Brianna Datta-Barrow: I'm joined now by two members of sundial.
Ben: My name is Ben. I play bass in SUN.DYLE.
Emma: Hey, my name is Emma, and I am SUN.DYLE’s vocalist.
Brianna Datta-Barrow: Thank you both for being here.
Ben: Thank you for having us.
Emma: Yeah, we're happy to be here.
Brianna Datta-Barrow: Awesome. So, on your website, it says that the members of sundial come from diverse musical backgrounds that converge to create a harmonious blend of genres. Could you guys talk a little bit about the different musical backgrounds that you all hail from?
Emma: Yeah, well, like me personally, I went to school for operatic performance, so a way more classical round of things. A couple of our other guys, like Ben, sitting next to me, and also other Ben, who plays keys, went to school for music ash and Carlos, though ash who plays tags and Carlos who plays drums, are all self taught. Yeah, so a lot of different backgrounds makes for a lot of really interesting sounds.
Ben: Yeah, I grew up. I'm from Fort Wayne, and I grew up playing jazz. I was in the, what they call it, the magnet school program, and so I went to, like, Memorial Park, and then South Side High School after that. And my family is, they're all big musicians, so I've been playing music since I was, like six, probably, and I always loved jazz, but I went to school, and I got my degree in pop music, actually.
Brianna Datta-Barrow: Wow.
Ben: So, it kind of helped broaden my horizons a little bit. And then I got asked to be in in SUN.DYLE a little bit after they actually formed, and it's just been really cool. And I'm not sure about Adam, our trombone player, we just added him, but he's been great. But I know he plays in, I think, the Three Rivers big band in town too, so he does a lot of jazz stuff.
Brianna Datta-Barrow: Wow. Very cool. So yeah, we've got jazz, we've got opera, we've got pop, we've got self-taught musicians. This sounds like a really cool ensemble. So, I'm very much looking forward to the show. How does it feel when you're all playing together? When are you just trying to transmute that feeling of playing as an ensemble, or what's the what's the intention behind the listener experience?
Emma: I think right now, with Where we’re at, it's not even a thought. I think it started like, oh, we make music that we're really proud of, and we want to convey that in the way that we play. But after playing together and playing so many shows, it's like you don't even think about it. It just feels good to be up there playing together. The chemistry is always on point.
The communication, you know, we don't have to speak to know what we're at or what we're feeling. We just get up there and we do it, and it feels great. And I think that definitely translates to the audience as well. Like, I don't know I feel I don't know I feel like it's really easy to feel how much joy we can all feel while we're playing on stage.
Ben: I think that's a big part of it, is our chemistry, because we always have fun. I'm always laughing when we're playing, especially between kind of the rhythm section part, which would be the keyboard, the drums and the bass, we all kind of can do our own little things, and sometimes we make each other laugh with some of the stuff we play.
I think that is evident to our audience, and they feed off of that. But I think what she said is, right, like, first and foremost, we just want to put out music that we're proud of and that we like, and then if other people like it, that's, that's awesome. And it seems like they have so far, but it's really a lot of it is just making music for ourselves.
Brianna Datta-Barrow: Yeah, you know, no, I think you guys must have some notoriety in the community. We were, we were closing out our last Live and Local with augmentation. They asked who the next band was, and we said, SUN.DYLE. They're like, “Oh no. They're like, Oh, they're pretty amazing. Like, that's going to be a big show”. Yeah.
So, it sounds like you guys know what you're doing up there. I mean, that takes a lot of, I guess, time and learning each other's different grooves to communicate without even communicating, you know, through the music, that's very cool. Speaking of cool, I wanted to mention you guys have a very cool logo I saw on Facebook. It almost looks like a melting clock to me, kind of, could you guys explain the meaning behind it?
Emma: So that came shortly after we decided our name, I'm really big into Sun and Moon. Always have been. That's like a cultural thing for me. So, I knew, when we were naming this band, I was trying to drop like, little hints to the guys, like, well, it should be sun, something sun and ash.
Our sax player was like, What about SUN.DYLE? And of course, we're all musicians, so we had to be a little bit different and spell it a little different.
And our guitar player at the time, his sister, Cassie Delgado, actually drew that by hand. We had it digitized, and we've just stuck with that ever since. But it's kind of cool because she drew it by hand, and then one of my old friends from elementary digitized it, because he's into all of that type of artwork.
So, everybody's had a little bit of a hand in it, which is how we do pretty much all of our artwork, like nothing is ever not done by some local artist or family friend that we know. So that's just a little, yeah, little hidden fact about us.
Brianna Datta-Barrow: Very cool. We love that. We love to support local artists. So that's very cool. Yeah, I saw it, and it was very eye-catching. And I love the name SUN.DYLE too. That's a great name. Is there a memorable moment or story behind one of the singles or songs on your EP?
Emma: The biggest one is mirror. That seems to be pretty constant for everybody, which is funny because we do a lot of like jazz fusion e songs, and mirror ended up being the title track on our debut album, and it's not that at all.
