Beyond The Sun
Photo Credit: Whitney Heard
Exciting Canadian-Pop trio Beyond The Sun brings a unique, genre bending sound to the music industry. The brothers— Phil, Dalton, and Colin— have been making music for decades; and in 2014, the group made their Spotify streaming debut with Little Kingdom. Since then, Beyond The Sun has only continued to rise in notoriety. 2019’s Shuffle Pt. 1 brought on much success for the boys. Songs like the popular “Cruisin Round Town” and “Stop” showcase the band’s truly diverse sound. They currently boast over 1.3 million Spotify streams and host an impressive 13 thousand monthly listeners. Their latest release, the upbeat “Let’s Do It All Tonight”, was released on July 2nd. We recently talked to the boys about their musical background, dream collabs, and more!
How did you get started making music?
It really came as a natural progression, we idolized so many musicians and begged our parents for instruments. Dalton immediately chose drums, and Phil chose guitar. When Colin turned 6 he started with bass but always wanted to be the singer, and eventually took over lead singer duties. After learning the fundamentals of our instruments, we began creating original music.
You’ve got an interesting mix of country and pop. How’d you guys develop this style?
We’re inspired by all types of music — we decided in 2016 we weren’t going to be boxed into one particular sound or genre. We locked ourselves away in Dalton’s bedroom and just wrote regardless of genre and at the end of 11 songs we looked back and realized we were writing how we listened to music. We call our genre “Shuffle” because it’s the truest sense of the band; we’re not just a pop band, or a country band, or an alt/rock band — we take from our influences and let the listeners decide where they want to place us.
What other genres of music could you guys see yourselves performing?
We actually started as a rock band back in 2003 when we were ages 6-11. We had a 4th band member at the time & we were known as Canada’s youngest rock band. We played around 250 shows in 2 years, ‘03 - ‘05. We continued playing rock until around 2012 when we wrote a song called “Shooting Star,” and that was the moment our sound really shifted & we began to expand our sonic palette.
When out of the studio, how do you spend your free time?
We have quite different personalities. Colin is very outgoing, loves being out with his friends and girlfriend. He’s the best (luckiest) gambler in the group. Colin and Phil love sports — love watching, talking, fantasy sports. Colin regularly can be found on a tennis court. Phil is a homebody who usually has his headphones in listening to Howard Stern or binge watching some TV series. Dalton’s past time is more music most of the time, but lately if he’s taking a break he follows in our parents’ footsteps watching Lucas Lagoons or home reno (renovation) shows.
Who’s the other half of your dream collab?
I think it may be different for each band member:
Phil: Kelly Jones of the Stereophonics (one of my all time favorite songwriters and front men)
Dalton: Jack Antonoff, he’s such a production wiz and modern day legend.
Colin: Kygo, we have always thought a lot of our songs lend well to the EDM world and he comes from the same style as one of our all time favs, Avicii.
Which song on your debut album, Shuffle, Pt. 1, is your favorite?
Track 9, “Little Kingdom”. Even though that song has been around since 2013, it’s always been at the core of what Beyond The Sun is. We recorded that one with producer Eric Bass (bassist of Shinedown), and on our first drive down to Charleston to his studio we got a call when we were in Maryland that our ill grandmother had taken a sudden and extreme turn for the worse. We headed back up to Canada to say our goodbyes & attend the funeral. About a month later we headed back down to record the song with Eric, and there was a certain energy or magic in the room when we tracked it. We all performed our parts with a photo of our grandmother in front of us. About a year later we performed it live at our first arena show in San Juan, PR. It’s been something really special to us since. The recording on Shuffle is still the original from 7 years ago, just remastered.
Is there going to be a Shuffle, Pt. 2? What other future works do you guys have planned?
Yeah we actually just announced it recently! Shuffle, Pt. 2 started July 2nd with the single “Let’s Do It All Tonight”. We’re going to be rolling out the majority of Part 2 as singles every few weeks for the next several months, and then we’ll drop the remaining few tracks together in the fall!
