Hello, everyone! Thank you for taking a few moments out of your busy day to browse our site and catch up on the latest content. The interview you’re about to enjoy was recorded earlier this month, and to be perfectly honest I (James) have been anxious to get it live on this blog. We have been promising more artist features, and that is exactly what we’re going to deliver. Don’t worry, the other columns you love will return soon. There’s room for everything at Haulix.
This site exists to promote the future of the entertainment industry, and to do that we need input from people like you and your entertainment-loving friends. If you have any questions about the content in this article, or if you have an artist you would like to see featured on this blog, please contact james@haulix.com. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
The word hiatus has become a bit overused in today’s music industry. Bands today willl throw out the term ‘hiatus’ to explain why they’ve decided to take six months off after having played 300+ shows the year prior. That’s not a hiatus as much as it is a break, at least in my opinion, but that argument is one we must save for another day because we have far more important matters to address today.
Eight years ago, Sullivan were one of the most buzzed about bands in alternative music. Signed to Tooth & Nail Records, the group released two full length albums before going on hiatus, which broke the hearts of thousands around the globe. Many members remained active in music, each forming their own projects and developing new followings, but over the last year the group originally from North Carolina found their way back into one another’s lives. Now they’ve got a new album ready to drop on December 9 through Spartan Records, and earlier today frontman Brooks Paschal spoke with editor James Shotwell about everything the group’s journey to this point. You can read highlights from their conversation and stream a song off Sullivan’s new record, below.
H: Hello, Brooks. How are you doing this afternoon?
B: I’m good, man. I’m really good, actually. Hanging out at my home in Texas. I live about an hour east of Dallas. We all live in different states. Well, two of us still live in North Carolina, but the rest of us are spread out.
H: It’s great to have you with us, and I want to tell you right off the top that I think your new record is great! It’s due in stores December 9, correct?
B: That is correct. Very excited for it.
H: Awesome. We’ll talk more about that in minute, but first I wanted to talk about you. We always like to get a feel for the history of the people we interview, so would you be cool with one or two questions about your early life?
B: Sounds good, man. Bring it on!
H: I guess the first thing on my mind is when you first fell in love with music. Was it always present in your life, or did you have to seek it out as you grew up?
B: You know, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I think that I probably had a very normal relationship with music at an early age. Hindsight is really 20/20, but it’s still hard to think back that far. Both my parents were musicians though, so that probably steered me a bit in life. The first time I really thought about pursuing music didn’t happen until I was in college. It wasn’t anything too crazy, but I hit a point where I realized my heart didn’t want college, it wanted music. I don’t know if I could even gauge whether or not I was good at music, but I dropped out anyways and hit the road. Here I am, 17 years later, still going strong.
H: What came first, a desire to sing or a desire to play guitar? When did the other come into the picture?
B: Ooh, that’s a great question. I’ve never had a desire to sing (laughs). I got introduced to the idea of being in a band by a friend from high school who I was close to in North Carolina. He was the best guitar player and vocalist in high school, which I thought was really cool. We became friends, and not long after we started a band while still in high school. That continued to college as well, and it was during my time in that band I originally realized how important music was to my life.
He and I were writing buddies. We would get together and write all the time. I learned over time that he would take what I wrote and make it work for his voice and the way he thought it should be delivered. Sometimes I loved that, but other times that drove me crazy. A few bands down the line, I kind of realized that if I was ever going to do it to the point where what I write turns into a song that works exactly how I imagined it was to do the vocals myself. This is where I began my war between my creative desire and my lack of interest in singing (laughing).
The guitar definitely came first. Writing came even earlier. Singing is just byproduct of what I want to do.
H: Okay, let’s move to Sullivan. I have to admit that I didn’t realize the group had gotten back together at first. I remember when Sullivan was around originally, but when I started seeing news stories about the band in 2014 I just assumed someone else had taken the name. Once I heard the music, however, I knew it was the group I had loved nearly a decade earlier. Can you shed some light on the decision to return? Who originally brought up the idea, and how did everyone initially react?
B: I brought it up. I do a lot of commercial work as a songwriter and producer. It’s a big part of what I’ve been doing the last seven years. Anyways, I was working on a song for a beer commercial and it started to feel like the embryo of what a Sullivan song would sound like. I created a demo and sent it to everyone asking if they thought it sounded like a Sullivan song as well. They agreed, and it was really strange. It was so natural and not at all planned. I decided to return to the drawing board and see if I could do it again because there hasn’t been a point in the last seven years I had intentionally tried to write another Sullivan song. So I sat down and yea, I wrote another one. I reached out, everyone agreed again, and things started to get into motion.
H: Seven years is a long time to be away. I’m sure you have others fans like me who are thrilled to have you back, but it’s also been long enough that there is an entire new generation of people listening to the style of music you create. Have you found much success reaching young listeners who may have never known the band before this year?
