Sun Junkies are a great 4-piece rock band from Brantford, Ontario. Releasing some awesome singles and now a full length album “Technicolor Daydream”, these guys are definitely going places. With a fresh upbeat sound that grabs you and won’t let go, you better check em out if you haven’t already. Dull Records had the chance to do a quick interview over email, enjoy!
How did sun junkies come together?
Sun junkies started as me writing songs alone in my bedroom when I was about 16. In high school I spent a lot of timing jamming with anyone who would play with me, I eventually got Nick on drums and we started to take ourselves more seriously. we played a handful of shows and had our first studio horror experience recording an album that never saw the light of day which really played a part in how DIY we are to this day. Throughout these learning experiences we found the basis for the sound we’re still exploring today. After high school Issa moved back to town and joined as our bass player, and put us in touch with Ethan who joined on lead guitar. We instantly clicked as a unit and they’re my best friends in the fucking world at this point.
How did it feel releasing Technicolor Daydream out into the world after pouring over a year of blood, sweat and tears into the album and through the basement recording?
The entire process of recording Technicolor Daydream felt like a fever dream, we set out to test our new recording equipment and ended up recording all of sometimes successfully over the course of a weekend. We spent the next year learning how to produce and hammering on glockenspiels, eventually it started to feel like it would never come out. We just wanted to have music available to listen to so badly while still doing the songs justice and without rushing through anything. It was incredibly satisfying to finally release it, the most surreal part was just looking at the album cover while listening to it, I just remember thinking “oh my god it’s fucking real”. Sure there’s a couple moments that I wish we could change and it was hard to let go of such an intense project but I think playing a packed album release show at The Hard Luck in Toronto made all those feelings go away pretty fast.
Describe what songwriting process looks for Sun Junkies
Usually either Ethan or I will come up with a song at home or whatever. We both have a tendency to flesh out most of the songs while writing, so when it comes to showing the guys I kind of feel like the worlds shittiest conductor trying to explain the way the song plays out in my head. Once we run through the song as is a couple times, there’s always a ton of back and forth from everyone and the song structures tend to change drastically from the way they were initially written.
You guys recently held a cover contest, what was it like sorting through the submissions and choosing a winner?
It was insane hearing anyone else play our songs, our fans and friends are super creative and there were a lot of very different takes on the songs which was fucking insane to hear. We weren’t really expecting anyone to actually do a cover so when we heard Josh Grossi’s insane fully produced electronic version of “Sundaze” it was pretty clear we had to give it to him, so much time must’ve gone into it and he’s an absolute legend of a dude.
What is your favorite thing about performing and do you have a favorite performance memory?
A1: Having people sing my lyrics back at me is probably better than crack, I mean Ive never tried it but I’d imagine. Watching someone’s face light up as you burst into a part they weren’t expecting follows pretty closely, I don’t know it’s all fucking beautiful, even the shittiest shows, sometimes those are the best ones.
A2: I’ll never forget our album release show for “Technicolor Daydream”. We played at The Hard Luck where I’ve seen some of the best shows of my life which in itself I was shitting myself over. I once got kicked out of that place for being way too high on MDMA and now I’m gonna be playing a song about it to over 100 excited kids? Fucking no I will not. Definitely one of the most surreal nights of my life.
Recommend a couple more local bands our readers should check out!
Rikashay, Sea Of Troubles, Pretty, Tripper and The Wild Things, Teddy’s Atlas, Foreign Moon
CHECK OUT “TECHNICOLOR DAYDREAM” ON SPOTIFY!
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