I wrote it on a out of tune antique piano that, like my aunt Josie, had lying around. And of course, like many good songs started like, as a heartbreak song, and then it just like, transformed. And that was one of the things that was really cool about making the albums, everybody had a hand in each song. Let's say somebody wrote one song, A to Z. It was completely different by take 345, of actually recording it for the album. And that one just was crazy. I got to use some cool operatic vocal lines on that.
And yeah, that one seems to be a constant favorite, and it just meant a lot to us. And the fact that every single one of us was like, for a time, that's my favorite song on the album, that needs to be the title track, was huge. Because something so simple in a band that can be kind of crazy, sometimes it just struck a chord in all of us. Is really cool.
Ben: Yeah, I think for me, I just, you know, being in the studio especially, and kind of trying to sit down and craft those things is always a lot of fun for me, for one, but I really enjoy the collaborative effort that goes into all of it. I always see it as coming for me, coming from a jazz background, as like, very concise improvisation.
I mean, I just got a lot of different memories of different writing sessions. We've done all of our travel out of town. We would write sometimes in some of our Airbnbs. That was kind of fun. We've just set up our stuff and and play for a little while in between gigs or whatever.
Brianna Datta-Barrow: Yeah, I've always said that must be so fun to witness, like, as like an outsider. I would love to witness that and just get to see everybody kind of bringing their strengths and seeing what happens in
a session.
Emma: Yeah, oh yeah. When you don’t have any family around, like, that is your family for like, the three or four days and we're gone, and so you just see parts of each other that you haven't seen before, and then I don't, yeah, I always felt like way closer to these guys after like, long trips and things like that. And I think that shows in our writing and our performing.
Brianna Datta-Barrow: Awesome and speaking of performing live and local at the landing is WBOI’s way of celebrating local music, spending some time with our community and just enjoying the summertime. What do you guys all enjoy most about when you're performing?
Ben: I mean, I just love to play. I love to play music. That has been something I've kind of had to find out, you know, I've always been in music, and for a while I was doing it as a full time job, and I was worried that I would start to hate it, because it was a job, you know, instead of just beating for fun. And so, I kind of had to rediscover how much I enjoyed playing with people.
And that is the biggest thing for me, anytime we play a show, is just, I get to play music with these guys. It is a completely collective, collaborative thing. If one of our members is missing, it is so different, and it's funny, because you might not think that, especially if it's maybe the saxophone or something, where I don't interact as much with him musically as I do some of the other guys, but like, it completely changes it.
So, my favorite part is just getting to actually play and collaborate with these people, because they are all great musicians.
Emma: I couldn't say it better. I don't know I know one of my things that I say every single show is I love to sing. I've loved to sing since I was little, and getting the opportunity to share that with other people is really cool.
I know how I've felt, you know, as an audience member, when I'm captivated by musicians doing their thing, and wow, if I could do that for like, one person even a fraction of the way that I feel I'm just I love being a part of that.
Brianna Datta-Barrow: Yeah. What do you hope that your audience takes away from your set? What should they expect?
Emma: I think they should expect some, some real good music and some people that are very happy to be doing it, I hope they feel happy. I hope they feel moved to dance, to laugh with us, and to just have a good time.
Ben: Well, your lyrics, too, can hit pretty hard. I think for people, some of them, you know, I feel like, yeah. Identify it with some of our songs. Yeah, yeah, tell me about that. And that is totally because of the lyrics.
Emma: Well, thanks. I don't know. I feel like anybody who writes music or writes lyrics, you don't write with the intention of, oh, this is going to make somebody feel this type of way, you just like write the way that you feel in the moment. So, it is pretty cool.
Yeah, when folks say, like, oh my gosh, I love what this song means. I listen to you on Spotify, and I got to read your lyrics because, you know, sometimes live music can't really hear lyrics all the time, and it just means a lot to people in me, or specifically, we've had quite a few people come up on stage like that song. I listen to it, you know, every day. Like it. It helped me through this thing…That's crazy, that's crazy to know that your words do that for somebody.
And I don't know, as a musician, I don't feel like you see yourself as that. I certainly don't, you know, see myself as impacting anybody greatly like that. So, to hear that and to see that sometimes is really, really cool. It means a lot to me.
Ben: I think it's always so cool when I can look out and see people singing our songs. Yeah, that's crazy. I think that's yeah, a really cool thing. I feel like a lot of people probably say that about their music when they when they see that, but I do not write words. I don't have that.
But it's really cool when you can see people clearly who have identified with it, who've listened to it enough to know the words too, which is neat, yeah, but yeah, I don't know. It's just such a great experience, yeah, share that stuff with people. I think, yeah.
Brianna Datta-Barrow: Well, we're looking forward to it, you know. And I know the community is too the last one was a blast. We can't wait for SUN.DYLE to close it out. I think our community is lucky to have you guys, and looking to have such an amazing local music scene really in Fort. Wayne, yeah, so thank you guys for taking the time to speak with me today.
Ben: Thank you. Yes, this is going to be a lot of fun. We're really looking forward to it.
