sunnsetter

we caught up with sunnsetter for an intimate interview

question: We are loving your album ‘The Best That I Can Be.’ Can you tell us a little about the backstory of the album? When was it written and recorded?
answer: This album was recorded over the course of about 3 years from late 2019 to end of 2022. A lot of the ideas and desire to make it started before I even released my last full length from 2020 titled ‘The Love You Withhold Is the Pain You Carry’. The themes in this album were shaped by a desire for personal and emotional growth, my experience with going sober (almost 5 years now) and how that has shaped my overall outlook on life, and the grief of losing a close friend which essentially started the whole process of this shift in the first place. I have tried to the best of my ability to take myself away from self defeating behaviours and routines and build a healthier lifestyle for myself, hence why I kept coming back to the idea of “the best that I can be”. I just wanted to be able to find a place of emotional stability, instead of basing all of my creative projects and music around more depressing themes, I wanted to write about building myself up and project that into the world.

question: What did your childhood consist of? Where do you currently reside and what are some of your favorite parts about the area?
answer: My childhood was complicated but, hard to explain. My parents were divorced by the time I was maybe 2 years old. So I spent a lot of my childhood going back and forth between them. They lived in the same town, but it became complicated as I got older and wanted a more solid home base. Always feeling like I had to choose between one or the other. I don’t necessarily want to get in the details of my relationships with my parents, but ultimately we had a mostly nice life with ups and downs. I grew up in a small town called Fort Erie Ontario and moved around from Stevensville, Ridgeway and Crystal Beach. I was in some bands in high school but mainly I was just a weird and quiet kid with few friends. Always very awkward. I currently live outside of Delhi, Ontario which is also a really small town in Norfolk county. I like the rural aspects of the area and living in farm country. Lots of trails and nature.

question: Where do you draw inspiration from? Who are some of your biggest musical influences?
answer: I draw inspiration from a lot of different things I suppose. Life experience, nature, moods and different emotional and or physical spaces. I like to build music around moods and motifs and then curate them into things that are more tangible. Some of my biggest influences are Mount Eerie, My Bloody Valentine, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Sufjan Stevens, Bedhead, Thom Yorke, The Hotelier, Nine Inch Nails, Do Make Say Think… There’s a lot I could name but that’s all I can think of for now.

question: What did the writing process behind the song ‘In the Ocean’ (which we named Premier Music) consist of? Who produces, mixes and masters your music?
answer: I record, produce, mix and master all of my own music entirely. That song was written originally just as guitar and voice as a folk song sort of. But I just kept adding layers to it and building on top of it and wanting to turn it into this flowing piece. I’m very happy with that particular song!

question: If you could collaborate with any musician of all-time, who would it be and why? What is your ultimate goal for Sunnsetter?
answer: I would love to collaborate with Sufjan Stevens, or maybe Efrim from Godspeed You! Black Emperor. I don’t really know, haha. Not sure what we would make together. My Ultimate goal for Sunnsetter is to just have some people listen to and enjoy what I’m making and take from it whatever they need.