Suns of Ra

There are dozens of reasons why people form bands: They're bored, they want to get girls and/or guys, or simply because they're young and well, that's just what youngsters do. The three men behind Suns Of Ra came together for the most primal reason: They wanted to rock. And rock they have: The trio of singer-guitarist Dave Myers, bassist-singer Abraham Willock, and drummer-singer Dorian Cornwell spent the past 18 months mixing '60s and '90s influences into a sweaty, sludgy set of originals. They took that noise into the studio and, in a wham-bam, one-day session, cut their debut, the bluntly named Rock And Roll Sounds. It's as much a celebration of rock's ear splitting, booze swilling tradition as a repudiation of the calculated and polished approach to making music that's nearly standard operating procedure in today's rock underground. Gearing up for the Suns' CD-release show this week, Myers spoke with The A.V. Club about the band's raw power.

The A.V. Club: With studios using ProTools and indie bands obsessing in their home studios, there's a lot of overproduction these days. How deliberate was the rawness of Rock And Roll Sounds?

Dave Myers: That's something we really feel strongly about. Our favorite records are like that -- we like gritty stuff. Even with the old Stones, Beatles, and Who stuff, there's a lot of noise. We also love The Stooges and late-'70s metal. You can hear flubs and missed notes. Our favorite records were made in a more hammered-together way. There's no real way to buff it out and polish it. A lot of times people will hand us a record from a local band, and it sounds pretty good. Then we'll go see them, and they can't play. I guess that's the thing that holds the three of us together: We like it loud and loose and raw. There are mistakes on it, and we left those in because we wanted to capture the vibe more than anything.

AVC: Do you think it's just too tempting for bands to polish themselves up? You mentioned The Stooges -- Raw Power would never be released today sounding like that.

DM: First of all, no engineer wants to do that, because they want their stuff to sound polished. No band would do it. It's kind of a funny thing. That's where [producer] Jamie [Hillier] was really cool. We kind of hit it off with him; he's into the same raw, stoner rock. He actually was the first guy we met who was willing to let us do that, who was willing to let us screw up a few takes. That really helped us have some confidence.

AVC: When you cover, say, AC/DC and Nirvana, you don't do "Back in Black" or "Smells Like Teen Spirit" Is it important to steer away from the radio staples?

DM: We actually consciously do that. We want to try and highlight some of the tunes that folks aren't into. We love playing Jimi Hendrix, but we don't play "Purple Haze." No reason to. It's been done. My band did it when I was 16 in high school. It just seems like, what's the point? He did it, and that's good.

AVC: Audiences should appreciate not having to sit through their billionth cover of "Purple Haze."

DM: It's probably there on every jukebox. If you're really jonesing for it after we're done playing, why, I'll give you a quarter myself to go play it.

-- Matt Schild

The Suns of Ra celebrate the release of Rock and Roll Sounds with Chamcha, King for a Day, and Gata Negra at 9pm on Thursday, May 29th at the Larimer Lounge (2721 Larimer St.) - The Onion/AV Club