A Sydney based trio, the Loki story starts off a little similar to the silverchair one, 3 young musos getting more involved with their music in school days but not getting carried away with themselves & producing good, solid rock music that appeals to more than just themselves & their schoolmates.

I recently caught up with Loki drummer Stuart Tyson from the band, who is a very down to earth guy enjoying his place in the spotlight at the moment & getting on with the business of finishing up the band's new album & helping to promote their latest single.

First up, I asked how the band's friends at school had reacted to the band's music.

"Early on, of course a lot of the people we know from school didn't know we were that heavily into music, but once they started seeing us on TV & hearing our stuff on the radio, they got a lot more interested in what we were doing."

The school aspect begged the question about how the band's music interfered with their schoolwork.

"Not at all really, as I speak, Chris our bass player is probably sitting doing one of his half yearly exams, but I've left school now, so it's not going to bother me as far as that goes. It really didn't interfere at all. We used weekends & school holidays to rehearse & play gigs, you know, all on our own time."

With the exposure of both Triple J, TV & of course, community radio, one has to wonder whether the commercial stations have picked the band's music up as yet.

"Well, we did play Hey Hey It's Saturday a little while back, which was cool, but as for commercial radio, I'm not that concerned, because most of the people listening to say Triple M, seem only to be interested in your more classic rock stuff, like Cold Chisel & that, but I'd rather concentrate on getting our music heard by people who want to hear new things."

This latest single is a marked improvement over the band & I mentioned to Stuart just how much I thought the band's music has improved since that time.

"Hey thanks man. We've really tried to progress our sound rather than just play the harder sort of sound. We think the newer songs are a lot better than the older ones. A lot of people come along to our gigs thinking we're sort of all rock & they're surprised to learn that we're more than that."

Stuart then mentioned the new album & I asked how the recording of it was going.

"We're actually finished recording it & we've got to get down to mastering it now. It'll be out maybe the middle of this year & we're pretty happy with the songs as they stand. I think there's going to be a single some out with the album."

Always interested in the recording process, I enquired how long the band had taken to put it down.

"Well, the last album we did even quicker than this, but this one was only a couple of weeks in the making, but we already had all the songs rehearsed, so that makes it a lot easier."

Another aspect of recording these days is the home studio & I asked if the band had any of their own equipment to experiment with.

"No, we don't have enough to buy anything that'd be good enough, but it's something I'd like to do to get a bit more involved in the recording process. I guess that's a little bit further down the track."

Lastly, I asked abnout the band's experiences with their website & with the internet in general.

"We actually started that site ourselves. We don't do the actual site, but we're involved in what goes on there. I think it's great that there's so much in the way of music these days to check out on the net. We're pretty happy with the way the site's going though, so hopefully enough people will be interested in our music to want to come & check us out live or maybe buy our records."

Catch up with the band's music via their latest single 3 Play out through Festival & check out there website at www.loki.com.au