Sundy Best is a Kentucky duo from Floyd County... I interviewed them for KyForward.com.
The article can be found here: http://www.kyforward.com/2014/04/kentucky-duo-hits-it-big-while-staying-true-to-themselves-their-music-and-their-home-state/ .
Here is the transcription of my almost two hours long interview with them. I laughed SO MUCH!
They are great musicians and even better people. If you want to know more about them, their inspirations, etc., read through this interview. It's hilarious and so are they!
1) How did this happen? How did you become Sundy
Best?
Nick: Well, we were friends. We grew up
together, so we were Sundy Best before we were Sundy Best, if that makes sense.
I don’t think we ever thought we’d be sitting here across from you talking
about this. But we always wanted to.
Kris: In 2010, Nick had messaged me to see
if I had any drums for sale. He had started playing some gigs down in Pikeville
because that’s where he lived and was going to school. And I was done with
college at Centre and lived in Lexington. I was working, but I was just looking
for something else to do. I’d always wanted to play music, even if just for
fun. And I told him I would play just for something to do.
Nick: I’d kind of played around eastern
Kentucky in college and that week, we kicked my dad out of the house, and set
up a full PA system in Prestonsburg and just kind of got reacquainted. He
played basketball in college and I played football and were just really busy.
So we just drank and played music and the next night had our fix gig and just
really gigged around for a little while. And then as it progressed, he knew the
owner at BD’s here in town. He was like, ‘I can get us a gig here in
Lexington,’ and we’re like ‘Oh God, we’re doing a show in the big city.’ So we
started doing the patios there and just kind of did that for a whole summer and
I think we played BD’s, we played Hooter’s, we played Austin City, a bunch of
places.
Kris: Once we were playing at BD’s, it kind
of helped open some doors at other places. We weren’t really making any money,
but we were doing what we wanted to do. And at the time, he was working at
Enterprise and he hated his job, so he would talk about hating his job, and I
was like, ‘Dude, I can get you a job at the cable company in Lexington.’
Nick: I probably wouldn’t have if it hadn’t
been for him.
Kris: So he moved in with me, and at that time he had been writing some songs
which kind of got me into songwriting. And I think that’s when we started
taking it more serious instead of just playing three or four hours, getting
drunk just playing cover songs. We started to take our own stuff a little more
serious and when he moved down here.
Nick: When we started playing at Redmon’s,
that’s when we became Sundy Best. We had always just been ‘Kris and Nick’ or
‘Nick and Kris’ and that’s how all the events of Facebook were. Larry Redmon
was like, ‘I need a name because I need something to promote and we just kindof
tossed it around.
Kris: We were at BWW and we were like
‘Kentucky Gentlemen,’ that’s cool. And we were telling Larry and he was like,
‘Boys, that name’s taken. You’re going to have to come up with something
different.’ And we messed around with ‘Sunday’s Best.’ We were going to keep
the ‘A’ in it I think at first, and then we decided not to.
Nick: Everybody calls us that anyway. I
don’t know why we didn’t… After that, Redmon’s was when Sundy Best became Sundy
Best.
Kris: We were already all over social
media, like Facebook and twitter anyway, just telling people when we were
playing and stuff. And when we finally got the name, people took us more
serious.
Nick: FloCo was another one, because we’re
from Floyd County, which that was stupid.
Kris: Once we started Redmon’s, people took
us serious because it wasn’t a patio gig. It was a bar, an actual live music
venue.
2) How would you define your ties to Redmon’s and
Larry and your fans that have been fans since your beginnings there?
Kris: I think loyalty is the word that
comes to mind when it comes to our relationship
with Larry and Redmon’s because that was a really big break and
opportunity for us at the time because it had gotten cold. It was November and
no patios were open. There wasn’t anything we could do around town. We banged
on the doors of every live music venue in town trying to play and no one would
give us the chance. We offered to play for free for everybody and we won’t
mention names, but Larry called and left me a message. Nick was in Prestonsburg
because he had just quit his job at the cable company.
Nick: …The week before.
Kris: We weren’t making enough money
playing for him to live off of. Larry called on a Tuesday morning and we
started playing Redmon’s two nights later on Thursday. And he hadn’t even seen
us play. Someone had referred us to him, a friend of ours from Prestonsburg.
And I just think that he gave us that chance. We’ve stayed loyal to Redmon’s.
You know, we haven’t played anywhere else in town, which I think is kind of
cool. We’ve never wanted to water ourselves down in town.
Nick: We couldn’t. We couldn’t afford it.
When you’re making money based on how much the bar makes and how many people
come through the door, it’d be foolish to do that, you know? And if people know
they can go on a Thursday night or a Saturday night to see you.
Kris: And there’s only one spot and one
time a week they can see you, and you’re not going to be anywhere else.
Nick: It puts you in demand.
Kris: Our loyalty to that bar, it kind of
developed a loyalty to the people that came to listen to us. They would be
there every Thursday and Saturday, no matter rain or shine.
