September Sun

Formed as a four-piece in May 2012, September Sun started as an accumulation of previous band experiences, leading its members towards what has become the real deal.

“You meet a lot of musical people along your journeys,” says vocalist, Peter Knott. “Some you click with, and some you try to, and in the end those relationships alone can make or break you. We just wanted to bring together the like-minded people together and make music we could all appreciate and love.”

Guitarist Grant Turner and drummer Brett Norman are also cousins, which helped make the familiar more, well, familial. Andy Cipriano revels on bass while guitarist Pete Helfgott joined in 2014. Keyboardist Ruz Irani has evolved from an associate to a bona fide member over the last year. It clicks.

“The bringing together of like-minded people is an understatement,” Knott reflects. “What was once getting together as acquaintances to make music quickly became sharing stories with great people and helping each other through life’s dramas. The music just flowed on from that premise and has certainly matured over the years to reflect our life experiences.”

September Sun released their debut single, Solace, in 2014. It was an important step forward for the band, not only in terms of posting some runs on the board, but acting as a doorway to what they needed to do next. It helped establish a modest following for the band and gave them the creative tools and experience in the studio to make a determined follow-up release in the form of their debut EP, Of A Feather.

“After Solace we really wanted to push the envelope, creatively,” Knott states. “We were full of ideas, but didn’t have anything we were completely satisfied in with to release. We felt we didn’t want to rush things, and wanted to dedicate as much time to writing something we could all be proud of.

“In total, I think we wrote about 20 tracks before whittling it down to the seven you see on the EP. It takes time to write a good track, and we wanted to give it just that. We trialled some of the works we came up with in that period live, that really helped too in knowing what was, and what wasn’t working.”

Across the seven tracks a diversity of moods are traversed – the dark, the uplifting, the wild – as September Sun ponder reality, perception, society and beyond, AKA the crux of life and how we all fit into it.

“Overall, it’s a very personal EP,” Knott says. “The feather is a link to the bird, and birds have many symbolic properties. I became quite infatuated with all the human-like qualities we associate with birds, that and the freedom to fly and move about in the sky, and see things from a different perspective. It’s quite philosophical, really.

“Lyrically, I feel it’s quite deep, and very personal to me. In a way it’s therapeutic, as music and poetry is my way of expressing my emotions and connections to the magnificent and wacky world we live in. My head was in many different places whilst writing this EP, and I think that’s definitely reflected in the songwriting.”

With an extended period of time spent consolidating as a band and then recording these songs within studio confines, September Sun are more than ready to take them out into the wider world. Perspiration has led to more creative inspiration with new song and ideas mounting, but at this moment the stage is calling and the band are ready to answer.

“I’m pretty excited to start playing the tracks live,” Knott says, “and to start sharing with everyone the result of locking ourselves away in a rehearsal studio for two years. I’m really proud of the result; so, in a way, also confident. We’d like to see this one take us over east on tour. And hey, why not even further?”