B: Absolutely. As a producer, I’ve had this conversation with bands before where I talk about how the era of music where we come from (2006/2007 alternative music) has developed a cult following not unlike a lot of fringe genres in the past. I see these festivals all the time that filled with bands that had some commercial success when we were around initially, who also might not have that success now, and when you gather a group of those acts together people flock in droves. It’s kind of crazy, actually.
Not long ago we quietly released an EP with acoustic versions of songs we released several years back, and every so often I see people tweeting about how they’ve gotten into the band through that record. They’re too young to know the songs in their original form, which is kind of weird, but also really cool at the same time.
H: The new album, Heavy Is The Head, features some incredibly cover art. Can you shed some light on the meaning behind the image and what inspired its creation?
B: This one of those things that just kind of happened. I stumbled across a photographer who ended up doing all the artwork for the record, and I immediately gravitated toward his style in way that knocked me off my feet. If I were good at photography, I would want to be doing what this guy is doing. He grabs the darkness of life, but in a way that showcases outside of the good vs evil scale. You have a respect for it.
Anyways, I thought of something I wanted to do for the artwork and contacted our label to view the photographer’s work. They contacted the guy, he ended up being into it, and lucky for us he agreed to do it. I feel like this is an out of this world lucky moment for us, and we’re over the moon about it.
H: I’ve been spinning the album for a while now, and like anyone I have my favorite tracks. I’m curious though, as someone in the band what are the tracks that stand out to you when you spin the record today?
B: That’s always a tough one. Because we did the album ourselves I think we judge it in a way different than the average listener. That said, I think I have to choose two songs. “What’s Good For The King” was the first song that we knew was a Sullivan song. There’s a special place in our hearts for that song because it represents the genesis of this record. When we wrote this we knew the reunion was real. I’d also say the last song is my personal favorite. It’s a bit of a black sheep, but it’s us doing exactly what we want to do, going for the darkness unhindered. There’s a relationship with that song that I only have with the track, so it’s pretty special for me.
H: Let’s touch on the live show a bit. You played a release show in your home state of North Carolina not too long ago, correct? I bet it was a bit surreal to get on stage together after all that time away.
B: Yea, that was our first show back. We wanted to get together and have the five of us in one room again. It was an awesome experience, but also very surreal because of how we had to rehearse. We have five guys spread across four states with five completely different schedules. We got together whenever we could, sometimes a only 3 or 4 of us, but we didn’t have many long stretches where we could work together. We never got to have a true concept of what it might be like to play in front of people until we were on stage staring at people staring back at me. It was extremely natural though, and we felt very at home in no time. The crowd was amazing. There is nothing more humbling than seeing people respond to your music after a long time away because you would have been totally okay if they forgot about you.
H: Do you have a lot of tour plans for 2015? When the first two albums dropped it felt like you guys were rarely ever home.
B: We do. We have a lot of things in the works and we’re crossing our collective fingers in hopes it works out. We’re all in a place with our individual careers where we can do this project on our own terms, which is great. We’re working with our label to se how the album is received and then we can move from there. We can pinpoint where things work and where they don’t, then plan our next steps. It perpetuates the fun aspect of it because it’s not a rigid campaign where we have to make it or we have to become the biggest band in the world. That is how we used to see the world, but not anymore.
So really, we don’t have big plans yet, but we have big hopes for the future. We may be on tour with Coldplay in a month, or we may go our on our own tour and play 200 capacity rooms. It’s been so gratifying doing it this way so far that we’re actually excited to see things continue this way. There’s much less stress.
H: A big goal of our blog is educate and inspire the next generation of music industry professionals. As someone who has been in the industry for over a decade, what advice would you offer a young person who claims they want to work in entertainment?
B: I can only speak from my successes because my failures were sort of my own, and I take responsibility for them. The success I’ve had and have witnessed from others all boils down to songwriting. There is a lot of other stuff that goes into it, like timing, luck, marketing, branding, etc. Those are all tangible though, and they’re controllable. Songwriting is a skill.
Take Lorde, for example. People don’t know how this girl from New Zealand could become so huge, but when you get beyond the marketing and stroke of luck timing she wrote a lot of really, really good songs. I don’t see any difference between Lorde and Carrie Underwood. At it’s core, good songwriting is what works. The tangible may change, but nailing down that intangible is what matters most. I’ve always found that people who can figure that out are the ones who find the most success. They might not tell you that they love One Direction or Taylor Swift, but they love it because they have an understanding of the intangible and how those artists are applying them to their craft.
H: Great. I think that covers everything I wanted to ask. Before I let you go, are there any final thoughts or observations that you would like to share with our readers?
B: Buy our album! Thank you for the coverage.
Heavy Is The Head, the new album from Sullivan, is available now from Spartan Records.
