Sunna
Alexx Henry Ouanes
Sunna is beginning to get praise as a hard rock band with just the right amount of dark, Gothic touch, but their lives weren't always so easy. Lead singer Jon Harris spent time in Israel in a kibbutz before he returned home to start life as a singer-songwriter and form the first of many bands.
The first incarnation of Sunna were dropped from their record label after the execs tried to force the band into a more mainstream and funky sound, which they refused. The band was unceremoniously booted from their label and management company, forced to start over at square one.
After Harris accidentally met up with members of Massive Attack in a Bristol studio, he played guitar on the group's highly acclaimed Mezzanine album. The songs he was working on in that studio caught the ears of the members of Massive Attack, who signed Sunna to their Melankolic imprint label, despite the quite obvious lack of trip-hop stylings present in their music.
The rebirth of Sunna has seen them rise from the ashes a more confident and happy band whose members, Harris, Ian McLauren on guitar, Richie Mills on drums, Shane Goodwin on bass and DJ Flatline, are finally free to create the music they want. Their luck still hadn't run out as the band landed a slot opening for A Perfect Circle on their American tour.
iCAST caught up with the band in Boston on their first night playing in the U.S.
The band was understandably nervous; we hear that certain members may have actually tossed their cookies, while other just spent the day taming the butterflies in their stomach. Despite the bad case of the jitters, Harris and McLauren played on the street corner for spare change and McLauren and Richie Mills chatted with us about their signature sound and style.
Ian McLauren: This is where it goes. [Indicating acoustic guitar] It was brilliant because there's no technology, there's no bollocks, it's just like, "Let's have it on stage," and go.
iCAST: Just out and out. That's cool.
IM: And I like the fact that you can turn up at any pub or fucking anything, do you know what I mean? Stand up, sound check in about three seconds and that was the set. But obviously it's impossible to do that with what we're doing.
Music Mixed with Technology
iCAST: But right now Sunna still has that raw energy plus other layers. The electronic parts --
IM: I think the reason is it's almost done backwards.
Where I think bands fail is that they try -- they want to have the technology kind of aspect, so that's the immediate thing that's incorporated, and then it's, "Oh my god, we've got to write a song around this." Do you know what I mean?
iCAST: Yeah, exactly --
IM: I love the sounds, but where's the song, you know what I mean? And we've done it, it's come from the roots, and then we've incorporated everything on top of it. You've got to have the foundation haven't you?
iCAST: You can always tell; if you can take everything down to an acoustic set like you did today and it's still a song, then you don't need all the other layers.
IM: Absolutely.
iCAST: It's very cool. One thing that I noticed about you guys which is great, when you're singing, the two of you, there's not an inch of an English accent. There's nothing, it's all like Bruce Springsteen.
IM: Oh shit. Is that good or bad, I don't know?
What I think the great thing about rock music and pop music as well is that the English is language is great, it's excellent for it, you know what I mean? I've heard French bands come in and sing it all in French, and it's just like, "Yeah, okay." And that's why I think they all sing in English. It's the way it goes.
Opening Night Jitters
[Drummer Richie Mills enters] iCAST: How are you doing? You feel a little better?
Richie Mills: Yeah, yeah. [Lead singer] Jonny [Harris]'s really jittery now.
IM: He's getting a bit --
RM: When you have a chance, just pop in and say hello. But don't do in there, "Are you alright?" His head is...
IM: Yeah, you know, you've got difficult nights with no sleep, no sound check, it's bit experimental.
[Richie Mills exits] iCAST: This is the very first night you are in America, kicking off the American tour, so how do you feel?
IM: I feel great. I love it and that's why I do it.
iCAST: Do you know anyone else who has thrown up in the car?
IM: You will cough and then you go, "Oh yeah, that's what I did." You know what I mean? We're all nervous. But it's not about the studio to me. I like the studio, you've got all the other bollocks that goes with it; this is it. This [performing live] is the real deal.
iCAST: I always wonder, because for different bands it's always different. Is the magic in the studio or is the magic when you're playing --
IM: Absolutely, it's all about playing live, definitely. It's one of these things where, like, times like now and you've got all the kind of technicalities to get over and then you get on the stage and it's all the music there, and you come off and while you're on stage it's just like, "This is it, this is it."
A lot of people don't even like touring, they just like to sit in the studio and be the studio wizard or whatever. Not me, or not us, I think.
iCAST: That's what it's about, that connection when you're on stage and you're just there and you're all feeling it together. It's like nothing -- fantastic.
I want to find out -- I asked you earlier back at the restaurant, what's the name of the song again, [sings] "I don't--"
Sunna's Not Trading
IM: "I'm Not Trading".
iCAST: That's stuck in my head.
IM: That's going to be the second single.
iCAST: Oh, it's already the single here.
IM: Is it really?
Andy Wallace obviously, you know, did the Nirvana stuff. He's taken it away and remixing it for the second single. It's going to be kicking, yeah.
iCAST: So the song, ["I'm Not Trading"] you said, is about the last incarnation of you guys?
