About Fuzzy Sun
Fuzzy Sun bring you contemporary pop, infused with psychedelia, dipped in naughties R’n’B nostalgia, with just a hint of disco flare. Learn more about this Stockport based band below.
Introducing Fuzzy Sun
Borrowing their mantra from Snarky Puppy, Fuzzy Sun want to ‘make music for both brain and booty’.
Having played together for just two years, the Stockport-based five-piece already boast an impressive résumé:
- Support slots with hometown friends Blossoms
- UK supports with Two Door Cinema Club and The Wombats
- EU tour with friends Inhaler
- Two EPs and their own headline tour
- The City Life award for Best Breakthrough act
- 15 released tracks to date
Expect seductive harmonies, soul-infused rhythms and melodies reminiscent of California sun.
MEET THE BAND
Kyle Ross, Vocals and Guitar. 25.
From the age of 2, I used to travel up to Scotland in the car with Highway to Hell on tape pouring out the speakers, whilst I head banged along. Once I’d got a bit older, I wanted to play both guitar and drums, but my mum wouldn’t let me have a drum kit. So, by the time I hit 13, I was teaching myself guitar and wrapped up in listening to Ben Folds. I started to learn piano as a result.
AC/DC are the first band I fell in love with. It’s everything about them: from the driving tunes and the alluring showmanship of both Bon Scott & Angus Young. That was something that captivated me and really made me want to start making music. ‘Ben Folds Live’ was what really inspired me to start playing the piano. The way he held an audience fascinated me. That record was what got me started writing songs.
From a songwriting and guitar playing perspective, it was John Martyn who I next fell in love with. The way he played guitar, the use of different tunings and his trademark style really hit a chord with me. His songwriting, the honesty and raw emotion he put into his music has the ability to break my heart, but also motivate me to write songs. For me, he’s one of the best songwriters to come out of this country and he will forever be one of my biggest influnces.
As I got older, I started to really fall in love with Steely Dan and Tom Waits. Steely Dan make such intricate music but still manage to make great pop songs with huge hooks. For Tom Waits, his experimental use of sound and his theatrical performances are something I really try to use when I write and create.
Leading on from Tom Waits, another thing I’m passionate about is film. Similar to music, film is another art form where we’re able to explore the self, others and much deeper issues and concepts. Horror is a specific genre that really intrigues me, along with directors such as Lars Von Trier, Park Chan Wook and Andrei Tarkovsky. I think these directors deal with violence and other taboo subjects in a really compelling way. So, film and image-led art, whether this be performance, sculpture, drawing or painting, is something that I enjoy. It allows us to understand things without language, which I think is both influential and essential.
This bio will be expanded on in a future Member Spotlight feature on the Fuzzy Sun News Page.
Raffaele Pani, Guitarist. 22.
My story for getting started on guitar is not cool. I wish I had a good reason but really, it’s because I used to watch Drake and Josh in primary school. It made me want a bowl cut and to learn the guitar. My mum wouldn’t let me have the bowl cut (thank God) but she did agree to the guitar.
In terms of learning, I learn mainly from albums. It started with AC/DC Live At Donnington. It was exciting and I played it on repeat. I probably sounded terrible playing along to it but it got me into the blues. I found John Mayer through the Trio album, TRY!, and a song called ‘Another Kind of Green’. The bulk of my vocabulary on guitar came from forensic analysis of everything Mayer’s ever recorded, particularly Continuum and Where The Light Is.
After that, there’s a few more that are integral to who I am as a guitar player. Dawes’ All Your Favourite Bands, The Bros. Landreth’s Let It Lie, Julian Lage’s Arclight, Steely Dan’s Can’t Buy A Thrill, Bill Evans’ Everybody Digs Bill Evans (listening to piano records is important as a guitar player) and everything by Blake Mills.
Outside of music, I studied philosophy at the University of Manchester. I have a particular interest in political philosophy and wrote my dissertation on J.S. Mill’s limit to individual liberty. I also have an interest in ethics and aesthetics (not the boring, dry stuff – like defining art – but more like the philosophy of music and cinema. There are some really interesting debates going on in those areas at the moment.
I am also very passionate about cinema. My favourite film is Casablanca. My favourite working director is Denis Villeneuve. And I saw La La Land seven times in the cinema.
This bio will be expanded on in a future Member Spotlight feature on the Fuzzy Sun News Page.
George Fitzgibbon, Keys and Guitar. 21.
I started learning guitar in school when I was about 8 or 9. Initially, I hated it. I didn’t practice at all and was in the bottom set of the class for the first couple of years. I started wanting to learn properly when I got Guitar Hero 3 for my 10th birthday and got myself another teacher who could show me the songs that I wanted to learn. Pretty much everything after that is time lost to practising music.
There are a few mainstays for the albums that inspire me and help me to develop as a player and a writer. The ones that seem to keep re-surfacing throughout my development are Ben Howard, Every Kingdom (2011); Foals, Holy Fire (2013); Steely Dan, Aja (1977); Bombay Bicycle Club, I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose (2009); and Fleetwood Mac, Rumours (1977).
I think those cover quite a lot of ground in terms of what I like and find important.
I spend my time away from music wanting to make music.
This bio will be expanded on in a future Member Spotlight feature on the Fuzzy Sun News Page.
Lewis Jobson, Bass. 24.
I started playing my Dad’s Fender Strat at the age of 15 after being inspired by school friends who were starting bands. I was given an electric bass for Christmas and much preferred it to the guitar. I’d spend hours learning songs by The Smiths in the back room of my parents’ house in Middlesbrough, resulting in many complaints from the neighbours and, eventually, a noise survey from Hambleton Council. Like many first instruments, the strings have never been changed.
In the summer of 2017, I watched Metronomy from side-stage at a festival. After that, I was determined to start a band and serendipitously met the Kyle in September of the same year.
For the albums that I keep coming back to, there’s a few:
- Interpol, Turn on the Bright Lights
- The Cure, Seventeen Seconds
- The Clientele, Suburban Light
- Orange Juice, Rip It Up
- Babyshambles, Shotter’s Nation
- Bill Ryder Jones, West Kirby County Primary
At the risk of sounding like a cheesy 80s Dating Video, outside of music I enjoy reading, spending time with my dog, playing snooker and sitting in the pub on Saturday afternoons.
This bio will be expanded on in a future Member Spotlight feature on the Fuzzy Sun News Page.