SUNNA

The Sun Rises on Sunna
By Troy Schmidt

Hardrock.com: In your song "I'm Not Trading," what kind of people don't you like?
JON: Most. Greedy people, business types, nine-to-fivers—everybody.
Hardrock.com: What do they do that is so spiteful?
JON: I just find it that I'm always doing music—writing songs—by myself. So writing music I'm always by myself. I started doing music because I didn't like working—to pass my time. I didn't like being told what to do. Then when we signed with a major label I started being told what to do. It kind of takes the dream of having any success through music and brings it to reality. It sucks. It's not actually people but the concept of it.
Hardrock.com: Is the reality that you're always going to be told what to do, that you're never going to get away from that?
JON: Something like that.
Hardrock.com: Two songs—"Seven Percent" and "Insanity Pulse"—I noticed that you repeated a lyric, or a theme of the lyric.
JON: That was in "Insanity Pulse" and what?
Hardrock.com: "Seven Percent." I was reading them and I saw it said, "I don't know if I've been dead," and I was wondering if you've ever had an afterlife experience?
JON: No, but I think I believe in reincarnation. I can't remember specific things. I don't know if I believe in it, but there definitely is something there.
IAN: People speaking different languages all in the same country.
Hardrock.com: At the beginning of "Grape" there was like a cough. Was that an accident?
JON: The vocals of "Grape"—I actually made the song up in literally five minutes. Before that I downed a cup of brandy and was screaming at my ex-girlfriend on the phone and hung up and said, "Give me a microphone." I had two nights to feed from.
IAN: We had most of the music written already but didn't have any time to practice. We had a two-day recording session—went to the studio and did it and the song was there.
JON: Then we heard it and were like what the **** is that?
Hardrock.com: Are you good at improvisation?
Jon and Ian: Yeah.
Hardrock.com: What inspires you? When do you do your best thinking?
IAN: At night.
JON: Yeah, definitely at night. When it is quiet, the winter is bad, everyone is miserable.
Hardrock.com: Why do you think that is?
JON: Because people are happy when they can jump around a bit and be cheery.
Hardrock.com: Do you think that it is an introspective time?
JON: Yeah, I think so. Anyone who has had an experience on the dark side of life that takes you to your own kind of place.
Hardrock.com: So people who have been through their own kind of pain and misery—sort of stop and think and evaluate?
JON: Pain and misery have got their own price. A lot of **** can go down.
Hardrock.com: Do you prefer that kind of pain and misery side?
JON: No, I just think it is all interesting. You don't have one without the other. It's like this album has got its soft elements and its hard elements. One plays against the other. It's just the soft elements seem so soft because something so hard comes smashing in behind it.
Hardrock.com: Your name has some secrecy behind it. One definition we found was "every word and act of Islam's prophet, Mohammed…"
JON: There are loads, which are all up on our website.
IAN: In Icelandic, it's a girl's name. It's "fart" in Greek.
Hardrock.com: Which one do you prefer?
JON: Greek.
Hardrock.com: "Faith without religion" is what you said you preferred.
JON: One must kind of get their first understanding of the word—to sum it up—to get the fundamental teachings. It doesn't seem too religious to me. It's just things that you must do, that you might be punished for. It didn't come across in a totally preaching kind of way.
Hardrock.com: What do you have faith in?
IAN: It was faith in the bond, in the music. That was the idea. We were going in that direction.
JON: That was why we took it.
Hardrock.com: You have a song on the soundtrack of Hollow Man, directed by Paul Verhoeven. Which is your favorite Paul Verhoeven movie?
JON: Starship Troopers.
IAN: Showgirls. Ha, I liked Total Recall.
JON: I liked Starship Troopers because the whole idea of insects killing people is pretty neat.
Hardrock.com: Every guy's fantasy.
JON: Nice big bugs and farting bombs.
Hardrock.com: Did you think your song was played effectively in the movie?
IAN: Yeah, but it could have been better if Kevin Bacon didn't sing it.
Hardrock.com: How do you want to affect your listener? When they are listening to your album or at your concert?
JON: I think if they are listening to the album I might want it to provoke thought. I think at concerts I'd prefer someone to come up to me and say, "This did this to me and this is what I think about this song," rather than saying, "You must be really ****** up man." As long as people are thinking and using their own interpretations on what we do then that's cool. It's quite frank because at the moment the gigs we are going to get a crowd response like "whoa, what is this." A bit shocked. They expect a band to be crap. There are only a few who know us that might sing along and head bang a bit but the majority has just heard us for the first time and they seem shocked.
IAN: Perfect music for a surfing crowd.
JON: Smashing Pumpkins as well. In Paris, we had huge mosh pits going on. Crowd surfing. That was the first time we experienced crowd surfing.
Hardrock.com: Are you a good match with VAST?
IAN: We'll have to see.
JON: Possibly at the other end of the scale.
Hardrock.com: We have a Hard Rock motto: Love All, Serve All. What does that mean to you?
JON: Disease. Wear a condom. Double bag.
IAN: Double bag.
(laughter)

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