Nick: There’s so many little groups of
people that helped build that. There’s this group of girls, these Tri Delt
sorority girls that I knew, like we were friends with one of them. And they
started bringing their friends down there and then we just got to know so many
different people that, it was really like a big family.
Kris: A lot of our best friends now we met
at Redmon’s back in 2010. You could watch it grow each week. College kids
coming down and just telling their friends because when we started playing down
there, there was nobody coming down there to see us.
Nick: No. There was nobody there.
Kris: Maybe 15 people that would drive from
Eastern Kentucky, so I think we did it the right way.
3) On your website, in your bio, it says, “Sundy
Best re-imagines timeless classic rock…” Now I don’t know who came up with
that, whether it was you or your publicist, but would you care to expand on
that?
Kris: Yea, growing up, going to church, on
Sundays, my dad led praise and worship, and we would do the whole church
service thing of music and then we’d get in the car to go back home and be
listening to Bob Seger, the Eagles, Tom Petty, The Allman Brothers, and that’s
the kind of music that we grew up listening to and we still listen to today.
That’s what inspires us and influences us. That music is timeless because it’s
still relevant today. And it’ll be relevant 30 years from now. I think that’s
one thing in songwriting we tried to do is create music that will be relevant
yesterday, today, and tomorrow, because if you do that, then it gives it a bit
more longevity, too. There’re so many people out there who write for right now,
you know, what’s happening right now and that’s cool and fine, but we’re just
trying to make something that’ll last. The music from the 70s that I mentioned,
those artists, I was listening to the Eagles on the way here just now, so I
just think it’s really cool that someone said that because we wanted to create
that same sound that we grew up listening to.
4) Performing at the Grand Ole Opry must have been
a surreal experience. What was your reaction after your performance? I mean,
you got a standing ovation…
Kris: It was just a special opportunity to
even get invited to play so early in our career. That in itself, being there
and playing, was something that we had never imagined we’d get the opportunity
to do. After we got the standing ovation after the last song, it was just
something that will always stick with us, that brief moment, 15 seconds where
people stood up and clapped for us as we walked off the stage, after it
happened, hearing from the people who worked there saying that hardly ever
happens. When Elvis made his debut at the Opry, he got booed off the stage, not
that we’re better than him, but I’m glad we got it on video so we can always
look back on it and see it instead of just thinking about that time and our
memory of it.
Nick: Things get skewed that way. You can
either make it greater than it is or down-play what it was and now we can just…
it was crazy.
Kris: I cried. I never cry about anything.
And it was cool. And we’ve been back there twice since then and we’re going
back there in a couple weeks to play again. And I feel like we’ve got out
tenure there now. They can’t get rid of us.
5) How about your experience playing in front of
24,000 people in Rupp Arena for Senior Night? How did that compare to the Grand
Ole Opry?
Kris: It was kind of like a Grand Ole Opry
experience, really.
Nick: Yea, it’s right up there. It wasn’t
as nerve-racking, it wasn’t as daunting, I think. We both were excited to get
to do that and the crowd wasn’t, it wasn’t something that we were intimidated
by. I wish my guitar had worked. I had been sick and I spilled tea all over the
pack of the guitar for the guitar pick-up a few minutes before it happened. The
sound guy was like, ‘oh it’s fine.’ He tested it and checked it. I didn’t know
any different, honestly, until we halfwaqy through it. I couldn’t tell if
people could hear it. The house wasn’t really up that loud.
Kris: Where we both grew up, Kentucky
basketball was right up there as a first love with music.
Nick: Absolutely.
Kris: Music and basketball were two of the
things I was most passionate about as a child. And it continues to this day. I
felt like crying on Sunday when we lost to Florida. We were in Richmond to play
and we went to Giovanni’s to watch the game and eat because there was no one
there. We were up walking and pacing back and forth in this little restaurant
watching T.V. We’re still just as involved in Kentucky basketball as we ever
were. And having played at Rupp, especially on such a special night as senior
night… we’re friends with Jon Hood and Jarrod [Polson]. And for them to be the
only two seniors and both be Kentucky boys, too, that was kind of cool. That’s
another thing, this early in our career, we would have never imagined it.
Neither of us went to UK.
Nick: Yea, and they don’t do that. They
just don’t do that for many people. They don’t do that for many people that
aren’t directly tied to the university, you know either alumni or whatever, so
that was a big deal.
Kris: That was a Grand Ole Opry experience
in itself. They’re both up there.
6) Who came up with the #KinfolkMovement?
Kris: That was us. We just don’t like to
think of them as fans. So many artists and people say, ‘Thanks to our fans,’
and blah blah blah. Come on. They deserve more of a title than fan just because
that’s the reason you’re getting to do what you love to do.
Nick: You hear terms like ‘fangirl,’ and
that’s almost gotten a negative connotation to it, like, ‘oh they’re being a
fangirl.’ People that support you and allow you to do your way of living,
they’re as important as us singing. Because if you don’t have anybody to listen
to you, then what are you? You might as well be singing for your bedpost.
That’s what you’re doing basically. If you don’t have people that stand up and
really fight for you. On social media, if anybody dogs us, there are, for every
one negative comment, there’s a hundred people right there to defend us and
fight for us.