IM: Yeah, it's about the last record company and all the kinds of dealings that we had to and the kind of pigeonhole they were trying to put us in.
The song that actually got sung to RCA wasn't actually that kind of rock-orientated, but to be honest, neither was the song that got us signed to Virgin. It's just the way we groove. It's brilliant, it couldn't have worked out better, because the learning curve -- the whole RCA experience, getting dropped by the label, they wanted to turn us into -- not the Backstreet Boys exactly, but something a little bit more kind of funky and Princey, almost. It was a long time ago.
iCAST: I'm going to dig that up, also.
IM: No, no, I didn't say that.
No Sophomore Slump
iCAST: So you say that you have enough material now that you're ready to just go full force and --
IM: As I said, what happened is that we got dropped from RCA because we were going down the rock avenue, and they said, "You know, if you're going to do this, then we're going to drop you," and we went, "Excellent, that's exactly what we want." The Management Company dropped us the day after, which isn't what we wanted.
So then it was like, "Right, start back from the beginning again, churn it all up again. " And basically, when we finished the album the first kind of rehearsal experience we had was us just going down those old -- just having a laugh, me and Jon just having a laugh playing those old songs and Virgin was going, "What the fuck is this? This is amazing." So we said, "Oh, it's just an old tune," and they're going, "This has got to go on the album." Straight whisked off into studio, recorded it, swapped over, it was just such a rush job.
iCAST: That's great. But it takes a lot out of you.
IM: So yeah, we've got a situation now where I'm actually more excited about the second album than I am this album [One Minute Science], believe it or not. I think that the songs are much stronger, much more about what we want to do. They're in "Power Struggle," "Trading," "Vain" -- "Trading" is actually an old song as well. There's a few old songs in there.
iCAST: But they have a different sound to it?
IM: They have a slightly different sound, yeah.
iCAST: New layers, mostly?
IM: Yeah, but there's just so many tunes we can just pull out, and that's why I think it's going to be very excited to do, there's new tunes as well. I'm really excited about the second album, which is mad, isn't it?
iCAST: That's great. I can't wait to hear it, but that's going to be a year from now?
IM: Well, longer than that, probably.
iCAST: But for now...
IM: I said that it's going to go down really quickly, you know? It's going to be -- we can bang it out within about four months or something like that.
iCAST: That's great because the second album is traditionally the --
IM: The toughest, yeah, because it's like any band that kind of makes it -- Like Portishead, had a real trouble with -- it's like, 14 years to write your first album, and then four months to write your second and it's got to be better than the first, it's really tough. But that's why I'm really confident about it, because we haven't got that problem because it's things that you
--
iCAST: So in essence you're already beyond that problem. Thanks very much for talking to me.
IM: Cheers, thanks.
iCAST: We're going to see some live stuff with you in there and I'm looking forward to it, definitely.
IM: Excellent. Enjoy.
Getting the Nerves Under Control
[Richie Mills returns] iCAST: So what's going on here?
RM: Just chilling out with the kids. Quite an impressive line, or is it? I don't know. Pretty scared now.
iCAST: Are you excited?
RM: Yeah, first-night jitters are kicking in a little bit.
iCAST: Have you gotten over it at all?
RM: I'm trying to chew my own face off. I've no teeth left to grind. No, we're getting there; we're getting there slowly. I think we're going to have to do our sound check or our line check --
iCAST: Unfortunately. Now, your sound check is going to be the first song of the set?
RM: It's a bit of a pain in the ass.
iCAST: What's first?
RM: "I'm Not Trading".
iCAST: I love that song. That's the one you were playing acoustic.
RM: It'll sound crap tonight. It'll sound shit.
iCAST: It won't.
RM: It's all right. It's not my favorite live track.
iCAST: No?
RM: No, I'm going to save all mine for the last track.
iCAST: I've got that song constantly running through my head right now.
RM: "I'm Not Trading"?
iCAST: Yeah. It was good acoustic, too.
RM: Yeah, it was the first time I seen it [that way] as well.
iCAST: Did you hear it with the harmonica in the background? That was cool.
You should have invited him along.
RM: I think if "Not Trading" comes out as a single, it could have that sort of anthemic; that sort of Rage Against the Machine thing where all the kids just chant and hopefully it can become anthemic.
Technical Difficulties
iCAST: I can hear that; I'm already jamming.
RM: So you've been really busy this afternoon with the other boys, sorry I haven't been around.
iCAST: No, that's all right.
RM: It's taken me awhile to settle my stuff. I re-skinned my drums.
iCAST: I hear that they're going to take a beating.
RM: Who said that?
iCAST: [Bassist] Shane [Goodwin]. He said you played pretty hard.
RM: Yeah, things can get a bit carried away sometimes. I tend to throw my drums in the audience and throw them at people.
iCAST: I see you're interested in the full effect? It's a full drum kit?
RM: We'll see. Might get lucky. It just depends on whether we can replace the drum kit every night.
iCAST: We'll see. It's a perfect night to test, on the first night of the tour.
RM: Well, I'm going to have to go inside.
iCAST: We'll see you on the other side of the stage. Have a good night, man.
RM: Rock on, dudes.