Pop quiz: how many basic scales are there in the ancient art of Caranatic singing? Answer: 72. Second question, did you know that The Sunpilots front man Raj Siva-Rajah can sing all of them?
You might be picturing Youssou N’dour, but The Sunpilots self-titled debut EP is a collection of alt-rock gems that have radio stations salivating and MySpace nerds all over the planet rushing to their PCs to up their coolness factor by becoming one of the band’s friends. It’s been a long journey for Raj, whose musical endeavors have ventured across three states, and which finally sees him calling Sydney home.
“I was born in Brisbane, but my parents are Sri Lankan,” Raj says, informing me of his cultural heritage and musical influences. ”Mum’s actually a classical Sri Lankan singer. She’s always been really musical so she started me on lessons in Brisbane when I was really young. That’s where it all started…learning Caranatic music.
“It was something that I was kind of forced into for a while, because it wasn’t really a cool thing to do. Now looking back on it, you get to a point where you start embracing all these cultural differences. When you’re a kid you don’t – you just want to fit in.”
When Raj was 8 he relocated with his family from Brisbane to Adelaide where he spent his formative years as a teenager in high school, and then at university. It was here that Raj was introduced to bands such as Pearl Jam, Tool and Radiohead. Combining rock music with his classical Caranatic background Raj, with the help of friend Andrew Maitland, formed thenemesisproject, a musical partnership which Raj admits was, and still is, a love-hate affair.
“He (Andrew) writes stuff in a very… I don’t know, he’d be happy just sitting there playing the guitar and singing improv and just doing this thing that has no real structure to it,” reflects Raj, “which is really cool – he really doesn’t like structured stuff. Whereas me, I think I’ve got more of a production ear. So when the two of us get together, we tend to write things which we both dislike but other people like. (Laughs) We’re good mates, but we’ve got a lot of creative differences.”
Following the completion of his studies, Raj made his final musical voyage across the country, relocating from Adelaide to Sydney. It was here that a new band was formed, thenemesisproject moniker revoked and The Sunpilots was born.
“Things were getting a bit stale for me in Adelaide. I’d just broken up with a girl I’d been with for two and a half years,” explains Raj about the motives behind his interstate shuffle. “I think you’ve also got to be in a place where things feel right and it just didn’t feel like things were happening in Adelaide.
“But as soon as the move to Sydney happened, I met some really great guys and we’ve got things happening. I met them all through friends of friends. I met one girl, who was friends with an Adelaide muso, and it actually all started with her because she introduced me to people who introduced me to people. It was all really bizarre. As a band, we’ve only really been together for about 7 or 8 months. Things are kicking along quite well – I think it’s being in the right place at the right time.”
The newly formed The Sunpilots then ventured into the studio to lay down some demo tracks of a handful of Raj’s old songs. The band was so impressed by the quality of the recording sessions that they packaged it into an EP, which was officially released in June of this year.
“When you’ve got a few songs that have already been written and the rest of the band don’t know them, if you sit down and you spend some time recording them and jamming them out in a studio – when you’ve got them the way you want them, you can lock them down that way,” explains Raj. ”Otherwise every rehearsal it ends up coming out slightly different. We did that and it just ended up sounding OK and we thought we’d put it onto a CD and get it out there mainly because we thought, ‘not a huge amount is going to happen out of the first release for a band’.”
How wrong the band was. Aside from airplay on local radio stations such as FBi, The Sunpilots were picked up by national radio stations such as Nova and Triple J, which in turn caused a ruckus on MySpace, garnering the band with thousands of profile views. Radio play has allowed the group to attract attention around Australia, while the band’s strong internet presence has enabled the word of The Sunpilots to be spread worldwide, resulting in a management deal in Canada as well as organising a tour for 2007.
“Our Canadian manager is setting up getting us over there mid next year and playing some huge 100 000-odd festivals,” says Raj, a little bewildered. ”That’s just ridiculous, you know! (Laughs) Just getting out there on the net got us that. There’s a Canada Day Music Festival which is about 70 000 people, and it’s a bit more rock. That’s in July next year and we’re playing at that. We’ve also managed to set up some great bands overseas that we’ve met online that are happy to tee up gigs for us when we’re over there.”
In the meantime, the band are preparing to head into the studio with LA producer Roger Sommers, who the band have come in contact with due to their receipt of the 2006 Musicoz Producers Award. Aiming for 8 tracks on the disc, the band plan to re-record the tracks found on the self-titled EP, as well as contribute 4 new songs.
“We’re going to try and spend the time and effort in making it a really good, really strong album,” says Raj. ”I think the EP tracks have a lot more potential because they were fairly rough when we recorded them, and there are some bits where I’d like to get a string quartet in and all that kind of stuff.
“I don’t know what it’s going to end up as. Our live stuff is becoming a lot heavier, and I don’t know why that is. We love it, but it’s definitely taking on a little bit more of a Pearl Jam heaviness when we play it live and it’s drifting away from the softer, acoustic vibe. I think we all want it to end up a little heavier than some of the stuff that’s been so far. Especially these four new tracks, a couple of them are a little bit darker and cynical.”
The Sunpilots go emo?
“No,” Raj laughs. “The Sunpilots will never go emo.”
The Sunpilots debut self-titled EP is out now through Honeytrap Records. The band’s new single, ‘Spotlight in the Sun’ is the iTunes Single of the Week and is available to download for free until July 4.
