On Wednesday night we had the pleasure of attending the Guelph stop of Dallas Smith's Tippin' Point Tour. Arrangements to interview the guys from Sundy Best in the afternoon but, life has a way of reminding us that sometimes, things are out of our control. First, Corey was unable to attend and that left me in the driver's seat. We headed into Guelph arriving early for our scheduled time. This gave me time to do some research and put together some questions of my own for Kris and Nick. And then my phone rang. Getting a call from the tour manager, just before your scheduled interview time isn't usually a good thing. But in this case, it was a quick call to let us know they were a little behind schedule, nothing more.
I'd touched base with the winners of our "Win Tickets and a Meet & Greet with Sundy Best" and I knew I'd be cutting it close to get the interview wrapped up and back out to escort our winners in. We're up for challenges at Sound Check.
Feeling properly prepared, we headed to the venue to scope out parking and dinner arrangements. Let me digress for a moment to say, I like Guelph. It's a reasonable drive from Toronto and I find it a charming, friendly place. I wanted to say warm, but the temperatures on Wednesday, make it impossible to use that word in this post.
Nick and Kris were waiting for us and they were friendly, charming and funny. Let's get straight to the interview.
Sound Check: Let's go back to the beginning, tell me about the Kick Starter Campaign.
Sundy Best: With Kick Starter if you don't reach the goal, you don't get anything. We didn't want to ask for a ton of money, but we don't want to ask for not enough, to do what we wanted to do. The goal was $6000, 30 days. We got the six grand in eighteen hours. It was just an unbelievable response and we were sitting in the living room, watching it, pressing the refresh. The thing that held us back was having a physical copy of something to give people. We felt like no pun intended that really kick started us. *laughter* It showed us the how much support we had. We'd played around Eastern Kentucky. We started to take it really serious, we felt like if people are this devoted to helping us, we're going to do everything we can to make them proud.
Sound Check: What did you do with the extra money?
We were able to have t-shirts made. We put it all into merch. We made a couple of music videos, we made and recorded a CD, everything went toward the graphic design and stuff. All of it was spent and we mailed out all of the CDs and t-shirts from our house. Sat down and packaged them up. There were 244 donors and we weren't expecting that. We were expecting, just our parents. It was pretty overwhelming to organize the whole thing and then put it out. At the time it was just me and him and that was it. When we were driving from Kentucky to Arizona when the we got the CDs in the mail. I would drive and he would sit in the passenger seat and fill them all out. We addressed them in the car. We mailed them when we got to Arizona. It was on that trip that we first saw the original I Wanna Go Home, it now has over 350,000 views.
Sound Check: Does that seem crazy to you?
Sundy Best: Yeah, I mean we just wanted to play music for a living. That time in our lives is very concrete in our brains. It's something we'll never forget. We'll never forget what it felt like to be in that position. It helps keep us grounded.
Sound Check: Can you tell about CMA Fest
Sundy Best: Last year was our second year. Our last show was out by the arena. We were on the big stage next to Bridgestone Arena. It was only 30 minutes but the stage we were on, it felt like we belonged. Not that we'd made it but that we're on a lot of people's radar. The first year we played some smaller things but it wasn't the same.
We played the Grand Old Opry. We've played that five times, that's gotta be the highlight of our Nashville Experience.
Sound Check: You've known each other since Elementary School.
Sundy Best: yep, lived about 3 miles from each other, if that.
Sound Check: And how do you put up with each other after all this time?
Sundy Best: Got to. We view it as a marriage, we're old school. We don't plan on getting divorced. We view it as something really special. We want to do something really and to something special you have to put a lot of time into it. There are days that are better than others but we've grown to a point where, we're a lot like the same person. Just as much as we're alike, we're also different and that's what makes us work. Music's always been the number one thing. We both played sports growing up. In high school we played basketball together and in college I played football and he played basketball and we've always used that team first attitude. It's not about him, it's not about me, it's about collective what we're providing people. Hopefully that's with good music and an escape from reality when they're at our shows. I know that he wants it just as bad as I do.
Sound Check: How do you deal with missing your family when you're on the road?
Sundy Best: We don't have kids and we're not married but we have people we love and care about. But they encourage us to do what we do. They miss us and vice versa but they want this for us, as much we want this and it's very special to know that's always the case. We're trying to make the people we really care about as proud as possible. They understand that we can't get where we want to be if we don't go out and road dog like we do. There have to be sacrifices made. The relationships we have with families, significant others, whatever, this is a part of us. If we weren't doing this we wouldn't be fulfilled as people. We've been home for eight weeks before we came on this tour with Dallas. It was like something had been missing and now we're whole again. They understand that and we're lucky to be in that situation. We're always going to tour but the circumstances will be different but you have to work to get there.
Sound Check: What's the last thing you listened to and on what platform?
Kris: Ryan Adams I bought the album on iTunes yesterday.
Nick: Motown Shuffle
Sound Check: If you could put together your dream tour, who would you be touring with?
Kris: How many people max?
Sound Check: I'm going to say two.
Kris: Man that's tough. Bob Seger and someone newer and current. I'm going to say Bob Seger and The Allman Brothers Band
Nick: Tom Petty
Kris: Yeah, he could be in the tour, we'd let him in. Tom Petty and Tedeschi Trucks, just because they're trucks.
Sound Check: When you leave Dallas' tour your heading south on tour is there anyone you want to mention?
Sundy Best: Were headlining all the shows but one band If Birds Could Fly, hopefully they'll be supporting us. We've been so crazy. We're adding two players on this tour. We've been rehearsing a lot and unfortunately we haven't set an opening act yet. We're still trying to figure it out. We've always tried to, as cliche as it sounds, tried to follow our hearts and gone with our gut on things. Things have worked out so far doing that.
Nothing worth having happens overnight or easily.
Thanks to Kris and Nick for taking the time to sit down with us and for being so nice to our contest winners. I know that Travis and Emily were thrilled to have tickets tonight. And hanging with the band after a show can't be beat.
