Skye Sweetnam, Sumo Cyco, and the Power of Community

Like many others, I jumped directly into my Apple Music Replay this year filled with more than a little enthusiasm. For the first time, all the music would be mine and not tied to my kiddo’s account. 

And apparently, my top artist was Sumo Cyco for a total of 575 minutes of playing time. Introduced to the Canadian punk metal pop band for an interview opportunity at New York Comic Con, I found myself playing their new album Neon Void on repeat. The hard yet upbeat sound appealed to my perimenopausal 2025 feminine rage. 

The lyrics to “Villains” offer the perfect anthem as I embrace my own personal villain era bringing questions that directly respond to the current zeitgeist where money and power seem to outweigh kindness and humanity:

“Don’t you know, if you stoop low, then they stoop lower?”

“Pressures reached a boil, what sits atop your list? Exploitation? Profits? A martini with a twist?”

Sitting down with Sky Sweetnam, the lead singer and one of the band’s lyricists, I had an opportunity to explore building a community through a shared love of music. 

The Two Way Street of Personal Connection

Given the music industry’s current state, building a career is more challenging than ever before. Streaming services pay artists fractions of pennies per stream, the highest in 2025 being $0.01284 and the lowest being $0.00200. The primary income streams for most artists now lie in concerts and merchandise, the in-person experiences that build human connections. 

In a world dominated by social media and parasocial relationships, these personal connections between artists and fans give us the community we need. Sweetnam explained:

We’d go on tours, and every single fan is important. We wanted to remember all these fans’ names because it was really important that if you saw them at the merch booth when they were buying a shirt, you could say good-bye at the end of the show. And they were like “what? You remember my name?” I realized how important it is. People want to feel a part of something. Why wouldn’t I support knowing you more than just as a fan, there’s more to it.

Music brings people together in unique ways. Different music genres offer everything from escapism to social activism. Punk culture has historically been non-conformist, anti-capitalist-, anti-authoritarian, and annti-corporate, with a do-it-yourself ethos. Heavy  metal culture was driven by working class struggles and collective resistance. 

For fans, the music is about personal alignment to a philosophy as much as it is the sound. For artists, the music is about self-expression and connecting with people who share their musical sensibility. Like most relationships, the symbiotic nature allows fans and musicians to succeed. 

From IRL to Digital to IRL: A True Community

For Sweetnam and Sumo Cyco, community building is an ongoing process that began with getting to know their fans after shows. Fans would share everything from challenges getting to a show to how a show was a sibling’s first concert. Skye explained, “we realized how those people that we took the time to have conversations with were really becoming this core group of people supporting what we did, becoming family.”

As the band built this community of fans, Sweetnam found herself struggling. She felt that algorithms and social media platforms began dictating how they could interact with fans, explaining, “I realized how important it was to have a little bit more ownership for our community. That’s when I started Only Cycos last year.” Community members gain access to different feeds and content while being able to interact with each other and the band members. For Sweetnam, these connections are incredibly important:

Some of these people have been following us for so long. They’ve seen the ups and downs, and they’ve seen the struggles. They’ve seen us posting about our car getting broken into, and they raced to help. 

We’ve had fans literally drive car parts from one part of the state to another so that it could get to the shop in time for us to fix our bus so we could make it to the next show. A fan drove eight hours one night to drop a car part off for our RV so we could get back on eight hours later, and he wasn’t even able to make the show. We sent him a care package after. 

Social Media vs. Social Connection

The band’s owned forum gives fans a better social experience. Social media is about glossy, finished products. While many musicians work with social media platforms and their algorithms, Sweetnam explains that she finds it “very exhausting on a creative soul,” continuing:

I consider myself, before anything else, an artist. I found myself in those moments, making those decisions, asking “should I do this?” Everyone has to do it for themselves, what they feel comfortable with. I do find that it is important to rein yourself back into your true artist self when you’re starting to feel that frustration and pull, like you’re at odds with what you’re doing.

While most social media only offers glossy, finished products, Only Cycos gives fans the behind-the-scenes look at everything from choosing an album name to finding the right dress for an event. Sweetnam elaborated:

Social media ended up being about presenting the best version of yourself. I think with those people that have earned our trust, and we’ve kind of earned theirs, that we can say, “Well, you guys are past that. You’re not our buds. You know how it works.” 

I want to make them feel like they can get as much information as they want about how things are done. I think that really brings them closer. There’s only a certain type of person that will really spend that type of deep dive into you. If they’re willing to do that, then I want to give it to them. 

This mutual respect between artist and fan sits as the core of building a digital community, especially in the arts. Sweetnam and Sumo Cyco do more than say that their fans matter, they take the actions that speak louder than words. 

Anything But Boring

With 575 minutes of listening to Sweetnam’s singing with Sumo Cyco in less than two months, I’ve been converted. If the music alone didn’t connect with my soul, the band’s approach to building a community of fans resonates with everything I think the internet and social media are lacking in 2025. 

To close out, I want to quote some of my favorite lyrics from the song, “Boring,” as a call to action for moving into the new year: 

We’re on trial, you’re on trial… 

The world seems to be in denial,

But could you accept the truth, if it were strangling you with its sweaty, calloused red hands!?

Is that too much for you?