Sun Jones has only been together as a band for just over a year. Yet, the members of the band have been on the scene for 20 years. Guitarist-singer-songwriter Charley Carrozo gave some insight into this new band that has already played Johnny D’s and some major music festivals since forming less than two years ago.
Lead guitar player Chris Nemitz, also known as the fessor because he’s a teacher in Cambridge, had bought a new house that came with a full “in-law” apartment. So, he invited some people he had played with in the past to come over and jam. Members of long gone bands like Another Planet and the Heavy Metal Horns came over.
Carrozo and Nimitz soon realized how much they had missed playing out. “It really started as a getting one toe back in the music,” Carrozo said, “and it turned into so much fun on a weekly basis, Monday and Tuesday nights, that we found a bass player and a drummer and we started doing it for real.”
Well-known saxophone player, John Vanderpool, formerly of the Heavy Metal Horns, also got involved. Before they knew it Sun Jones had 30 new songs written by three songwriters in the band. Sun Jones’s self-titled CD features 14 songs from the recording sessions.
“The main thing is it’s a songwriter thing,” Carrozo said. “We all sing, so there is no one lead singer. Everybody sings. For the most part everybody sings lead on the songs they write. It’s really a band in that sense. It’s not one person driving the musical direction. There’s a lot of trust with the songs and the songwriters. We’re really starting to collaborate and write songs together. At first, it was everybody bringing in their own songs and then we’d all work on them and arrange them.”
Sun Jones have a sound distinct from other bands. “I think it’s a unique sound,” Carrozo said. “When you listen to the record, I think you can hear influences, but I don’t think you can pinpoint our sound and say ‘Sun Jones sounds like this other band.’ I think what gives us that unique sound is that there’s a change up with the lead singers like The Beatles and The Allman Brothers. A lot of my favorite bands have more than one lead singer.”
He also credit’s the horn and guitar sounds. “I think the way that John Vanderpool approaches the horn and the way that Chris approaches the guitar,” he said. “It’s not a free jazz thing, but John Vanderpool has got a real free approach to the horn in the rock concept. I just don’t think it sounds anybody else. It’s certainly a rock band, but if you listen to what the saxophone is doing” originality can be heard. “
When we were recording the album (Vanderpool) was in the recording booth, and it sounded like he was slaughtering animals in there. He was just getting these sounds out of the horns that I just hadn’t heard before in a rock context.”
Carrozo said the goal quickly shifted from getting back into music to being the oldest musicians to get a record deal. “We’re really trying to do it,” he said. “We’ve been lucky that because we’ve been around a little bit we have a few connections. The guys at Live Nation put us on at Brighton Music Hall. That was our last big Boston show.”
Carrozo gets his songwriting inspirations for Sun Jones from a need to find the positive in a dark world. Sun Jones formed at the time the financial market meltdown threw the global economy into a dark time of limited opportunities. “There was a real sort of darkness hanging over everybody’s mood,” he said.
All three songwriters focus about the struggle for hope. “It comes from being stuck at work and feeling the sun on your back out of the windows and wanting to get out of work. Most of the songs are trying to stay positive or find the positive in some of life’s negative lessons. Acknowledge the real situation and find the positive in it.”
Sun Jones’s most popular song right now is called “Real,” a song about divorce and being left with the kids. Instead of sounding angry, the chorus is about trying to turn one’s life around. The song can be heard on the community radio station in Worcester on a show hosted by longtime Worcester musician/journalist Charlene Arsenault. The River 92.5 in Boston, Cool 102 on Cape Cod, and the M.I.T. station WMBR have also been playing this local hit song.
Sun Jones had a plan going into the studio. John Vanderpool got Sun Jones a good deal at Mad Oak Studios. The session went quite well and the band recorded bass and drum tracks for up to 20 songs. Sun Jones members picked 14 of those songs which ended up on last year’s debut CD.
“We’ve put a lot of effort into making this happen,” Carrozo said. “But a lot of this has happened organically.” He was referring to the number of people who jumped on board and lent their skills to meet the band’s needs for management and publicity. The “short term goal” Carrozo said is to become a regional headliner. They have already headlined in Boston and Worcester and now they’re trying to headline in New Hampshire and Rhode Island. In New England, a band can hit a lot of venues in a four hour radius so they can get back home to their families the next day. Since starting Sun Jones, three babies have been born to the band members.
“I think everybody’s got very reasonable expectations about what they can expect,” Carrozo said. “But, at the same time every body is really putting as much energy as we possibly can into making it happen.” Because Sun Jones laid down so many tracks at their first recording session, they’re now almost two-thirds finished with their sophomore CD. Vanderpool recently invited the players from the Heavy Metal Horns to come to the studio to lay some tracks.
Carrozo is a self-taught guitarist-vocalist influenced by Neil Young, Elton John (and John’s lyricist Bernie Taupin), Jeff Buckley, Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead, and Pink Floyd. Drummer Mike Lewis went to the New England Conservatory and teaches at M.I.T. Lewis has a background in African percussion. John Vanderpool has played all over the world (Budokan, Wembley Stadium) when Heavy Metal Horns toured with Extreme.
For an 18 month old band, Carrozo already has some favorite gig memories, mostly that he played name rooms and major events. Sun Jones held their CD release party at Johnny D’s in Somerville. The Brighton Music Hall gig put them in front of 400 hundred people. Last summer was also a special time for Sun Jones as they played the main stage for the Wormtown Music Festival. For the foreseeable future, Sun Jones will play the main stage for the Strange Creek Musical Festival in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
“The clubs don’t book you unless the people come out,” Carrozo said. “We have the kind support where we disappeared from the scene for five years and people came right back out to support us. Out of all the things that standout, that’s the most flattering.”
What Carrozo likes most about being in front of an audience is when they’re interacting with the band. “The song doesn’t do anything without the audience,” he said. “You can have an emotional reaction yourself when you write a song. But to bring it in front of an audience and get that reaction and get that exchange of energy. It’s the reason I play in front of an audience.”
