Fresh off a plane from Zimbabwe, Larry Heath sat down with Perth duo Sun City to talk about their shows in Africa, percussion instruments, their live shows, tours in 2013 and much more…
What were the crowds like when you played in Zimbabwe?
The people were amazing, the crowd was way more receptive than I could ever imagine. Playing in front of thousands of people and them singing your songs when you’re in a completely different country, when we aren’t even that well known in our own country yet is absolutely mind-blowing. It was an awesome experience even from the tourism point of view, going over and seeing everything, going to the conservation centre and fishing in the river was just amazing. It went incredibly well, we would go back in a heartbeat.
Did any local acts support you?
Yeah we had a DJ and a cover band support us. It was weird as the cover band started doing oldies then all of a sudden they were covering Calvin Harris songs. We were sitting about waiting to go on and we were like “Is that Calvin Harris being played by a four-piece rock band?” Amazing!
What cultural things did you learn about Africa that you weren’t expecting?
They can drink! We couldn’t keep up. We were at a party with about 15 people and the next morning we counted 17 empty vodka bottles among the empty beer bottles. And you can get away with a lot if you have money. We had a friend from Mozambique over and he was collecting supplies for his farm. He was pulled over and breathalysed and he was like ten times over the limit and the police were like “You have to come to the station” he said “wait a minute”, popped the trunk of his yute, took out a case of peanut butter and gave it to one of the policemen, the next minute he is on the side of the road with a police hat on, a speeding gun and pulling over other motorists.
Is it true you Guys are classically trained?
Yeah we did it for a couple of years up until uni but it wasn’t what we wanted to do. I started on trombone and Dan was a percussionist.
What is your favourite percussion instrument?
I used to love the snare drum or the tom drums. Your kind of lead percussion instrument.
Looking into the future with you live shows, would you like to have a full band with you?
We were actually recently talking to our manager about this. Right now we are trying to establish what we are doing currently but we currently play about 7 instruments between the both of us at the moment. I think eventually we would love to; we don’t come from DJ backgrounds we have always played in bands and so we are very much interested in that sort of thing.
You have a big tour over the Summer, what will be following that in 2013?
It’s about to get a whole lot bigger. There are about 4 dates to be announced soon, which includes a huge Australia Day show here in Sydney at Bondi Beach Hotel and we got booked to play a tour which is just touring beaches in Australia, so you should hear more about that soon!
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Upcoming tour dates:
[JAN 11th]
SYDNEY – Upstairs @ The Beresford
[JAN 12th]
BYRON BAY – The Beach Hotel
[JAN 18th]
Adelaide – The Rocket Bar
With Miami Horror DJ’s http://www.facebook.com/miamihorror
[JAN 25th]
MELBOURNE – Purple Sneakers presents: Can’t Say @ Vault 8
[JAN 26th]
BONDI – Falcona Saturdays @ Beach Road Hotel
*Set Alight EP available on iTunes here*
