littleSUNDAY on the Road to Big Victories - Part 1 of 2
by Melissa Girimonte
I recently had the chance to chat with the boys in littleSUNDAY, the unsigned powerhouse band that is making things happen through hard work and tireless effort. In the first part of this interview, we’ll touch on the band’s history, some of their accomplishments so far, and their preparations for their first Toronto show of the year on February 27th at The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern.
Melissa: So tell us a bit about how littleSUNDAY was born … how you guys got together.
Rick: People don’t believe this is a true story, but about 3 years ago, a guy walks into a bar (laughs). Three years ago, I walk into a bar with a couple of friends, checking out a local jam night. At that point, I wasn’t really playing with a band. So I’m sitting there, and these three guys, Mario, Eric and JP, and another musician were jamming…
Eric: We were hosting an open jam.
Rick: It was kind of cool, so I came back the next week, with a couple of buddies. These guys were setting up on stage. They were scrambling around – and, you know, I wasn’t really paying attention – but at the same time, I was thinking “What’s going on?” Anyway, they’re going around asking if anybody sings, so they get to my table, and they say, “Listen, we need a singer. The singer that was booked for the night didn’t show up, he bailed out on us, so we’re in a bit of a pickle.” So JP, the guitarist said, “You look like a singer.” And I’m like, “No, no, no, I play guitar.” They dragged me up on stage, and we jammed out a couple tunes, and it got me thinking, “Hey these guys are pretty cool.” So the rest, as they say, is history.
So I kept going back, started talking to them, and had some song ideas. We played a couple tunes there, live, just jammed it out. Next thing you know, we’re booking rehearsals, and by the end of the summer, we have a whole record. The funny thing was the record was done, and we hadn’t played a show. I think the real surprise to us came when I sent in an unfinished track to this global rock search thing, and we ended up winning. I was a virgin online at the time, I didn’t know about online promotions and stuff like that. So it was kind of funny that we won because we didn’t have a show under our belts yet. That kind of got us thinking that we should be a little bit more serious, and that’s where the band was born. It was born in a bar … it’s probably going to die in a bar.
Mario: What he doesn’t know is that we knew full well who was going to be playing that night when the singer didn’t show up, because we saw him hedging toward the stage, wondering “Who are these guys?” We knew, and we weren’t worried when our guy didn’t show up.
Rick: It was a cool experience. We really gelled the first time we got on stage and played something.
