Animal Sun are an indie rock band comprised of two brothers – singer/songwriter Steven Blake Alton, and drummer/back-up vocalist Will Alton.
The duo were born and raised in Charlottesville, VA. The name Animal Sun is a dedication to their late childhood friend, James Sun, who’s life was tragically cut short in 2011. Drawing from their devastation, they realized life was too short and wanted to change the world for the better through their powerful music.
It wasn’t too long until Animal Sun began performing in front of packed audiences. They found themselves playing at college parties to house shows along the East Coast – and filling up venues on the West Coast as well. After achieving huge success on their home turf, they decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue music full time.
Since the move to LA, Animal Sun have been busy in the studio. They released their EP Beginnings, and have booked numerous gigs. They were recently featured and placed #5 on LA’s KROQ Locals Only, idobi Radio for their idobi Anthm show, Laguna Beach’s KX 93.5 FM, and many other radio stations across the country.
Animal Sun are on the right path for success within the industry, and they’re eager to spread their love of music to those who strive to live their lives to the fullest. You can stream Beginnings below!
I was able to chat with lead singer Steven Blake about the making of Beginnings, moving to LA, and more! Read our convo below.
Hey! So first of all, I dig your sound. I think it’s very upbeat. How would you describe your sound to someone who’s maybe never listened to your music before?
That’s a tough question because we feel it varies greatly depending on the song, but at this point in our career we’ve had several magazines and reviews cite The Killers as a major cornerstone of our sound. We tend to blend our guitar influences, such as Catfish and the Bottlemen, with synth heavy lines that you would find on the timeless classic Hot Fuss-sometimes even going as far as The Smashing Pumpkins Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness era for inspiration. With that being said, we still pull from a lot of recent favorites such as The 1975 and Nothing But Thieves when it comes to songwriting and live performance. Overall, I’d say Animal Sun is Indie Rock with a good amount of throwback to a late ’90s Alternative sound; modern nostalgia if you will.
Your EP Beginnings is fantastic! Can you give me a little background on what it was like making the EP?
Animal Sun has actually been around for much longer than this EP, ultimately founded in 2015. Unfortunately we had built our sound/image on what felt wasn’t really us, and it was this glaring issue that made me feel like we had to completely start over. I took all of our old songs offline, moved across the country, and lost my entire line up besides my brother and I who originally started this project as a duo. It almost felt as if we had become a phoenix rising from the ashes and in order to move forward we had to go back to the beginning. That’s where the mindset for this EP was born, and it was because of this mindset each song feeds into the next in an almost cyclical nature. We took Animal Sun back to its roots, and now we couldn’t be more excited for what is to come in the future.
You guys moved from the east coast to LA to pursue music full time. How did the move influence your writing?
The move was pretty dramatic and quite difficult at times. I had only about half of my possessions, and often found myself sleeping on floors for weeks at a time, my brother (Will) included. From there we graduated to air mattresses and it wasn’t until very recently that I finally moved into my first apartment this past summer. Now it has been almost a full year since I first made the trip to LA and it was this extremely tough transition that can be heard in throughout the soul of this EP. We really focused on captivating the emotion of over coming tragedy, nostalgia, mental illness, a longing for the familiar, and perhaps above all: a hope for the future. Every song explores an individual theme that we found essential in our coming-of-age story. Even the cover art with an emotional gaze at a small light in the darkness signifies the hope we were building for ourselves. The desire to one day build that flame into an unstoppable force where we set our soul on fire. Pun intended of course.
Who are some of your biggest musical inspirations?
This is another difficult question as we often find it tough to narrow it down, but for the sake of time I’ll name an essential five: The Killers, Catfish and the Bottlemen, The 1975, Nothing But Thieves, and The Smashing Pumpkins. They all represent different elements of what we want our music to sound like. The truth is however, we don’t really want to sound like anyone else other than ourselves. Of course we take inspiration from other artists, but we try really hard to walk the line of several genres and not be easily placed into just one category.
If you guys weren’t making music right now, what do you think you’d be doing?
To be completely honest I have no idea. We’d probably be bums if we weren’t doing this, but for the sake of argument I could see myself working in the environmental science field and my brother in medicine. We both love helping people and making a difference, but thankfully we happen to have music as our desired conduit for said mission.
What advice can you give to any aspiring musicians and creatives?
There’s loads, and to be honest there’s more than we could ever fit into a few paragraphs. However, the most essential advice I can give would have to be to set achievable goals with a timeline and celebrate each small victory as they happen. That way you can see the progress unfold before your very eyes and it well help you make it through the very dark times. Unfortunately being a creative is an insanely tough road, but it can also be the most rewarding, if done right. Never lose sight of why you started doing what you do and hold onto it with all of your might. It’s certainly working for us so far.
Follow Animal Sun on Twitter @AnimalSun and Instagram @Animal_Sun!
