Jason Sunde of The Daredevil Christopher Wright
Friendly indie-pop, with a hint of choir
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The Daredevil Christopher Wright is a whimsically named band with a measured sound. The Eau Claire, Wis., trio usually sounds eager to perk up into three-part vocal harmonies, but can slow down those harmonies in pretty, reflective moments. Drummer Jesse Edgington and brothers Jason and Jon Sunde (mostly bass and guitar, respecitvely) make pop tunes that are easy to cozy up and chirp along to, but that aren't sappy. They’ve put out a couple EPs since 2005 and have recently finished up their first full-length, In Deference To A Broken Back. Before playing the Hideout tomorrow, Jason Sunde spoke with Decider about the band’s progress and playing in front of their parents.
Decider: How do you think the band has changed over the past few years?
Jason Sunde: Well, let’s see. I guess we’ve gotten to know each other a lot better. That’s one of the major things of being part of a band that I didn’t expect. You have to work with these people for a long time and just have to work stuff out if you have issues, with the music or personally or whatever. So that’s really cool. We started out being a pretty punky kind of sound. We would just take a song and just have fun ripping into it, “da-na-na-na,” just high-enthusiasm playing. “Loud” was the watchword of the day. But now we’ve been looking a lot more into, I guess, having some interesting arrangements, and we’re starting to play more instruments in the course of a show. There are a couple songs where I play three or four different things [bass, guitar, Wurlitzer, glockenspiel, recorder]. Eventually, I think, we’ll just keep expanding.
D: Did it take some work and concentration to go from “punky” stuff, as you put it, to slowing down and doing all of these vocal harmonies?
JS: I’d say that working out the harmonies is less of a thing. We just kind of did that naturally together. It’s kind of a fun thing. We’ve really been singing a lot more together. We even do little exercises together. It’s really fun for me to hear, since I have a background in choral music. Both I and my brother Jon studied voice at UW-Eau Claire. I think I’ve sang a little more in church choirs than Jon, but we’ve been in choir pretty much all along in our education.
D: When you played at Madison's Mother Fool’s last year, it looked like the audience mostly consisted of your family members. Is it strange to make music that you feel comfortable playing in front of your parents?
JS: Yeah, I mean, we’re definitely comfortable with whoever, I think. Our parents have always been really, really supportive of music. They grew up doing music too. A lot of the things that we play kind of suits a wide range of people, I think. To me, I don’t feel like I’m playing music just to meet anybody in particular, but just how it happens. But also, there’s some people who think, “Oh, that’s a little too weird for me.” There’s some elements of stuff, especially that Jon likes to do, that are kind of taking a form that’s pretty recognizable, but then tweaking it a little bit.
D: How do you think that applies to your songwriting?
JS: There’s a lot of jumbled-up meaning in my head when I’m writing songs. At one moment I’ll think of something really personal, and the next I’ll be like, “Let’s actually envision this as some character outside myself and in a completely different situation than anything that I’ve been in.”
The Daredevil Christopher Wright, "Isn't It Enough"
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