Daily Discovery: Suntrodden, “Sunrise to Sunset”

ARTIST: Suntrodden

SONG: “Sunrise to Sunset”

HOMETOWN:  Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to Canadian parents. I spent my summers in Flin Flon, Manitoba and St. John, New Brunswick. I’ve lived in the greater Atlanta / Athens, Georgia area since 1994

CURRENT LOCATION:  Atlanta, Georgia

AMBITIONS:  I think this evolves over time…In general, I want to be successful, but that definition has shifted a bit.  Fatherhood has become the priority — I want to raise a strong, confident son who grows up to know right from wrong and how to treat people with love and respect.  As it relates to this project, I think one of the things I wanted to achieve was a “document” that could exist for myself and family of my songwriting…I didn’t want to wake up 25 years from now and say, “I wish I would have written / recorded more music.”  I ultimately want to create something I can be proud of.

TURN-OFFS:  People who have ‘life coaches,’ inauthenticity, devaluation of music

TURN-ONS:  Coffee (literally and figuratively), stimulating conversation, intelligence, big hearts

DREAM GIG:  I’ll go conservative…Playing a historic theatre opening a tour with an artist/band that I respect to an attentive audience…Maybe not that conservative.

FAVORITE LYRIC:  “I’m a junkyard full of false starts, and I don’t need your permission to bury my love under this bare light bulb…”

CRAZIEST PERSON I KNOW:  Probably me, unfortunately.

SONG I WISH I WROTE:  Of all time “Tomorrow Never Knows” or “I’m Only Sleeping”…Apparently on a Revolver kick as I type this, but I probably could list another half dozen Beatles songs…More recently, I really love Jason Isbell’s Southeastern record; I’d probably say that I can relate to “Travelling Alone,” “Cover Me Up,” and “Stockholm.”

5 PEOPLE I’D MOST LIKE TO HAVE DINNER WITH:  My great, great grandparents who came to Canada from Iceland (sort of a Romeo / Juliet story, but the details have been lost over time)…Sir George Martin for some studio trickery…Keith Richards — I loved his autobiography, and I have a feeling he’s got a few other stories that he could share…Myself as a teenager / young adult so I could tell myself to get my act together.

MY FAVORITE CONCERT EXPERIENCE:  I love going to music festivals…It’s become a ritual of sorts to go once a year w/ a group of friends (a few core and a few that rotate in and out).  We’re lucky in Atlanta that Shaky Knees popped up a few years ago, but travelling to a destination where people are all ‘in it together’ and for the most part there to hear music is appealing to me.  If it’s not for the faint of heart, then the ‘C+E’ crowd won’t show up.

I WROTE THIS SONG:  Actually as a response to the whole concept of what eventually became Suntrodden.  I was at Bonnaroo in 2013 a few months before my son was born when I had the ‘you need to record more music moment.’  “Sunrise to Sunset” became sort of a manifesto…Quit ‘bleeding the day away’ and ‘give you all I got.’