The Soundsphere Magazine Podcast

For Leon Slater, the moment the referee’s hand hit the mat for three was almost too big to take in. “I remember hitting the Swanton 450, hearing 1, 2, 3, and just sitting back like kneeling and just going, ‘Oh my God! Like I can’t believe like what’s just happened,’” he recalled in conversation with Soundsphere’s Dom Smith. “It was relief, it was joy, it was euphoria, it was all of these feelings you could possibly imagine wrapped into one.”
At 22, Slater had become TNA’s youngest World Champion. The achievement still felt unreal. He hadn’t even watched the match back: he wants to hold on to the memory as it felt in the moment, rather than let the footage become the version he remembers. “When you watch the footage back, the memory almost becomes like a third-person memory,” he explained. “So I want to keep this as a first-person memory for as long as possible.” That instinct says something about Slater’s approach. He knows the importance of the milestone, but he doesn’t want the story of winning the title to replace the feeling of having lived it. The win is a new chapter, not a finish line, and the person who once had to believe in his own potential now has to defend his place at the top.

You might know Richard Summers-Calvert best as Biddy Blas or Charles Crowley. Whether you're into wrestling, gaming, Star Wars, James Bond or Marvel, chances are you've seen or heard this man's work, as the 34-year-old actor is starting to take over the world. For years now, he's been honing his reputation in wrestling as the Spectacular Twat Charles Crowley, who is taking over the squared circle with matches across the world, including recent matches for Tony Khan's Ring of Honor in the US. Over the last couple of weeks, everything has exploded with the release of Star Wars: Galactic Racer, with alien Biddy Blas going viral and launching its voiceover artist into a whole new galaxy. Speaking exclusively to Alistair McGeorge for Soundsphere, Richard delved into all things Biddy, Charles, his acting career, and what comes next.
For more visit: https://www.soundspheremag.com/spotlight/charles-crowley-to-biddy-blas-wrestling-with-memes-bodyslams-and-star-wars/

Brad Kane talks Linda Cardellini’s visceral take on Pamela Voorhees, the appeal of slashers and the series’ show-stopping practical effects.
For more visit: https://www.soundspheremag.com/features/interviews/crystal-lake-brad-kane-interview/

With MLW expanding its TV exposure, Riddle is enjoying a new character, a packed schedule and the chance to chase another prize.
https://www.soundspheremag.com/news/matt-riddle-on-mlws-new-reach-creative-freedom-and-why-the-indies-are-thriving/

WWE’s self-described workhorse is heading to Glasgow and Manchester. Before the UK dates, he talks to Soundsphere about the mask, Chad Gable, the Intercontinental Championship, music, and why the way you treat people may matter more than the titles you win.
Ethan Page arrives at the interview with his face hidden behind a glittering mask and his patience already wearing thin. I call him the “workhorse of WWE”, pointing to a career built across TNA, the independent scene and other promotions. Page accepts the label, but is quick to clarify what he means by it.
For more visit: https://www.soundspheremag.com/news/interview-wwes-ethan-page-goes-off-on-tko-i-am-the-guy/

There's a clock tower in the South of France that Mathias Court could see from his bedroom window as a child. It shouldn't have anything to do with a month spent screaming into walls of feedback in a freezing Philadelphia January, but that's the strange geometry of Rita, the fourth album from French rock four-piece Paerish, a record about Mediterranean summers built entirely in the snow, and comfortably the loudest, most restless thing the band has ever put its name to.
More here: https://www.soundspheremag.com/news/interview-paerish-on-rita-legacy-and-the-art-of-not-giving-up/

She started training at 15, signed with WWE before she’d finished working out who she was, and then did the hardest thing in wrestling, she stopped. Now 25, rebuilding at TNA and figuring out where the character ends and she begins, Elayna Black talks to Dom Smith about anxiety, imposter syndrome, Deftones, and the one musical genre she’ll never love.
More here: https://www.soundspheremag.com/news/the-lines-get-blurred-brianna-coda-reflects-on-rediscovering-elayna-black/

Thirty years after Republica’s self‑titled debut detonated on the mid‑90s scene, Saffron Sprackling still talks about the band like it’s all just kicking off. With a 30th‑anniversary reissue on the way and a new UK tour booked, she isn’t treating this as a museum piece. For her, Republica are still a living, mutating thing – and their legacy is about much more than nostalgia. For more visit: https://www.soundspheremag.com/news/medicine-for-the-soul-saffron-sprackling-on-30-years-of-republica/

There’s a particular kind of dread that runs through the work of Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats—a slow, creeping unease that feels at once timeless and painfully contemporary. On the band’s new album, Shapes of Midnight (out September 18), that dread becomes fully weaponised: a twisted gothic vision of power, class, and paranoia that feels like Edgar Allan Poe dragged into the age of 24-hour news, billionaire bunkers, and endless crisis.
For more visit: https://www.soundspheremag.com/news/culture/a-horrible-hellscape-inside-uncle-acids-shapes-of-midnight/

 
Three decades into a career that’s quietly shaped the emotional vocabulary of modern guitar music, Death Cab for Cutie find themselves in a rare position. They’re still here. Still functional. Still making records that matter.
For bassist Nick Harmer, that simple fact – survival, in all its mundane and miraculous forms – has become the real measure of success. Not the plaques, not the streaming numbers, not the festival font sizes. Just the continued ability to make music with his closest friends, to step onto a stage and feel that old electricity crackle through the room again.
On the band’s latest record, I Built You A Tower, Harmer and his bandmates lean into that reality with a calm confidence that only comes from time served. It’s not a victory lap, and it’s not a nostalgia piece. Instead, it feels like the sound of a band who have finally made peace with their own reflection – and decided they quite like what they see.
This conversation with Soundsphere finds Nick talking about Tower, the weight and wonder of “legacy”, streaming-era chaos, and what it means to stay Death Cab after all these years.
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