Kris: not many artists or anybody even in
any profession has that support. We see everything on twitter and facebook,
we’re always looking at it, and someone, I can’t remember who, said something
like, ‘I don’t understand why people are so obsessed with Sundy Best.’ For
someone to see and think that people are obsessed with us is just, that’s so
cool because I know how I feel about my favorite artists and for people to feel
that way about us is something that we would’ve never imagined. And it grows
daily. It’s a big family. We appreciate them just as much as they appreciate
our music and it’s a give and take. It’s something that we never take for
granted, especially the way that we were able to do our first album. It was a
Kickstarter campaign that people basically pay for us to go in and record an
album and we have everything back that we paid as far as the album, shirts, and
everything. Seriously, we wouldn’t be here without the people who support us.
Nick: Lit’rally.
Kris: Lit’rally.
Nick: Lit’rally British.
7) What is your favorite song you’ve written that’s
out now? If that’s too difficult to narrow down, what’s your favorite on each
album?
Nick: Probably on the new one, “Smoking Gun”,
just because that was written right as we were recording the first record and
we were both basically new to Lexington and we just had a little bit of a
reputation for a lot of stuff.
Kris: Rightfully so.
Nick: Yea, it was rightfully so, and we
were just like y’all can say what you want. Some of it’s true, some of it’s
not. It was just basically like coming to terms.
Kris: It’s okay. We’re comfortable in who
we are.
Nick: And that’s basically what it was
about.
Kris: And if we want to barhop around Lexington
and go to ten bars on a Friday night, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Nick: Or anything.
Kris: We’re just like anybody else. We like
to have a good time.
Nick: They want to judge you for whatever
reason.
Kris: It’s different being in Lexington as
opposed to say if we lived in Nashville.
Nick: Yea, we could get away with anything
Kris: Yea being in Lexington where a lot of
people do know us, I don’t think they expect to see us out as much as they do,
but we’re normal humans. We like to go eat dinner at Malone’s and go drink a
beer at Cheapside or Two Keys, even sometimes. It’s just, we live here because
we like it. If we lived here and stayed in our house everyday all night, then
why not move to Nashville?
Nick: It was just a song about us being
comfortable with who we are and getting out on paper and being able to hear it and
I think that’s why everybody likes it, because it’s just about being comfortable
with who you are and not giving a damn about what anybody else thinks. And not
in a defiant way, just in a confident way, like, ‘I am who I am and I’m sorry.’
And I think that’s why I think people are drawn to that song so much.
Kris: My favorite song on the first record
was “Lily,” just because we didn’t know how it was going to turn out. And I
think it turned out really cool for us. Basically we did everything on that
first record, co-produced it. I have, probably on the new record, I mean
“Smoking Gun,” I’m with Nick, but “NOYA” is probably my favorite just because
it’s so different from anything we’ve done and it’s a groove and it’s a jam and
it’s, I think it was something that needed to be on this new record just
because it was different. We’re huge Kings of Leon fans and it kind of reminds
me of a country version of them. And then “These Days” is just my personal
anthem. It’s been my song. But we love it all.
Nick: Yea, I just told somebody it’s like
when people have multiple kids, trying to pick their favorite child. You know,
you love them all, but…
Kris: And it’s good to have that because
not all people write all their own stuff. So it’s like not knocking anybody,
but it’s cool to have to sit and think about what stands out in our minds and
it’s all ours. It’s a cool problem to have.
8) Do you feel pressure to represent Kentucky and
Floyd County well?
Kris: I don’t think there’s any pressure. I
think we’re so proud to be where we’re from that we don’t even consider it
pressure, we just continue doing what we’ve always done. We’re not acting like
we’re proud of Kentucky and therefore there’s no pressure because we’re very
honest with how we handle ourselves and what we say about the state and
Kentucky.
Nick: It’s not trying to win popular votes.
It’s just because we’ve always just been, we always wore that on our chest,
where we are and where we’re from.
Kris: Even playing sports back in high
school in Eastern Kentucky, from a small eastern Kentucky town, anytime we got
out of eastern Kentucky and played a city school from Lexington to Louisville
or anywhere in western Kentucky, you know, it was like we were representing
eastern Kentucky at our school.
Nick: I think there is a sort of
responsibility, but it’s not one that is like, it’s not really daunting. It’s
not like it’s something that weighs on us. We enjoy it.
Kris: Someone needs to do it.
Nick: And there is so much negative stuff
that, in eastern Kentucky and Kentucky. Someone said that Kentucky’s the second
most depressing state, I saw that somewhere. It was just stupid. **I think it’s
the greatest place in the world to live. There are people that are depressed,
but there’s.
Kris: People are depressed everywhere.
Nick: People are living with problems
everywhere. If you want to find the negative in every community, then you can,
but we just focus on, we always say…
Kris: We’re optimistic about everything.
