Interview with littleSUNDAY

For littleSUNDAY being an indieMortal is "like being permanently glued to the Top 10 Billboard Charts and keeping your position forever." – by Mel in Toronto

littleSUNDAY is our second indieMortal7. This energetic Canadian rock band enjoyed massive support from their strong fan base; and, without doubt, their fans are onto something good: The band convinces through strong rock songs with catchy melodies, powerful vocals and solid song writing.

Based out of Richmond Hill, just North of Toronto, littleSUNDAY has been together for four years. littleSUNDAY are: Rick (lead vocals/guitars), JP (lead guitar/backing vocals), Mario (bass guitar/backing vocals), and Eric (drums/percussions). JP, Mario and Eric have been playing their instruments for over ten years.

Their songs are about the one thing we all have in common: life. "This will always remain as one of mankind's eternal research projects," Rick, who writes most of the lyrics, says. "Not sure if we'll ever figure this life out, but one thing I do know is that we never get tired of studying the condition of mankind and contemplating and questioning the decisions we make."

littleSUNDAY has two albums. Their eleven-song debut album ‘Day of Hollow' was released in 2003. Rick gives his insight on two songs on this album: "GOD SAVE ME was a song that sort of had us questioning the value of faith in today's society. When we look around and observe all the daily turmoil of stress, and violence we as people tend to look towards our respective faiths to help us seek salvation from these evils. The song addresses our inner faith. CRASH is best explained by having you think about the potential repercussions of making the wrong decisions in life. We often act on impulse or irrationally, and sometimes this process can have serious long term effects."

‘Day of Hollow' was followed by the band's 2006 five-song EP ‘Cross the Line'. Rick explains two songs of this excellent EP: "IN THE END is sort of like a love/hate song that takes us back to that first love relationship that had us spinning in circles with love while at the same time being unable to breathe and hating the person who made us fall in love. In the end, we realize that these types of relationships don't last and usually end worse off than they started. LEAVE is a song that celebrates friendship and has a party-like atmosphere. It talks about nothing really in particular but draws comparisons to things that move us to pleasure. It's a fun song with a lot of energy!"

In February 2007, littleSUNDAY signed a three year licensing deal with YAHOO! Music Canada! Their music is now available to a world wide audience through YAHOO! stations Canada Rocks, Real Rock and Indie Rock. "We are starting to see that people are taking us a bit more seriously these days. We're not just another indie band playing gigs around town to make ends meet. We are an ‘unsigned' band that is working hard to get noticed and create some buzz around the industry," JP says.

Make sure that you go see littleSUNDAY in concert, when you get a chance, because as Mario puts it: "It's all about interaction with the audience. There's nothing more pleasing than having a room full of listeners rocking to your music and singing along!" With a description like that, you know it will be a great show.

"In your own words" ONE on ONE with Mel and littleSUNDAY

Mel: Why was it important for littleSUNDAY to be an indieMortal?

Rick: I think being an indieMortal was important for a variety of reasons.The first being that it is obviously a great avenue to expose our music and story to a wider audience span, and not for one day, but forever on a site that is drawing a lot of industry attention. It's like being permanently glued to the Top 10 Billboard Charts and keeping your position forever. The second reason is that it is a reflection of the efforts of our growing fan base: If it wasn't for the persistence of our close friends and fans to network and cast votes, we'd never be here! That's a good indication of how strong our fan base is growing!

Mel: Which opportunities do you see with indieSolo?

Mario: Well, I mean getting infinite exposure on an industry site like yours is the best opportunity to start! Also, we become part of a historic moment for your company as the original few that were selected to represent indie talent! I'd say that's something to boast about!

Mel: Who are your influences?

Mario: Here is a question, when asking musicians, that is very hard to answer. Every musician will tell you they are influenced by some magical music spirit, and are taken away to another world where influences don't exist, and musician and spirit become one: BULLTSHIT!!(laughs) Actually, we all have our own unique influences from somewhere, and whether we admit it or not, we show them through our playing and performances; it's human nature to imitate the things we idol. We are influenced by many great bands in our time and some with more classic feel, but our fans seem to think we sound strikingly close to bands like: Collective Soul, Nickelback, and Stone Temple Pilots. That's their opinions, and that's totally cool with us.

Mel: What does it mean to you to be an indie artist?

Rick: That's a very good question because we've realized more and more that an indie band is more than just being musicians: it's running your own business. We do have roles. As a group of four musicians, we've slowly expanded our duties to others we call littleSUNDAY Team members. These are friends and supporters that volunteer their time and efforts in helping littleSUNDAY succeed. For example, sitting to my left is our street team leader Sean. He deals with corresponding with fans from different cities that we've played in, and helps them build up the hype when we go back to those cities. He gets in contact with all the radio stations, gets us interviews and stuff like that. Mario is our PR man, cell phone man; he does a lot of the booking, and makes the calls to potential promoters and bookers. Eric, the drummer, is the MySpace guru. He runs the MySpace site. I run the website, and I do all the e-mailing. I'm the e-mail master.

Eric: JP does all the photography and layouts, he collects all the photographs, he does all the deliveries because he travels up and down the city all day, so it works out really well. Then we've got our littleSUNDAY team. Paul (Merryweather), he's our lead spokesperson and our manager. Then we've got a few other people that are involved, people who want to help us out, people who have helped us out, or are in the process of offering to help us, they all become part of our team. And we're more than glad to have them as part of our "team". The "team" is a network of people that have an interest in helping out our band, and I think that's the key. When you keep your network close, and you expand that network over time, like we have, the team becomes pretty big.

Mel: What would you like to achieve with your music?

JP: World domination! (laughs) No, actually, we'd like to achieve a solid and fruitful fan base that truly believes and appreciates the music of littleSUNDAY. Sure, we always search for the special song that can change the world, but finding a special band - is even better! Our music translates well to our audience, and there's nothing better than gaining their respect and approval.

Rick: JP's right! Ultimately, we'd like to establish ourselves as a hardworking respectful band. So we keep writing new material, and keep working our asses off with the hopes of gaining extra exposure, and of course the respect!

Mel: With which artist would you like to record a song and why?

Mario:(laughs) That's a tough question to ask a band who's influences are all over the map!! Take me for example, I'd love to record some music with Bon Jovi, but Rick will turn around and say he'd prefer to record with the Deleo brothers from Stone Temple Pilots.

Eric: Yeah, give me a session with Jimmy Page any day!!!

-end

May 31, 2007 by Mel in Toronto [Melanie Schade]

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