Get To Know: Son of the Sun

Joey Stocker gets friendly with HEAVEmedia and gives us some insight on the Buffalo band.

New York. The hub of America’s music world. Many bands, good and no good, get spit out of New York City’s rough and tumble environment, hoping for their chance of fifteen minutes of fame. Rarely is there something that pops out of western New York. Buffalo band Son of the Sun may be relatively young, but their unique old-school charm has already garnered notice within the community, with the Buffalo News naming them one of their 2008 bands to watch.

 

Founding members Joey Stocker and Zak Ward started their working relationship way back in high school when they first were in a band together. Son of the Sun was a gradual growth stemming from their love of music and creativity together. Stocker, originally a drummer, picked up a guitar and started recording instrumental tracks for a personal project which would become the band’s debut EP Before the After. He sent the recordings to Ward for some input. Ward’s immediate liking to the sound led to a collaboration spanning from New York to California. “Six months before that we were kind of going back and forth because [Zak] was living in California for a while,” said Stocker. “He would record the vocals and email them to me and I would line it up with the stuff that I had and we sort of worked actually through the internet that way. We put [the EP] out January and then we wanted to do a show so we put together a band and played our first show last March and now it’s kind of morphed in to a five-piece thing.”

 

Their sound on Before the After is a whirlwind of decades and emotions. It’s the free love atmosphere of the 60s, the earnest sound of Americana music, and the homegrown sincerity of meaningful lyrics. It’s that old influence pop sound that influences the band to play something bigger than the simple indie rock formula. “It’s not just a typical rock and roll thing and it’s not metal,” said Stocker about their sound. “There’s lots of hardcore and indie rock here and I don’t know, I don’t think we really fit there. People seem to think we sound older. Definitely not hardcore.” The EP’s only eleven minutes but the band still creates a signature sound that leaves an impression on its listeners. Son of the Sun is currently working on their follow-up to Before the After in their home studio in upstate New York and hopes to have their first full-length album tentatively entitled The Happy Loss in the spring.

 

Their single off of Before the After “Listen Darkly” sounds like the result of Roy Orbinson making music at a luau. Its swaying beat and Ward’s warm vocals create a very laid-back tone that can inspire summer images in winter weather.

 

Son of the Sun Myspace - http://www.myspace.com/sonofthesunmusic

Posted by Amy Dittmeier on Mar 03, 2009 @ 7:00 am

son of the sun, before the after, joey stocker, the happy loss

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