By Alitzia Tyminski – Goodnight Sunrise have music at radio right now as well and are releasing their brand new album “Against All Odds” this Friday, October 7th. The album is fantastic and the band’s live performance has taken them around the world, playing over 320 shows (over 20 festivals this summer alone). We had a chance to sit down with Vanessa Vakharia from the band and to discuss the new release among other things.
What made you decide to work with Brian Moncarz and how was your experience working with him?
Honestly we for a really long time sort of had trouble, we’re such an energetic live band and we’ve always been like how do we capture that in a recording. How do we do it, it’s been so hard. Moncarz actually came to see us play our last show before the pandemic was February 29th Oshawa Music Hall and he came to see us play and he said I want to work with you guys and we heard a lot about him.
He’s really like a rock producer and he was like I can get that live show that I just watched, I can get that recorded, I can make it happen. So we were like let’s go for it and do it. Then we recorded one track with him in March 2020, it was One Pill. That was the first one we recorded, it turned out so well. We were like this is it. Basically, we wanted to recreate our live show but on a digital recording.
If you could work with any producer in the near future, who would it be?
I would love to work with Hill Kourkoutis I think she is so cool, I would definitely love to try that. I would love for Taylor Swift to produce a track for me to be honest.
Against All Odds is a ‘tribute to rock that inspired you,’ what music inspired the album?
We have been a band for 11 years now, when we started the band we were like yeah we’re a rock band and so many times along that journey we got told to be something else, we were told rock isn’t trendy, no one wants to hear guitar solos, you should be more like this and that, I think we just listened too often and this is finally the album that I think we always had in our hearts as people who love rock and roll.
I love 80s hair metal, we love AC/DC, we love Def Leppard, like rock and roll music! I think that and combined with the fact that I personally have always loved pop. I know every lyric to every Britney Spears song. Just that pop sensibility combined with the raw power of rock and just raging and having totally hooky but totally cheesy guitar solos and riffs that kind of stuff, I would say this album takes all those pieces.
We have a song as cheesy as Timesick, which really is kind of a cheesy emo pop rock song that I don’t think we would of ever had the courage to release before because it’s literally the lyrics are flipping through the pages of my high school yearbook.
I think there was a point where we might have been like oh we can’t do something like that whereas now we have a song like that on the same album as One Pill which is like this dirty riff ready song, they’re both so different but they’re both very us. Before we would of probably been too self-conscious to do that and we would have been like no they have to sound more alike and we can’t have cheesy lyrics we can’t have alike such dirty guitar, radio won’t play it. So now I think we’re just like fuck it, who cares we’re just going to make this music that we love.
Is there an overarching theme to the album?
For sure, the album is called Against All Odds and it really is a tribute to the fact that we’re still here after everyone knows that 11 years for a band is a lot like most of the bands that started out with us in the community no longer exist, I mean there was an entire pandemic, me and David dated and broke up during the course of the band, being a BIPOC woman in rock music, there are just so many.
I think most people feel like the odds are stacked against them in the music industry in 2022, the odds are one in, I mean I wonder what they are but what are they one in a million that you’re going to actually get to the place that you dream you’re going to be? I think this a testament to the fact that not just are we still here hanging on by a thread, we’re still here, we are more ready than ever, we are producing our best work, we’re remotivated, we’re reenergized and we’re not going anywhere.
If you could share one song that encapsulates the essence of Against All Odds, which song would it be?
I think it would be Wait For It. Honestly, Wait For It is the song that is the essence of the album personally and I wrote that song Against All Odds because we were nearing the end of our time, we were writing all of our demos. I remember last June I had writer’s block, we’re never going to make it what is the point of this album no one is ever going to hear it I was so down and I couldn’t even think straight and I listened to Olivia Rodrigo.
Olivia Rodrigo’s album had just come out, I listened to that and immediately after that, I never done this before I had just taken this Ryan Tedder course on how to create electronic demos which I don’t do, I don’t really use software but within two hours I literally made this entire demo and wrote all the lyrics and they just came out.
That is what that song is about, it’s about just being like fuck everyone keeps telling you to just give up, you’re never going to make it and whatever and that song is us saying whatever we’re over you telling us all this just wait for it we’re doing our thing and we’re still here because we’re not there yet but it doesn’t mean we’re not going to get there.
You mentioned Olivia Rodrigo?
If you don’t know who Olivia Rodrigo is, she is an 18 year old girl in High School Musical I believe and she last year put out the most popular album in the world, you gotta listen to it! She’s so fucking badass, she is Latina, her band is all women and her songs are very like Paramore vibes but super poppy, it’s an unbelievable album, she just took the world by storm and you gotta listen to her album.