Nick: And I think someone, when we played
for the House of Representatives, I think that’s when it really sunk in that we
can really, we can make a difference if we want to. **We’re just now to the
point in our lives that we’re developing this voice that has a little bit of
girth to it. If that means that we can kind of step out and talk about how
great eastern Kentucky is, then we’ll do it, but it is definitely from the
heart. It’s a very honest thing. We are Kentucky, through and through.
Kris: I think it’s time for someone to
carry that flag for Kentucky. So much,
especially in country music, you hear people praising Georgia, and Alabama, and
Tennessee, and Texas, which is awesome because it’s what they should do. We’re
representing Kentucky the best way we can and the best way we know how.
Nick: If we didn’t like it, we wouldn’t
live here. We want to make people aware of what all is going on here. Because
we grew up in an area where music is so prevalent and there are so many good
musicians there. You know the country music highway, we lived right off 23.
Kris: We just thought it was normal.
Nick: And just thought it was normal and I
don’t know.
Kris: Sorry, we’ll talk your leg off…
Nick: Yea, you’ll be writing an essay.
Kris: Dissertation.
9) Do you ever feel pressure to change lyrics
because of the content? You reference drug and alcohol use… Is that accepted at
all your venues?
Nick: I think it gets back to what we said
earlier about being comfortable with who we are. I think once you start thinking
about that kind of stuff, and what/how people will perceive you, that’s not
good. Because then you’re not being honest with yourself and the music. And we
don’t promote alcoholism and heavy drug use, but it’s just about being a human.
Humans enjoy having a good time and they like having beer and they like, you
know, whatever people do.
Kris: So often, people judge in places
where they shouldn’t and look down on others when everybody has their own vices
and their own sins. Just be comfortable with who you are and know you’re not
perfect and enjoy life That’s our biggest thing.
Nick: Now if we were at a place with a
bunch of little kids, obviously we wouldn’t be dropping f-bombs and stuff like
that. But if people have us there at a venue, they know what they’re going to
get, so if they know that, then we shouldn’t be any different than what we are.
We always want to be respectful of people and their feelings, but at the same
time…
Kris: But it’s also, we’re saying stuff
that a lot of people are afraid to say themselves, but can relate to, so if
we’re singing about something, they just get that much more pumped about it
because…
Nick: Someone’s saying it…
Kris: … it makes it okay. For instance,
there’s a lot of kids under the age of 5 who can sing the whole song of “Drunk
Right” and parents be like, ‘that’s their favorite song. They love it.’ And so
what? We’re not trying to corrupt people. I just think, with us, we’re just
being ourselves. And if you can’t say one thing because you think someone might
think bad of you, and I used to think that. Back when we were playing music and
writing before the first record. I was pretty skeptical of the image we would have
and stuff. And I’m really glad I changed because you shouldn’t be that way. I
think a lot of people are that way and it kindof holds them back. Just be
yourself and if you want to talk about sex in a song, it’s okay. People do it
everyday. You can say it your own way.
10)
Which song do you think has been most
well-received by your fans?
Kris: All of them. “Home” has been the most
important song of our career just because it was the first one we could play
out and tell people it was ours.
Nick: It’s different for everybody.
Kris: I think that’s one thing, too, if you
come to a show, the age group in the crowd is from 3-4 years, if we’re doing an
all-ages show, to 60-70 years old and all in between. There’s something for
everybody.
Nick: I think we have so many different
songs for so many different people.
Kris: I think we’re blessed, just to have
the songs we do.
Nick: “Home” is obviously the one that
jumped out.
Kris: Everybody knows it.
Nick: “Lily,” the thing that I love about
“Lily” is that we just didn’t know that people were going to like it, and maybe
that was just us being insecure and just, first record.
Kris: That early in your career, it’s tough
to know how something’s going to go over. You just don’t know. Like for us, any
song you write when you start out, you think is great, but chances are, it’s
not.
Nick: You wouldn’t write it if you didn’t
think it was going to be good.
Kris: You know, you put out song after
song, and each one you think is awesome and it’s not, 98% of the time. But then
there’s that one that people do like. But obviously “Home” is one that we’ll
always fall back on.
11)
What has been your favorite venue you’ve
performed in so far? Was it the place or the fans that made it that way?
Nick: I loved Capone’s in Johnson City.
Kris: Mountain Arts Center in Prestonsburg,
because that’s home. Joe’s in Chicago was really cool.
Nick: Where’d we play out in Texas with
Charlie Daniels, that big place?
Kris: Oh that Midland…
Nick: Wagner’s Noel something… it’s in
Midland.
Kris: The Wagner Noel Performing Arts
Center.
Nick: That was amazing. We played a Braves
game last summer.
Kris: We played Antone’s in Austin, Texas,
which there is so much history there. That was one of the coolest venues ever
just because that’s where Stevie Ray Vaughan started and numerous…
Nick: We like all of them that have us.
Kris: That’s fair.
Nick: the ones that sound the best are our
favorite.
12)
If you could play any venue, where would it be?
Together: Red Rocks Amphitheatre.
Nick: That definitely, that’s probably
number one. Number two would be Rupp Arena... I mean a full show, tickets sold,
headlining Rupp Arena.
