody by the way that they tour. We wanted both sides to take their time to make sure that it was the right decision.” Rio continued, “For a band to last, it’s going to be hard to do if they keep changing their band members. Obviously sometimes people’s personal lives can get in the way or maybe things just aren’t as important for someone in the band anymore, but as much as we can, we want to keep the core nucleus together. I believe the most successful bands throughout the years have been the ones that hang on to their members for the longest  time.”

One of the highlights during their recent U.S. tour was at the famed “Rocklahoma” concert in Pryor, Oklahoma. Sunset Riot was given the opportunity of opening up the “Retrospect Records Stage” on Day One and then performing there again on the last day of this three day music festival. Del exclaimed, “It was absolutely amazing! I’m a fan of so many bands and musicians that were there, so it was great getting to meet some of them. From a performance level, being able to open the festival, then playing it again and seeing people come back and also bring more people with them which then made our second show three or four times bigger than the first, that was just mind-blowing! It was absolutely an amazing experience!”

You can find out more information about the band at their website  you can purchase their music or merch. The band can also be found on Facebook and last, but not least, check them out on ReverbNation.

Pick up all that you can from the band and take part in the riot!


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