EXPOSING YOU TO MORE NEW MUSIC

SUNSHINE BLIND INTERVIEW

Stubble Interview by Ken Zebbyn

Ken: Your press mentions that you've been transplanted to San Francisco. How long have you been there and how does it differ from the east coast?

Caroline: We moved there two years ago. We've actually lived there two years although we've been on tour a lot so we haven't been there as much as we'd like to but it's really nice and mostly it's a weather difference. There's no snow, yeaaah!

Ken: Has it been better for your career?

Caroline:: It has helped us to reach a lot of the western coast fans that you can't really reach just by traveling through. We've met a lot of the LA bands like FAITH and MUSE and THE DEEP END and formed relationships with the LA bands and stuff even though we're not in LA. I think it has been good, yeah.

Ken: What's Ganeshia and what does it mean to the band.

Caroline: Well, Ganeshia's the Hindu god, the remover of obstacles, the one with the elephant head. We've always thought that we've been kind of protected and taken care of more or less because we've put lots of miles on the truck with no incident, stuff like that so...It's kind of a door opener. Something's up there.

Ken: Do you consider your music to be spiritual?

Caroline: Yeah, I try to put a lot of that into it because when I think about it that's mostly what I want to say. Without being preachy or anything like that I try to just kind of be by example.

Ken: Hinduism seems to be a growing religion over in Europe and there are a lot of spiritual bands that are using Hindu influences. For instance there's SKY CRIES MARY.

Caroline: They're from Seattle, yeah. I've been trying to get a show with them. That's why I know.

Ken: There's KOOLA SHAKER and everyone's coming from different formats. Like you're more from I guess a gothic industrial format and they're more from different backgrounds. What do you think is driving it all?

Caroline: I don't believe in movements. I think it's just your point of view of what you're looking at for that moment, you know, as far as if something is getting bigger or smaller. People say the goth scene is getting bigger or smaller. It fluxes, it wanes within its own boundaries. If you're in a goth club every night you're like, "Ah, the goth scene's really taking off". It's like that. Hinduism's been big since THE BEATLES and George Harrison and all that. He had a quote that went something like, "Gurus are the rock stars of the east and rock stars are the gurus of the west". That's such a great quote. It's so true.

Ken: I read in some of the older material in your press kit someone describe your music as spooky and also haunting. When I see spiritual I think more on a different realm than say on a ghost level.

Caroline: Well, I can scare people too.

Ken: Do you feel comfortable with the goth or the scary or horror label?

Caroline: Yeah, actually I really enjoy the goth scene a lot. I like being in it and when I'm away from it I actually miss it even though I'm not the most goth person who's going to be here tonight, that's for sure...Instead of playing to college students I'd rather be in a club full of people dressed up.

Ken: If this was not your career what would you be doing?

Caroline: I have no idea, (laughter). People have asked me that before and I thought about it a long time. It was like, I don't know? I'll be a house wife or something. No, whatever it is, it wouldn't be typical.

Ken: What got you guys started as a band and what changes have you gone through in personnel since the bands inception?

Caroline: I think one of the best reasons to start a band is because you don't like what's out there and so you do something about it. "Possessed" is a good word because I can't think of any other reason to stay in it. I really can't. The word is certainly slow forthcoming on our mediocre rise to poverty...I mean meteoric! Oh, whatever. Ha ha. As far as the line up changes, we started pretty much a core of the guitarist and I who do the song writing. We started with an original bass player who stayed with us a very long time, until we moved to San Francisco actually, and then we switched bass players. Now we have JT and he's been with us for two years. Just before this tour I hired a drummer so now we have a drummer for our live show. Whether or not he's going to stay is up to him basically but I think he does add a lot to the live stuff. There's room to evolve though. There's a whole new thing to work with. Our stage volume's like fifty times louder. It always changes, no matter what you add. Everybody has their own style. You can tell them to play a certain way but they'll always put their own style into it. I like that little sense of unpredictability that some other control freaks in the band might not like.

Ken: Who do you admire most in the music scene today?

Caroline: Hmmmmm, hmmmmm, I don't know? Anybody who's making a living at it, I guess. Anybody who still enjoys it and can do it every day and still makes a living at it, I respect that.