Kris: And we’ll do it. Someday.
13)
How would you say Sundy Best’s music is
different from all the other country music out there right now?
Nick: Yes.
Kris: Yes. Definitely. Not that we’re
trying to be different, but just listen to it and you tell us. That’s kind of our
attitude about it.
Nick: I just think it became country
because of how we talk.
Kris: I told somebody the other day that if
the Eagles came out today, it’d be country. They’re a country band, country
rock. Country is such a diverse music genre now that there’s so many things
that fit in it and there’s so many things that fit out of it as far as, you
know, Taylor Swift. She’s pop just as much as she is country. And that’s okay.
I just think it comes back to our songwriting style. There’re great songs on
country radio and there’s some that we don’t listen to. But it all works.
People listen to it. You can’t dog anything that’s on country radio just
because it’s on there for a reason. People listen to it.
Nick: Some people, that’s their favorite
song.
Kris: People love it. Like Florida Georgia
Line’s “Cruise” song, it’s one of the catchiest songs I’ve heard in a couple
years and a lot of people wouldn’t admit that.
Nick: It’s easy to hate on country radio.
“Bro Country,” you know? It’s just easy, but we’re just focused on being
ourselves and if it falls in with some crowds, then it does. And it if doesn’t,
we’ll find someone else to fit in with.
Kris: Like I said, we’re just making music
that will be relevant tomorrow like it is today. And I think there’s music out
there that probably people will forget about, come next Monday. Not that it’s
bad, but you just want something that’s going to withstand the test of
time. That’s all that we can do. If
we’re different, we’re different. But we’re just doing our own thing.
14)
How would you define your relationship with each
other?
Nick: Brothers.
Kris: Married. I mean it really is like a
marriage. Divorce is not an option. I think that’s how marriage should be.
Divorce shouldn’t be a way out. If you want to commit and be with someone, it
needs to be for the rest of your life. We’re in this for the long haul. I think
with both of us having that mindset, that’s why we never really fight or argue
because we know this is how it’s going to be. And that’s the way it should be.
Nick: Yea, I agree. That’s basically how I
feel. We don’t fight just because it’s just like what’s the point?
Kris: We’re going to be doing this
together.
Nick: And not that we would fight anyway.
Kris: We’re just as much alike as we are different.
That probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to you, but that just kind of helps
us balance out and get along. We know each other well enough. I think living
together helped us get reacquainted to being with each other. It helped us
really become closer. We’ll be sitting here doing an interview, hopefully, in 30
years sitting beside each other and talking about it. It’s really like
marriage.
15)
Could you take me through the process of writing
a song?
Nick: It all, it just varies. We’re not the
type that, we don’t sit around and, we are getting more into this, like we’re
going to try to write a song. But we’ve just always kindof naturally however it
comes, it comes. Sometimes it’s a phrase, sometimes it’s chord progression…
Kris: Sometimes it’s a melody with no words
and you just keep going over and over in your head. Most of our songs are
written in a very short period of time. We just wait for something to hit
us.
Nick: I think it’s more productive that
way. Because if you sit around, you can bang your head up against a wall… I’ve
had times where I’ve wanted to write a song and couldn’t. I’d sit there for two
hours and have nothing and then just kind of wait around and then something
just hits you and three or four songs come out.
Kris: And we can only hope that that
continues to happen. It’s a pretty organic style. We just kind of do our own
thing and then bounce ideas off each other. We never schedule a time to sit
down and write.
16)
How is Bring Up the Sun different from Door
Without A Screen?
Kris: It’s more mature, more
instrumentation. I think sonically, it sounds, it’s competitive with everything
else you hear out there.
Nick: Door Without A Screen, you know, was
our first…
Kris: Somebody yesterday said it sounded
like it was recorded in a living room, and it was.
Nick: It basically was. Coleman Saunders,
the guy that produced it, he does all our videos and stuff. He has an apartment
out off Leestown road that used to be an old taxidermy office and he turned
into his apartment and studio. There was no, what I liked about that was that
we could go in there and spend 16 hours and we did that a lot. I don’t know. It
was a lot harder, I feel like, because it was the first time we’d ever done it.
It was a lot of fun.
Kris: It was rewarding, putting that much
time and effort into something and coming up with what we did. There wasn’t
really any pressure, time-wise. The new one, we were, it was on a strict time
table.
Nick: So that was stressful. You just don’t
know if you’re going to have enough time.
Kris: You just want to be at your best, you
know, and have the time to be in there and do it, especially vocally. Like with
Nick, you just want to make sure you’re ready to go. Because we were still
playing shows and touring up until then and right after and in between.
Nick: There was no rest to prepare for
singing for six hours. They were both really different.
Kris: I think it just comes down to songs.
The songs are different.
Nick: They’re universal.
Kris: The first one is real rootsy and real
folk singer/songwriter, pretty Kentucky-centric. The next one is still inspired
by Kentucky and Eastern Kentucky, we’re just finding different ways to say so.
17)
Do you think y’all have changed since the start?
