Interview Sunny Charlie 1- Could you present the band and what is the Sunny Charlie's story? Sunny Charlie was formed by high school friends when we came to Taipei for uni. We started writing some songs in the first year of uni and then started performing in various occations, e.g. Campus events, Spring Scream, and some music competitions. 2- What are the role of everyone in the band? We have Baozi (Galirock) as the lead guitarist and the major song writer, Gama on guitar, Ric on Bass, QB on drums, and Mimi on vocal. 3- If you have to describe the music and the spirit of Sunny Charlie how would you do it? Basically we just hope that people can enjoy our music like we do, regardless of the category/style it is. Our songs are generally describing and discussing the life and thoughts of young people at our age. We hope that our music can trigger feedback from a very wide range of various kinds of people, instead of just being focusing on a small group with specific taste in music. 4- Are there some artists or music which influenced you on the way you have followed ? In fact, each of us has very different taste in music. We started up with tendencies toward brit-pop/alternatives owing to Gama’s familiarity with the category. Baozi likes hard rock and folk, and QB favors metal, J Rock, while Ric and Mimi like indie music and dance music. We like to add different kinds of component into our songs, which brings a lot of varieties into our style. We are inspired by a wide range of artists from Radiohead, Blur, to Japanese post rock bands like Te, Toe, and even some indie bands from Taiwan, Japan, and the US, while sometimes we also add some flavors of traditional Taiwanese music into some riffs in our songs. We pay a lot of attention in creating the “atmosphere” in our music, which we view as the key when arranging our songs. 5- What is the way to follow for an indie band to get known in Taiwan? Honestly there are quite a lot of opportunities for indie bands in Taiwan nowadays, as there are just so many contests and music festivals held every year. For a new indie back to get known in Taiwan, we believe that first you need to be very proactive in terms of finding more opportunities for you to get exposure to the audience. There are always a lot of live houses/contests/festivals opened to new bands. On the other hand, whether you will be able to grasps your own audience solely depends on your music and your performance. 6- What is the particularity of Taiwan indie music compare to indie music of Hong Kong or Mainland China? We think Taiwanese indie music is reflecting the complexity of the culture in Taiwan. As many may have known, Taiwanese culture is very strongly influenced by both Chinese and Japanese culture, along with some minor influence from Western culture. We think it’s really hard to comment on where the major difference of the indie music from these three places lies in, as there are just too many different kinds of music from each of them. However, you can always feel very different culture and personalities in the music from TW/HK/CN, which we believe actually reflects the difference in the general personalities and cultural influences of young people from these three places. 7- You've done some performances in University in Taiwan. Could you tell us what kind of atmosphere you have there and what are your best lives memories? We quite enjoys playing in universities, since the audience is mostly from very similar background compared to us and there is a sense of intimacy compared to regular performances outside. Our best live memory in university is at a non-stop outdoor show in a square in NTU, where bands went playing back-to-back from the afternoon to nighttime. Our show was the last one of the day, and it was really awesome. You can see some people were just walking by, grabbing their meal, but then heard the performance and came to join us. It was really casual yet very good atmosphere. 8- You have released your second EP this summer. How did you work on it and what did you want to bring to your audience through it? We released the EP one year right after our graduation from college. Weactually do the recording separately and then compile it later to do the mixing. It took as quite a lot of time as some of our members are serving required military service during the period, and some are actually starting their own career. But anyway, we are finally able to present the new EP to the crowd. What we’re trying to convey in the EP is about the closure of the young and innocent time, and our understandings toward ourselves at this point. Need to learn to live and learn that not everything can be as good as you expected, and learn to be honest with yourselves. This is the key messages these songs are trying to tell. 9 - If you could choose a song of Sunny Charlie to let a new audience discover you what it would be? “Lost train” in our first EP, or “young” in our second EP. 10- What are your projects and do you have a message for French audience? Actually our vocal is studying abroad in UK at the moment, while others are busy working in different cities in Taiwan. We hope that we can have some new projects after Mimi comes back, but not many new plans in short term. The obstacles we face after graduating from college is also a problem that is often seen in Taiwanese bands, as most of the guys need to serve military services and some members might leave for their own plans. However, for people who listen to our music, we hope that we can encourage them to keep the faith in life, and no matter how bad it seems or how bad you feel about yourself, just keep the faith and deal with it. And then somehow it will all turn out to be alright! --

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