Indie Week ’09 was a big success for Sixteen Layers.  With no idea what to expect we crossed the Atlantic into the Big Unknown!   To our joy, we found a lot of love and support in Toronto.  I suppose the main thing that we took away from our trip was a lot of dedicated contacts and friends who we are currently working with to get back to Canada in March.

Being an independent rock act in this day and age isn’t something entered into lightly… it’s a huge amount of work and dedication.  The big thing is making connections with other indie agents and acts, this has been made a lot easier by the internet but online is no substitution for ‘face time’ and performing to new audiences.  Indie Week ’09 gave us this opportunity big time.  It made Sixteen Layers a whole new monster… We’ve returned to Dublin with a whole new outlook on playing internationally… YOU GET OUT WHAT YOU PUT IN, BABY!

While in Ontario, we got a chance to play outside of Toronto as well and it gave us a real taste for touring more extensively in that part of the world.  We’ll be back, no doubt.

We’re currently working on new material with some occasional gigs to keep our chops up but our main focus is the next album.  We learnt a lot through the making of our largely self produced debut album ‘I AM NO ONE’.  We’ve a better idea now of where we want to be for the next one.  Follow our own guidance… we’ve definitely developed a far sharper compass for where we want to go and not necessarily what various industry factions want to hear… we gotta be true to ourselves and that’s what an audience wants and what keeps a band like SL surviving.

Since we got home, we’ve also shot a vid for our tune ‘Into The Sun’, that’s in post production as I type… should be ready soon.  A friend’s car got smashed up during the shoot so it’s cost a little more than we’d hoped… that’s showbiz folks!!!

We’ve also managed (finally) to get on the bill of some of the bigger Summer fests in Ireland and I’ve a sneaking suspicion that that’s something to do with having travelled further a field with the band, the joy of being an International Rock Act!