Nick: I just think we’ve become more
confident in who we are. I don’t really think we’re any different. I think that
I may see the world a little bit different, but I don’t feel like we’re any
different from day one. It’s just as humans, we just grow. It’s a natural
progression
Kris: You become more of who you really
are.
Nick: Yea, I think we’re more of who we
are. We’re more ourselves now than probably we were when we first started out.
Like he said, we used to kind of maybe worry about what people thought and
other stuff. We’re comfortable in our own skin and I think every day we just
find more and more out about ourselves. I think we’re just as different as
everybody else is 5 years ago.
Kris: I think our songwriting, it’s not
different, it just continues to grow. We think about different things. You pay
attention more to what’s going on around you and that influences you. Our next
record could be different than this one.
Nick: I think that the older you get, the
more you cherish what’s going on and the more you appreciate things. Not that
we’ve not ever been appreciative, but the older you get the more people you
lose in life. You lose grandparents or whoever and you just kind of hold on to
what you do have a little bit tighter. I don’t know. I think I just appreciate
everything probably a lot more than I ever have just because we’ve been blessed
with so much.
Kris: And we’ve done and seen a lot since
2010. We put the first record out in 2012, the original version of it. I mean,
in the past year, we’ve seen and done so much. It affects the way you think. I
don’t think you’re ever different. People just find out who they are and that
sort of thing.
18)
Were either of y’all musicians in high school in
band?
Kris: I was for a couple years. But I
played so much music at home that I didn’t care to do it in school. I would just go home and play whatever I
wanted to play. I didn’t want to play the stuff that they would make me play in
band. I’m not knocking that, it just wasn’t for me. Of course I was in sports,
too. And I was playing at church every Sunday and Wednesday, playing drums, so
I was getting my fill of music outside of school.
Nick: I was really, really into sports.
Growing up, I always sang. The thing that I didn’t like was being told that I
had to sing or that I have to. That’s why I kind of shied away from singing so
much in high school because my mom was the choir director at our church, so I
was getting thrown up there every Sunday, so I despised it a little bit. But I
was always singing at home and making mixed tapes to sing to. That’s why this
record, it really is a dream come true because it’s the music that we always
wanted to make. But no, to answer your question, I was not in band in high
school. I didn’t have time. My mom was in band. She played the saxophone and
twirled the baton, not the baton, she was a rifle twirler.
Kris: I was like a class clown. So I never
took anything seriously in class. It didn’t matter if it was band, geography,
or math, or PE. I never took anything serious in school. I always did the least
amount I could get by with. When I was home, I would play the drums.
Nick: My mom had me in piano lessons when I
was like 8, I think, and I took those for 5 years and I think that’s really how
I was able to convert to guitar, just because of that.
Kris: Everything we play we taught
ourselves. I think that’s the way to do it, for us anyways.
Nick: There was always, at like my
grandparents’ house, there was always banjos and mandolins and all kinds of
instruments around our house.
Kris: I think you would probably just watch
your family members play and pick up things.
Nick: Yea, but I didn’t really get into
guitar that much until I was 19 or 20. My sister always tells the story about
how when I first got my guitar from my grandmother in eighth grade, from eighth
grade going into my freshman year of high school was “It’s Your Love,” Tim
McGraw. It was the only song that I could play and I played it the whole summer.
19)
Many country bands/singers have the reputation
of being twangy and just singing about their wives who left them and their dogs
that died, and on and on. How do you keep your music from getting that
reputation?
Nick: Don’t write songs like that, I guess.
Kris: Basically.
Nick: I think it comes down to, first of
all, why you’re playing in the first place. I just think there’re so many songs
and people out there that try to recreate what has made other artists
successful
Kris: We’re not trying to recreate songs or
themes or anything in our music that might make people like us. We just try to
stick to being ourselves and our influences, we write the way the people that we’ve
always listened to have written. I think it comes down to that. If you’re
writing for radio and you’re a songwriter in Nashville and nobody knows what
you look like, you just write songs every day and pitch them to artists, then
yea, write about sweet tea, write about drinking a six-pack, write about a girl
with long tan legs on your dashboard, you know, because you’re going to get to
make money. But for us, that’s not how or why we’re doing this. And people
can’t get mad at us for that, you know, for being honest.
Nick: We just write music and make music
that we enjoy and it’s not for any other reason. At the end of the day, there
are songs that we like. We’re not into ‘twangy country.’ If we were, then we
probably would. We are kind of twangy, when you hear how we talk… No, our
music’s not twangy.
20)
How do you continue to come up with new
material?
Kris: God.
Nick: I think that we always put a lot of
thought into what we’re doing and it really is work to find different ways of
saying things. No work like digging a ditch work.
Kris: We’re both really competitive. We
want to continue to do better than we did yesterday. It’s like that in
everything we do… We just want to be the best. It’s that competitive nature. We
try to find different and better ways to push yourself beyond. New material
will come and new things will always inspire you, but Nick and I, the
relationship we have, we expect each other get better and better. Neither one
of us wants to settle and just be content with the songs we’ve written and that
we’ve already done. We want, each day, to be better.
