Photo by Kiki Allgeier
Sean “Bones” Sullivan first appeared on Jambands.com and in the pages of Relix as the guitarist in New York-based indie rock band Sam Champion. While waiting for Sam Champion to release its sophomore album Heavenly Bender, Sullivan started toying around with a less likely set of influences: reggae, dub and rocksteady. Though the resulting album Rings is still rooted in Brooklyn rock, the concept was the type of left-field idea that piqued the interest of both taste-making bloggers and musicians like Norah Jones, Joe Russo and RANA’s Ryan Thornton—all of whom appear on the album. Below, Sean Bones discusses the roots of Rings, working with his high profile guests and how he ended up staring in a Jamaican film with Norah Jones.
Most of our readers know you as the guitarist in Sam Champion. How did you go from playing indie guitar-rock to reggae-dub?
I guess reggae and dub music are antidotes for playing too much guitar music. At first I was listening to it at home when I wasn’t rehearsing or on tour. It was taking a long time to put out [Sam Champion’s] Heavenly Bender last year, and I was getting kind of creatively blocked up while we were waiting. So I imagined this project where I would put out a 7’ in this rocksteady musical style. I also did this record to work outside the record industry a little bit. I originally put out the record as a part of a fake fashion line I did with my girlfriend—we released the record with a pair of swim trunks. So my music as of last summer was a little bit kind of homey, but that’s how I started releasing music on my own.
Concurrently, you also shot a movie with Norah Jones down in Jamaica, correct?
Yeah, I met a guy named Sam Fleischner while Sam Champion was doing a video shoot. He had heard my record and was talking to me about a project he was planning to do in Jamaica [which also features Norah Jones and Yeasayer’s Ira Wolf Tuton]. I kept in touch and one day he called me and said that in ten days they were going to shoot the movie in Jamaica—but they didn’t have a lead actor they were comfortable with. So they kind of convinced me to do it.
Do you have an acting background?
Not at all! But I got through it—it was pretty fun [laughter]. I was actually just thinking that it was last year at this time that I was there. Rainy days like this kind of remind me of Jamaica. It is hot rain, it rains a lot there.
After you did the movie did you go back and finish the record?
I was supposed to do the record last fall. I started talking to Frenchkiss in maybe September of last year and then they’re like, “We want more of this music that you make— like soon. Can you like start recording in November?” I just kept saying “Yes.” I was excited to be talking to them, but I didn’t quite have the material. Then when these guys asked me to do the movie at first I was really, really reluctant, so I was kind of calling around, trying to get people to tell me it was a bad idea. But everyone was like, “You should do it.” So I decided to call the label, thinking that since they want me to record that fall they’d say I can’t go because it will fuck up our whole schedule. But when I called Frenchkiss and they said, “Dude, you have to do this movie.” I made the trip and came back and recorded in like January or in February, so I had a couple of months to organize the ideas. I brought some gear down to Jamaica and worked on some of my thoughts on the trip. It was really rugged productions down there, and we were kind of caravanning around but I was able to like get some things started. I didn’t really start recording until I returned.
“Fern Gully, Jamaica”
It seems like all signs were pointing towards Jamaica for you.
That’s the thing with this album. It’s scary how fate works. Here I am making an album in this style and I end up in Jamaica. I guess it was meant to be at this point in my life for some crazy reason.
Rings is also a stylistic shift for Norah Jones. Did you convince her to sing on the album while working on the film?
The filmmakers had a few different ideas of how to get her involved musically that they were pitching to her. I had already worked up a song that was sort of meant with the movie characters in mind. She was kind of reluctant about some of the ideas but then she heard the song I had prepared and decided she wanted to do it.
Rings features a number of notable backing musicians, including Marco Benevento, Joe Russo and your Sam Champion band mate Ryan Thornton. At what point did they join the project?
I just know those guys from the neighborhood [in Brooklyn]. Ryan I’m with a lot of the time. I was faced with the prospect of making my own album. I didn’t know how I was going to assemble a band, especially in my group of friends. Everybody is in bands and everybody’s kind of busy. But Ryan came forward and asked me if I wanted him to play. I didn’t know that much about the jamband thing until pretty recently. I do like some of that music, but I have never felt super confident in it. During the initial recording of my first sessions Joe was working with me too, so Joe and Ryan were kind of sharing drum duties and then my brother Mike plays bass—he’s kind of just a shoo in and I went through a couple different keyboard players. Marco Benevento played for a little while, but then he got busy so I ended up getting another guy named Mark Phillips. He’s probably the perfect player for the band ‘cause he’s got a similar kind of obsessive reggae fan thing happening. So he knew exactly what I was doing. A lot of what I’m doing takes some explanation—people are kind of hesitant to buy [the white reggae thing] but he saw that my aim was true and he had actually had some similar desires to do something with Jamaican and rock influences, so we combined forces.
I can definitely hear that mesh of styles in your music. It is not traditional reggae or dub by any means.
Dub and reggae styles are just kind of prevalent in a lot of music—whether it is the kind of dance hall thing that’s happening on popular radio or rock music. I even think there’s a serious reggae-ness to a band like the Gorillaz who are an extremely popular band.
Was it a challenge to learn this style of guitar playing?
I don’t think it was particularly hard but I guess I did find little ways to make what I do better. In the music we’re playing, the guitar is an especially percussive instrument—you’re kind of just keeping time and adding to a syncopated rhythm. All that suited me very well because I don’t usually like to be up there kind of shredding and making a big spectacle of myself. I like this because I get to play like dance guitar. I mean, no one’s really shredding too much except the keys, and I like the fact that everybody’s just kind of playing something kind of simple and syncopated with one another—it makes it an interesting kind of dance-y sound.
Do you see yourself continuing to explore this Jamaican sound on your next solo record?
I don’t think that my next record will be so focused. I’ve kind of made a lot of rules and did a bunch of stuff to keep it sounding a particular way. But I think the influences will always be there and there will be different periods where I do really go for it, the really kind of Jamaican sound. But I’d see moving on a little bit in the next one. I don’t think it will be rock—I’ll always have other outlets for that. I think it will probably be the same amount of rock as Rings ‘cause there are like indie rock parts on this album as well. But I think, say if theres like 20% indie-rock-isms on this then there will be 20% indie-rock-isms on the next. I always just kind of want to make rhythmic, interesting music.
Have you been working on any new ideas?
There are a couple jams that are like kind of concise structured afro-beat songs. I mean, but who knows…some people don’t even really see how Easy Street is particularly reggae, I mean it is totally a ska song in the rhythmic kind of turns in the chorus and stuff like that so, having written that album, I feel like a lot of the songs were meant to have a Jamaican feel in one part and kind of a more straight up feel in the other part.
You recently completed a marathon run of shows at CMJ. Any highlights?
We played a killer show at Glasslands, though not many people were there—everyone was feeling good about our show at Glasslands. We played also played Wes Rock UK’s party at Bowery Electric. The room sounded nice—I think they got a new sound system in there, so it was kind of a loud show with this freakin’ mega sound system on this tiny floor. Which is good for us ‘cause we need the bass loud.
