Suns of Stone makes debut

Ottawa-based rock band showcases new music in Kingston

Suns of Stone officially came together as band in 2012.
Image by: Supplied
Suns of Stone officially came together as band in 2012.

Putting their own distinctive twist on traditional 70s rock, four-piece Ottawa based band Suns of Stone is just beginning to make a name for themselves in the Canadian music scene.

The band — which consists of lead singer Alan Charlton, guitarist Jimmy King, bassist Andrew Erlandson and drummer Alex Scott — is staying focused on performing and producing new music.

Although Suns of Stone didn’t start out together originally, they found each other while performing in the same music scene and eventually decided to join forces as a collaborative effort in 2012.

“Maybe four or five years ago some of us played in different bands,” lead vocalist Alan Charlton said. “After time went by we decided to re-form and then start work on some new projects and we put this thing together and back in 2012 we played our first show.”

Emerging on the Ottawa music scene two years ago, Suns of Stone spent their time playing dive bars and small gigs. After the release of their self-titled album Suns of Stone in 2013, the band began to play several Canadian cities including Kingston.

“We’ve played in Kingston a couple of times. We played there last year at the Mansion and The Merchant earlier this year. We’re familiar enough with Kingston but we are from Ottawa so we do obviously know Ottawa a bit better,” Charlton said.

“It was kind of a mixed crowd the last show we played. To be honest, I don’t know how many were Queen’s students or not but it was pretty packed. It was a good crowd.”

With a new album in the works, the band plans to debut mostly new material at their upcoming Mansion performance.

“We recorded something over the summer so our next album is in the mix, it’s still being put together,” Charlton said. “But we’re playing a couple songs we’ve had for a while now but there’s a lot of new songs that we’re recording and we’ve only played some of them live.” Playing in the style of 70s rock, Suns of Stone writes and creates all their original music in a style that references rock gods like Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd, while still maintaining a modern edge, giving it a distinctive flavour.

What makes Suns of Stone different is that they’re a relatively new band, and yet their music has a cohesiveness and togetherness that sets them apart from the thousands of other rock bands.

What they lack in experience they make up for in delivering a powerful energy and emotionally charged sound in all of the songs on their debut album Suns of Stone.

When it comes to how the band chose their name, Suns of Stone, the deliberation process was both simple and drawn out.

“The name Suns of Stone is something we came upon after probably tons of bad suggestions. We had to find a name that wasn’t already taken,” Charlton said.

Suns of Stone perform tonight at The Mansion.

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