Nick: When you write all your own stuff,
and you want to play music the rest of your life, you just work at it. Like I
said, it’s not a job, but you have to put time into it. And that’s not
something that I can make him do or he can make me do. We have to find it in
ourselves to do it.
Kris: I think we’re always in the frame of
mind that something can be done and we’re always in the mode, I guess. Whether
we’re together or not… I just think we’ve been blessed to be able to put down
on paper what we’re expressing. We’ve got a lot that we’re very fortunate to
have.
21)
What is the biggest compliment you’ve ever
received from a fan or a fellow musician?
Nick: I had someone tell me they wished
they had a partner in life that made them feel the way our music did… I was
like, ‘Wow.’ They said a man. She didn’t mean it bad like bashing men, but she
was just like, ‘I wish that I found someone that makes me feel the way that you
all feel.’
Kris: I had a friend who I kind of got to
know late in his life and he actually had cancer. And he passed away, but he
would listen to our cd… And he never really had to say anything other than he
would listen to our music and that reminded him of home. It’s nice to know that
someone going through those circumstances could find a little bit of relief in
our music. I think one of the biggest compliments we get is just the day-to-day
postings of people talking about our music and how awesome they think it is.
Our music is the background music to a lot of people’s lives, and that’s a big
enough compliment for me. Whether or not they’re driving on the road, or
drinking a beer on the beach or sitting in their office working, I think it’s
really, really awesome to be that person because we know how we feel about the
people that are that for us.
22)
Nick, how do you keep such a straight tone when
you sing?
Nick: I don’t know… I’ve just always been
able to sing. And I’ve worked real hard the last four years to get better, but
I’ve just always, not sang great, but I’ve just always been a singer. When we
were little, we’d just make up songs. It’s just a gift. I’m just really blessed
to be able to sing. And whenever I get sick and I can’t sing, I’m always
afraid, like what if I can’t sing, what if my voice doesn’t come back? I don’t
know. I was just always around singers growing up. A lot of bluegrass singers, it’s
just that straight tone. There’s really not much vibrato on the long held
notes. I don’t know. I just sang my whole life… Looking back at times when I
thought that I was a good singer, I’ll listen to a recording, and I’ll be like
of gosh that’s so bad. We sang so much in the last three years that that, more
than anything, was it. Just a lot of practice, you know, you sing 57 shows a
year. And we play a lot on our days off. I don’t know.
Kris: I know his voice well enough to know
that I know when he can push it… I’ll be like, ‘Dude I know you can get up
there and hit that.’ He gets better every day.
23)
Kris, why did you decide the cajon was the way
to go for percussion?
Kris: I’ve always played the drums, so… I
started playing the drums when I was 8 or 9 years old. My dad and my older
brother played, so, not that I was expected to play the drums, but I think
everybody in the family knew I was probably going to play. So when it came time
for us to do this, actually when we started out playing together in 2010 before
we were Sundy Best, we were just playing around at gigs, I was playing a kit. I
think ultimately, since we were doing a lot of stuff with just me and him, he
would play electric guitar even, and it just felt really empty and there wasn’t
a bass player or anything. We were doing a full drum set and electric guitar
and we’d play 3 hours, just cover songs. And I saw a cajon on YouTube in 2010
and I just thought it was kind of cool because we had been talking about doing
just some acoustic stuff, you know, just acoustic guitar and me doing whatever,
and so I bought one and had never played it and we jammed. I taught myself how
to play. That’s probably good because had I learned from someone, I probably
wouldn’t play it the way I do. I think it came down to the gigs we were
playing. We were playing a lot of patios and restaurants around town and
there’s really no volume nob on a drum set, so I would use the cajon and we
were getting just as much response if not more from the acoustic and the cajon
as opposed to a full drumkit and electric guitar. So we just kindof went with
it and it kind of became our thing. We never tried to be different, it just
kind of happened. So that is the long explanation of why I play the cajon. And
I’m lazy.
24)
It sounds like you put your heart and soul into
every song, and not in a sappy way. How do you explain that?
Nick: I think that just comes from doing
our own songs. It’s coming from a real place.
Kris: It’s therapeutic.
Nick: It is therapeutic. Everything that we
do, it’s all from, it sounds cliché to say this, but it is from the heart. It
comes from some place in our life that we needed that song at that time to
either get us through it, or help us, or whatever.
Kris: When you do it that way, when you get
up on stage, it takes you back to that time in life when you were going through
that. I think that’s why a lot of people love our live shows because they see
our passion. Like when we sing Mountain Parkway, we think about driving.
25)
Is there a specific anecdote or memory from your
times together that is really special to you?
Nick: My favorite part of what we do is
after a show riding in the van and just playing music the whole way home, just
talking about…
Kris: … To the next town.
Nick: To the next town and just talking
about where we’re going, what we’re doing, life. That’s my favorite thing of
everything we do, just me him and Jack, just riding in the car, just loving
life, basically.
Kris: Yea… It’s not against the world, but
it’s us… We’d never driven across the whole state of Texas.
