Temple Kelly, Greyson Gene, Jonathan Hale and Mike Caporuscio members make up the fun, laid back and tight-knit group Suneater that has been cranking out desert rock tunes for a few years now.
Temple Kelly, Greyson Gene, Jonathan Hale and Mike Caporuscio members make up the fun, laid back and tight-knit group Suneater that has been cranking out desert rock tunes for a few years now.
The band will release its first full length album, Mirage II this summer and although only seven songs long, I have to say the way lead vocalist Greyson Gene describes it, has me intrigued.
“There’s some pretty long epics in there,” he said. “It’s a story-based album so it kinda leaves it open-ended, it could be viewed as the second volume of something.”
Gene explains the album follows a story involving a couple characters trapped in a fantasy world.
“It’s about overcoming your own pre-conceived notions of being coddled as a kid,” he said. “I feel like i grew up with a generation that needed to be safe, needed to be clean, we all could do whatever we wanted, it kind of created this almost entitled generation. That’s something the main character is suffering from.”
The two main characters, the “child” and the “mongrel” go back and forth creating this relationship which have a couple different representations in the lyrics according to Gene.
“It’s very dark,” he said. “There’s some comic relief in there its not all doom and gloom but there is an ominous ending.”
Caporuscio, Suneater’s bassist, describes the album as “prog metal” but also has some Middle Eastern sounds so they’ve put the album under the “desert rock”genre.
“It’s really strange,” he said.
Guitarist Temple Kelly added the band members also through in a little bit of punk and funk on the album too.
“Michael is a slap bass player so you get some of that Chili Peppers funk, but with a punk edge on it,” he said. “And some jazz harmonies too.”
The group released “Throes”, the first single off the forthcoming album, back in January.
Although this will be Suneater’s debut album, the band has other material from live shows that they plan to release.
“I think we’re going to release a live recording we’ve done at WRIR we’re pretty happy with just as a teaser,” Gene said.
They’ve been recording Mirage II at Sound of Music Studios since the beginning of last summer where Gene works as an engineer. He’s mixing the album along with owner John Morand, who is recording his vocals.
“Since I’m studying under him I’ve learned a lot of techniques that he has, little weird methods you can do to achieve certain sounds, artistically he’s also helped me expand my creativity,” Gene said.
And that creativity led Gene and the rest of the band to toy around with different sounds on the album, many of which come from their live shows.
“It’s helped our experimental process in our sound as well, especially Temple he’s taken the wheel and thrown some of our live recordings through his pedal board and manipulated them in some weird ways,” Gene said. “We’ve taken some of these ideas and implemented them into the album.”
He added that they have a seven minute section in one song that’s all noise and includes a wooden flute that Kelly made and a theremin.
“It’s some crazy sounds,” Gene added.
This album stems from each of the band’s influences which all vary greatly.
“I’m very into the prog rock, but then I also have a lot of pop based music that influences me,” Gene said who cited The Mars Volta and Closure in Moscow as favorites.
Caporuscio is heavily influenced by Mr. Bungle, King Crimson and The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Kelly said he’s drawn to classical music, but also gets into the more hardcore music like Fall of Troy.
None hail from from Richmond, but the band mates all met in the local music scene after leaving other bands.
Drummer Johnathan Hale and Caporuscio moved to Richmond and started playing in the now defunct band Captain Captain with Kelly. They also started the band Noisevision In August 2014 they added Gene who once played in Romesco and changed the band name from NoiseVision to Suneater.
SunEater plans to sign with Bossy Lil’ Thing soon, a record label based out of Sound of Music Studios before they drop their album Mirage II in July. You can catch Suneater May 5th at Strange Matter with Peelander Z and June 12th with Imaginary Sons.