What album resonated with you that came out or is speaking to you, would that be the album? [Olivia Rodrigo, Sour]
I would it’s really funny it’s like the life of a teenage girl. That album like musically and sonically, the songwriting is so good, she’s just angry and powerful in it, I mean she’s so young and when she performs she doesn’t give a fuck, she’s like fuck the patriarchy, she is such a talent, she is so good I would say yes that but also we listened a lot to MisterWives, they released an album called Superbloom, it’s just beautiful and so good. That album and Olivia Rodrigo are probably, I’m trying to think what did I have on repeat, it was probably that.
How did the lockdown affect you as a band? Was it a positive experience, did it change your perspective?
I think it was probably both, it really did give us the time to write this album, I don’t know if it would of happened without that time because as a band you’re always hustling and have a million things on the go and one of the hardest things is booking shows and we did not have to do any of that, we didn’t have to play shows, we didn’t have to book shows.
The playing shows is what gives us life as a band, it is our energy source, it is what reminds us that we’re artists so I would say yeah it was nice to take a break from that so we had this time and space to really dedicate to writing but the downside was our entire worth got wrapped up in the internet the only thing that gave any artist including us validation was how many people like your posts, how many people are streaming your songs and that became really dark I would say.
I’d say now going back into playing live and being like oh my god I remember why we’re doing this and what really brings us joy I think it’s been really good because we can tell, if I go two weeks without playing a show, I find that I start getting really wrapped up in Instagram and TikTok and being like oh my god this and that no one likes us and then in my mind I’m like okay I just need to play a show and remember playing music is an exchange between real people and our band not just like bots or the internet or whatever. I think it really highlighted what a dark place you can go down when you don’t remember the purpose of your art.
If you could tour with a band which one would it be?
The Beaches! 100 percent it would be The Beaches that is the end of the story. (Laughs).
What would be your dream tour package be?
If I could really pick anyone it would be Lady Gaga. If I could open for any band it would either be Lady Gaga or I would really love to open for an 80s hair metal band. Like maybe, Def Leppard I would love to go on tour with Def Leppard, I honestly think we would be such a good fit I think their audience would love us I think it would honestly be really good, I actually think it would be really important to tour with an older white male rock band that has those fans that can migrate over and likely have been less exposed to female rock musicians.
I actually think that would be really important on several levels and that’s a lot of what we do because we play rock music. We’re often on bills with all men and I think it’s so good because we always get such good feedback from the audiences and audiences are normally like oh my god I’ve never seen a woman rock that hard! They don’t mean anything by it they literally just haven’t, I think it really changes their perception, I think that’s really important. Maybe it’s like us, The Beaches, Def Leppard and Lady Gaga. There we go.
I actually saw Def Leppard open for Motley Crue, one of my favorite shows of all time was Def Leppard, flawless.
Vanessa: Oh my god I’m wearing a Def Leppard shirt. I love Def Leppard. That drummer, Against All Odds is like his middle name.
Exactly, a lot of people don’t know about that surprisingly, that’s an incredible inspirational story.
Vanessa: Totally!
They played Hysteria, that is one of my favorite songs.
Vanessa: Honestly, Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad? is the world’s greatest love song.
It may be premature to ask, have you put any thought into your next album at all?
Vanessa: (Laughs) That is really funny, I’m like okay David why don’t we write our next album and he’s like honestly shut up or I will murder you, I’m like okay cool cool. I think you know I love writing and creating so I think we’ll be, I mean when I’m inspired to do that next I’m just going to do it but no we definitely can’t it’s just too far. We’re waiting until we get our Juno nomination for this one then we’ll talk next album.
I read in an interview you wanted to marry Keanu Reeves, does that still stand today?
Vanessa: (Laughs) That’s absolutely standing! You gotta say like, Keanu is still not married, yes he’s been engaged to his partner for a while but there’s a reason he can’t tie the knot he knows that I’m like here you know, it’s not even like we don’t need to get married I don’t need a traditional marriage I just know we’re soulmates I’m really excited for when we get together.
He’s aged very well for sure.
Vanessa: He is the hottest man alive. Actually I’m thinking yesterday in an interview the guy asked me if I could create a super band who would each member be and I should of actually said Keanu Reeves on bass because he’s a bassist. I went to see his band Dogstar once a million years ago, was he a great bassist no I’d rather have the bassist that I selected, I guess we’ll be dating so he doesn’t need to be in the band.
(Laughs)
Thank you so much Vanessa for meeting with Amplify Music Magazine!