Ken: Between your first album and the current one, what would you say is the major difference in terms of the band sound?

Caroline: I actually consider them parts one and two because it's kind of the stuff that didn't make it onto the first album plus a few new ones. I think I'll consider the next one more of a shift than this one but this one's definitely a little bit mellower and more fleshed out than the last one. The last one's kind of three chords, you know, rock 'n' roll. That's the difference.

Ken: If you could live in any time period what would it be?

Caroline: It would be right now.

Ken: You're not interested in trying anything new?

Caroline: Well, you're asking a woman in the twentieth century. Yeah, there's other things but I'm quite happy being right here and now.

Ken: What do you consider to be mans greatest invention and worst invention?

Caroline: They'd probably be the same thing. It's either like the automobile, the bomb or something like that. I'm not a firm believer in humanity. I think we're just kind of the bacteria that's taken over the earth at this stage of the planets development.

Ken: You mentioned you've been doing a lot of touring. How many months out of the year are you on the road?

Caroline: How many months out of the year are we not on the road? The longest break we've ever taken was just before this tour and that was six months. Usually we take off a month or two and then go out again. Just the United States right now. We're big into that driving all over the place. We've got a winnebago now and we drive around. We are booked for Europe this year though for The Wigby Festival in England. We'll see how that goes. European tours can be very flighty. You can get off the plane and they can be canceled and that's for anyone. We'll keep our fingers crossed on that one.

Ken: Any humorous tour stories to share with our readers?

Caroline: There are a lot of humorous stories from the road but they all escape me now. I'm sure something happened today...We passed the other band on the road today and it was pretty funny. This is their funny story for the day. The other band got passed by like truckers or something and they're on the CB radio saying "I think that's a drag queen in there." Tina's looking at them thinking "What are they, nuts?", so when they passed us on the road today Charlie was yelling out the window "I think that's a transvestite." We all laughed at that.

Ken: How far south was the last gig before here?

Caroline: We were in Washington DC last stop. I've got folks in Jersey so we stopped there, but it's far.

Ken: Have you got anything planned for you next album yet?

Caroline: Ummm, We were working on some stuff before we left. We have like sketches for three or four songs and when we get back I think we're definitely ready to get in there and...

Ken: Now that you're four, has the song writing formula changed from you and the guitarist writing all the material as you mentioned before?

Caroline: Not really. It's still a happy dictatorship in that respect for the major framework of the song, the melodies, the choruses. Just the arrangements will change. The drummer can add whatever he wants and that might change it a little bit but the basic framework will stay the same.

Ken: Who do you attribute your success to as a band if anyone?

Caroline: Our record companies, Screen Records and Energy Records and lots of the promoters we work with because we do tour a lot and there's some promoters we work with over and over like Dancing Fur Productions in Philadelphia and ?????? who's here tonight, got us into Boston. Neville Wells from The Lime Light, New York.

Ken: What really irks you?

Caroline: About what?

Ken: About anything?

Caroline: Pick a topic. I got lots of them.

Ken: Being on the road.

Caroline: I can't really complain about being on the road.

Ken: Music.

Caroline: Music in general, I don't know? I don't know where music is going these days. Those kids. You know, HIGH CHAIR? SILVER CHAIR? Whatever they're called.

Ken: Do you as a band listen to predominantly the style of music that you play?

Caroline: Not at all. We just bought the COOLIO CD. Lots of bands listen to different stuff but their audiences don't. Like GUNS AND ROSES took NINE INCH NAILS on the road and they got booed off the stage. It's weird. We listen to COOLIO. We've got classical. We've got medieval. We got Irish folk songs. We got the rock operas going, you know? I like show tunes.

Ken: What book do you recommend people read?

Caroline: I recommend people read a lot of books. One book is a dangerous thing. Lots of books is good. I read a lot of philosophies, the Vagvageta, the Koran. That stuff's all good to know. I like some poetry, mystical poetry, Islamic stuff. I don't read a lot of novels though. I find them kind of shallow I guess. I need a lot of up lifting, you know what I'm saying? It's a goth thing.

Ken: Any words of wisdom or spiritual advice you'd like to impart on our readers in closing?

Caroline: Yeah, support live music!