THEY may hail from small-town Adelaide, but Australia’s latest radio-friendly pop-rockers The Sundance Kids aren’t afraid to think big.
When the five-piece entered the studio last year to record their debut album Fall Into Place – which has spawned the commercial FM favourable singles Solutions, Drive Away and Burn So Bright – they took in a collective mentality of boundless possibilities, inspired by musical heroes such as Coldplay, the kings of stadium anthems and epic soundscapes.
“Our mindset was just as big as possible; throw everything we can at it,” said acoustic guitarist/vocalist Jason Shepherd.
“That’s coming out from those influences with bands that are able to create a sound that is so massive and full, yet have some really broad space as well.
“We like really anthemic music and big, broad sounds like Coldplay and we really like Sigur Ros; just the sheer dynamic of that band and how they create a song out of nothing and make it huge.”
While stirred by soaring atmospherics, the quintet are just as moved by delicate, folk melodies.
“Certainly, there’s the lyrical sincerity of Damien Rice, and the vocal genius and soul of Jeff Buckley that we all admire, and where we can, we’d love to be able to carry that through our music,” he said.
“Then there’s The Frames, just that straight-to-the-heart tone that we really appreciate.
“There are lots of different influences from all around the place, musically and in life.”
And it seems that the influences manifested in the band’s collective life of the past couple of years have been nothing but positive, as reflected by their debut LP’s moniker Fall Into Place.
Indeed, the guys – who formed in 2006 but made the transition from an acoustic three-piece to a fully-fledged five-member band – boldly decided to self-fund their debut before inking a major label deal with Warner.
“We really believed in our songs and were really proud of what we had written so we were like: well, if a major label is going to have us, great, if they’re not, they’re not,” Shepherd said.
“We recorded the album and what we came out with was what Warner were looking for so it all worked out really well and there was no real pressure to record anything a certain way.
“We just made music we loved and are proud of and ended up getting a record deal out of it so we were really happy with it.”
Subsequently, the naming of the album was a no-brainer.
“Opportunities came our way, and Fall Into Place was such an appropriate name for the journey we had come along on so far.”
The Sundance Kids perform at the Amplifer, Perth, on March 27 and The Vault, Fremantle, on March 28.