Nick: It’s like knowing that you have…
Kris: There’s life outside of us playing on
the stage… Whether or not we were doing it at this capacity, we would still be
just as close friends. I think the stage on stage, to us, is very special, but
that’s not all of it. We watched an Eagles documentary and as good as they
were, they hated each other off the stage. Like they would have separate hotel
rooms and separate limos that would take them to shows. The relationship we
have outside of the music is great.
26)
Who are your role models in music and in life?
Nick: Tom Petty, Chris Stapleton, Kings of
Leon, and then my grandparents
Kris: My mom, Michael Jordan, because he
always wanted to be the best, and Kings of Leon. Because they are cool with who
they are and I think that’s why they’re special.
27)
What’s one lyric that you hope sticks with your
audience?
Nick: I really like, in ‘Thunder’ ‘I ain’t
had a hard life, just had a few hard times.’ I really like that one. I like, I
know I said one already, I like, in ‘Smoking Gun,’ really the whole second
verse, ‘I come from a long line of lovers, a long line of saints, but it
skipped a generation and I’m fine with all I ain’t.’ That may be the one,
probably, for me.
Kris: I like stuff from some songs we
haven’t recorded yet, so I’ll have to wait on that one… I’ll hold off answering
that one.
Nick: That is a very good question.
28)
How often do you rehearse?
Nick: Never.
Kris: We don’t. We don’t practice.
Nick: We play so much, like we used to
practice, and if there’s like a new song…
Kris: Like before we play something new, 9
times out of 10, we practice it before. But sometimes we just play something
brand new like never played it together on the stage.
Nick: Yea, like we both know it.
Kris: Yea that sounds really bad.
Nick: Yea everybody that asks us that, we
always feel like we’re being judged, but it’s like…
Kris: We both play so much in our off time.
Nick: We do play a lot when we’re not
‘playing.’ Like we’ll play a show for hours and then we’ll go home and play for
two more hours.
Kris: Because it’s just the two of us, we
don’t really have to rehearse… we never play the same thing the same way like
ever. Sometimes we’ll play the same song differently. That comes back around. I
mean I love the Allman Brothers because they never play the same song the same
way.
29)
If you could collaborate with any musician/group
dead or alive, who would it be?
Kris: Stevie Nicks.
Nick: I would just like to see how Tom
Petty goes about writing. We wouldn’t have to collaborate. I’d just love to see
the process of what he does.
Kris: Stevie Nicks, because I’m a Fleetwood
Mac fan.
30)
What would you like to say to your fans and
anyone who may not be a fan yet?
Kris: To people who don’t know us yet, I
would say just because they don’t like our music, doesn’t mean they wouldn’t
like us.
Nick: Yea, we would get along.
Kris: There’s people who don’t like our
music, but that doesn’t mean we don’t get along. I hate when people hate the
person for their music when they don’t know they personally. We’ve got friends
who aren’t big fans of our music, and that’s okay.
Nick: It’s like hating a doctor because
he’s a doctor. You hate someone because of what they do.
Kris: Just because people like them.
Nick: Yea, like they don’t want to like you
because everyone else does. It’s okay. If you don’t like us, it’s okay.
Kris: Yea, but don’t hate us personally.
Nick: And to our fans, we always say it, but
we can’t thank them enough… I think it’s cool…
Kris: Buckle up, because it’s going to be a
fun ride.
31)
Is there anything else you think I or the
readers/listeners should know about yourselves, Sundy Best, Bring Up the Sun,
or the tour?
Kris: I would say continue telling people
about it, like their friends and family about it. That’s really the biggest
avenue of growth, word of mouth… Keep growing the family. And stay involved,
after shows, come talk to us, on social media, talk to us.
Nick: He said it all.
Kris: Don’t eat yellow snow.
Nick: Don’t play leapfrog with a unicorn.
--
I know this post is already suuuuuper long, but I am including the lyrics to one of my favorite songs by them, Thunder. Enjoy:
I aint shot to pieces for the very first time
And any thought of leaving aint ran across my mind
Aint had a hard life , just had a few hard times
And I never thought the day would come, when I called you mine
All of my life I’ve wandered
Looking to slow down
But a lot of crooked roads
Are the only thing I’ve found
You came along
Sang your song
Put my heartache in the ground
You shook me like thunder
I’ll be damned if I’m leaving now
I couldn’t have fought you /even if I tried
With a thousand soldier army/ and a pistol by my side
You said hello/ and i said goodbye
To hurt too deep measure/ and scars two cars wide
All of my life I’ve wandered
Looking to slow down
But a lot of crooked roads
Are the only thing I’ve found
You came along
Sang your song
Put my heartache in the ground
You shook me like thunder
I’ll be damned if I’m leaving now
You’re all I hoped for/ you’re all that I’ve dreamed
You took away my lonely/ you made my heart bleed
All of my life I’ve wandered
Looking to slow down
But a lot of crooked roads
Are the only thing I’ve found
You came along
Sang your song
Put my heartache in the ground
You shook me like thunder
I’ll be damned if I’m leaving now
