Sullivan
Genre: Rock
Official Web Site
Sullivan Bibliography: (click on each album cover to view tracks and Sullivan lyrics)
Sullivan Biography America's next great emotional rock band has arrived. Sullivan's debut album, "Hey I'm A Ghost," is an eleven track offering showcasing soaring guitars, sentimental vocals and arena-rock sized drumming sure to excite fans of Jimmy Eat World and Sunny Day Real Estate.
Recorded by Matt Goldman (Copeland, Underoath) and mixed by Mike Watts (Brand New, Hopesfall), "Hey I'm a Ghost" is infectious and rousing, a fine introduction to one of today's most promising new bands. Sullivan represents something of a crossroads of different tastes that animate and inform the band's unique musical identity.
"I don't think there's one type of music that would make us all happy," explains bass player Zach Harward. "That's why [the sound] comes out the way it does."
Chapel Hill, North Carolina is a university town known more for basketball than bands. While the town has boasted its fair share of celebrated acts - from swing-jazz kingpins Squirrel Nut Zippers, piano pop crooner Ben Folds, and the authoritative indie rock of Superchunk and Archers Of Loaf - "All that was kind of in the mid-nineties," notes Harward. "Chapel Hill hasn't been a huge music area for a while."
Sullivan is about to change all of that. In four years the band has molded themselves into a well-oiled, volatile rock quartet, poised and ready to step out of their relative obscurity and dive into the pop music spotlight.
With only a modest three-song EP to their credit, Sullivan have created a sizeable buzz for themselves, catching the attention of music lovers and musicians alike with their loud, melodic brand of impassioned rock.
Sullivan began when Harward and singer/ guitarist Brooks Paschal started building music together around the tinny blips and bleeps of a drum machine, music that was far less sophisticated than the reflective, hook-laden songs they write today. "We were a more straightforward, simple poppy band back then," says Harward, "and a lot of that came from the fact that, at the time, me and Brooks were the only people in the band. So we were the only ones that actually cared about what the music was going to be like."
That changed in 2003 when the two bandmates enlisted the services of friend and drummer Phil Chamberlain (brother of Underoath vocalist Spencer Chamberlain), retiring their weathered drum machine and welcoming him as a third source of insight into their increasingly collaborative music writing. And the acquisition of high-school pal Tyson Shipman in December, 2004 completed the Sullivan puzzle.
"When we got Phil, that was another strong point of view coming in the pot and changing things," Harward explains. "And then Tyson coming in obviously was another huge jump for us, something that just pulled things in the right direction."
The formation of the band, then, was something that seemed to happen almost naturally, as if it was simply the next step in the course of their collective friendship. "When we were getting the band together we weren't really looking to it as filling in positions for a job or anything," says Harward. "We're all friends first and a band second."
Friends indeed. When they're not cramming into a van together, the four members of Sullivan are sharing a small apartment space back home. "You'd think it would be hard, but it's not," Chamberlain says when quizzed about keeping such close quarters.
"We pretty much spend all our time together, and it's pretty awesome." Spend some time with Sullivan yourself and find out why everyone is talking about "Hey I'm A Ghost."
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