Sunk Loto

History

Sunk Loto formed as a heavy metal band from Gold Coast, Queensland in March 1997 by Dane Brown on drums, his brother Jason Brown on lead vocals, Luke McDonald on guitar and Sean Van Gennip on bass guitar. Originally named Messiah, brothers Dane and Jason Brown met Luke McDonald at a local music store, Jason brought his younger brother to practice sessions and McDonald's school mate, Sean Van Gennip, completed the line-up. A year later they changed their name due to another band of the same name: Jason explained "we looked up Messiah in the dictionary and the meaning was 'liberator of the oppressed" so we took the first letter of each word to form LOTO and SUNK was added to the name symbolising the sinking of name Messiah."

In April 1999 the group signed with Sony Records when Dane was 13 and the band's oldest member, Sean Van Gennip, was 17. In November that year, they released a five-track extended play, Society Anxiety, which was produced by Paul McKercher (You Am I, Sarah Blasko) It peaked at number 2 in the ARIA Singles Chart. The band performed at a range of festivals including Hombake promoting the highly successful EP and then commenced writing for their debut full length album.

For six weeks in 2000 Sunk Loto recorded their debut album, Big Picture Lies, with McKercher again as producer, in Sydney. The band travelled to New York studio RPM to mix the album with legendary producer Micael Barbiero (Guns n Roses) It was issued on 13 October made a significant impact on the ARIA Albums Chart.

The album's lead single, "Make You Feel" (August 2000), peaked at No. 33 on the ARIA Singles Chart and was followed in December by "Sunken Eyes", which reached the top 100. Sunk Loto joined the Big Day Out tour in 2001, and also toured extensively for the following 2 years.

On 17 November 2003 they issued their Aria nominated second album, Between Birth and Death, a significantly darker and heavier effort with Phil McKellar producing this time around. Between Birth and Death is considered one of the most influential Australian heavy metal releases. 2004 saw the band tour more extensively than ever, both nationally and numerous times in the United States on the heavy metal circuit.

It peaked in the top 50 on the ARIA Top 100 Albums, No. 13 on the ARIA Australasian Artists and No. 4 on the ARIA Heavy Rock & Metal chart. Its lead single, "Everything Everyway", had appeared in October 2003, and reached the top 50 on the ARIA Singles Chart.

In 2006 Sean Van Gennip departed the band due to creative differences. He was replaced by Rob Kaay. The band finished a short Australian tour at the end of 2006 and planned to finish writing and recording their third studio album. McDonald had wanted to "take their sound down an even darker path." Dane, Jason and Kaay and decided to work on a new project without McDonald due to irreparable creative and personal reasons. Sunk Loto played their final sold out show on the Gold Coast on 14 December 2007.

The Brown brothers and Kaay wrote songs, five days a week over a six-month period and formed a new band: The Flood. Some of the tracks from this period can be heard on Kaay's Soundcloud page. Jason and Dane Brown later created Electric Horse with ex-members of fellow Gold Coast band, Lump. They issued an EP, Translations (2010), and a studio album, Venomous (2013).

Albums

Extended plays

Singles

Demos

Note: The second track is a demo version of "Empty and Alone" from Between Birth and Death. The other three tracks are songs which were to be recorded for their next album before the band broke up. They are not on an official release.

Members