Control The Sun To Take On Froth & Fury

What happens when you combine two brilliant Adelaide musical institutions and challenge them to perform their first ever show opening the illustrious Froth & Fury Festival? You get Control The Sun.

Combining the musical sophistication of Colibrium with the thunder of Japam, Control The Sun rose from the ashes of the pandemic with a sound different from their predecessors yet built with the same expert craftmanship that made them live favorites. On the eve of their debut single release on November 14, Say It’s Over guitarist Christian Tassone and drummer Jack Thomson took time out to explain where it all began.

Christian: This band is the product of COVID ending two other bands. It came from my old band Colibrium and I was in that band with Chris and Matt. Everything fell apart for heaps of musicians, venues, the industry as a whole, suffered a lot. We were part of that. Matt and I had unfinished business with a lot of riffs and ideas and we spent a bunch of time just working on stuff, mucking around with songs that we hadn’t really finished the Colibrium. Let’s try something else, get a bit of new energy going and then we started really building out what we were thinking was going to be, this new project. Then you can’t really get too far into a writing process without a drummer. So, we spent a fair bit of time and a few attempts lobbying this guy, who as all good drummers are, was very busy, we harassed you a bit.

Jack: It was one of those things with the COVID thing, stopping a lot of what we were doing previously. I was in a position where I went back into my hired gun mode because I’ve always worked as a session guy outside of bands. They’d asked me, they go, Hey Jack, how about it? And I said, nah, too busy. A couple of times more, nah, sorry, still too busy. Finally, the stars aligned and I really wanted to get back into doing something a bit heavier and the guys wanted to push more in that kind of direction. We all enjoy stuff that’s a little bit more on the, I guess progressive vein if you will, so as we started writing the music, it very much went down a road that was part heavy, part progressive, still kind of hooky and fun. And I guess it’s sort of morphed into where we are now.

Christian: We find it hard to define at times because we take elements of different stuff. What isn’t hard to define is the experienced musicians first ever show as Control The Sun is at Froth & Fury Festival. Such is the bands talent, nerves are not the agenda.

Do you know what, we got this! We’ve been working on this project for a while. We’re all pre-seasoned guys live. We’ve played a lot of different sizes, crowds, and we’ve played lots of shows. We’ve got good mileage on all of us. Playing the main stage at a festival like this, it’s definitely going to be a level up. But when you say ‘How tight is our sphincter?’ well, I guess that is all about how tight we are as a band before we even get there on the day. If you want to use that as a way of putting it.

Jack: Preparation is key.

Christian: We got to be prepared, but we know what we’re going to do. I think the production will be interesting as the stage will be interesting. We’ve played big indoor shows and we’ve all done tours and gone interstate but this will be as a first show for a band. It’s about as good as it gets. Especially in Adelaide, right?

Jack: Usually, the first show that any band plays is that some small little pub or bar, club or something. They’re all kind of cramped up on the stage together. The guitars are hitting each other and whatever else. So, it’ll be nice for the boys to have room to run around and then I can kind of also stretch out. I can’t really run too far. I’ll be behind a kit, but yeah, it’ll be cool.

Christian: Well, hang on. Never say never, right? You might get up to do a victory lap after a song or something! When we built this project and put it together like Jack said, we want to do this properly, so we want to come out of the gate. Well, not in the sense that we wouldn’t want to play smaller shows, but we believe we’ve built a product that’s ready to go. That’s why it’s taken us a while because if you build it properly, then you are live ready and the product’s ready as opposed to we’re learning the songs still or finding, are we going to be louder in this part, this chorus going to be bigger or is that breakdown going to work? It’s like, no, these songs are built, the live products essentially built. Let’s roll this one properly and then we’ll come out from the cave and go out to the public with a bang.

We’re so grateful for Jason North seeing that we have the potential to do it and we can deliver because he’s put faith in us. To be able to put together a good set, we know what we’re doing, give us a shot. It is going to be really good for us as a band. Also, it tells a good story because it shows Jason supporting up and coming artists, we are essentially a brand new band. So, it shows Froth is supporting the local music scene, which is awesome because we need it. It’s giving a platform for new heavy music, especially coming out of South Australia.

Will those punters who check the band out expect Japam and Colibrium mash ups or is this a whole new world?

Jack: Whilst there’s a lot of the previous history with both of our bands, the idea is that this is completely new. This is something different. We are coming out of the gates. It might have some stuff that sort of is reminiscent of both previous bands, but this is completely brand new music.

Christian: I guarantee you if you’ve heard some Colibrum songs, you’ll pick stuff in my playing and some of the riffs that Matt’s written that you’d be like, oh, okay, maybe there’s something. But the sound itself and this product, this group of songs that we’ve written is, and it was intentional, we want to get out of what we were doing before. In that process where Matt and I had all these other riffs we were working on, we started this thing, we set out to go, no, no, no, let’s go heavier and let’s tune down more. Let’s be a little bit more, not necessarily technical, but let’s take an extra risk. It’s less safe than stuff we would’ve done before, but also in the sense that we wanted to push ourselves because tell you what, we’ve been rehearsing and we’re ready to go. It’s definitely a new sound.

Jack: You should expect something that’s pretty technical yet fun, a little bit wacky, but also at the same time, very polished. The aim is that you’ll still be able to bang your head whilst listening to something that’s technical.

Christian: We’ve got half an hour, we’re opening the festival. We want to get people’s attention, get everyone razzed up. There’s big riffs and some pretty heavy moments in there. So yeah, it’s going to be cool. If you really go to watch a band and you like watching the instrumental side and you like watching the musicianship, you’ll enjoy it. But at the same time, we’re also try not to take the piss either and were making it accessible.

Interview By Iain McCallum

Catch Control The Sun Froth & Fury Festival on Saturday January 31 in Adelaide. Tickets on sale HERE…