By Ken Wallis.
Sunday Wilde is a musician who’s known for her boogie woogie piano and haunting voice. Her lyrics are insightful and thoughtful, highlighting many aspects of human life. Her new album is unique as drums and guitar are not part of this, her ninth album. She’s joined by Harpdog Brown to create an album that once you press play, you won’t want to hit the stop button.
Ken Wallis interviewed Sunday Wilde for the radio show, Blues Source Canada. The following are excerpts.
Ken Wallis
The song we just heard is Sunday Wilde from her brand-new album, Peace In Trouble…the song is I Never Get To Win and I beg to differ, this album is a winner and joining us to talk about the album is Sunday Wilde…Sunday so nice to see you even if it is on zoom.
Sunday Wilde
Yeah, great thanks for having me Ken.
Ken Wallis
Am I correct…this is your ninth album?
Sunday Wilde
It's my ninth album and but I’ve been involved with other people's albums too and some compilation albums so yea, I keep busy….
Ken Wallis
Well, that's what musicians do. This album to me is one of the most unique albums in a long time…it's really different…there's no wailing guitars…no heavy drum down-beats. How did you come about composing this music?
Sunday Wilde
Well, we've all been kind of laying low right for the last year and I spent a lot of time in the summer and the fall writing every day after work and every day on the weekend. I live by myself and I’ve had some snippets of songs that I was working on and then I was just trying to pull together some stuff because I do like recording and getting the music out there. Because of where I live sometimes that's the only time I can get my music out. I can't necessarily travel so it came together that way and then I always wanted to have an album that was a bit more minimalistic to showcase a little bit more of my piano.
My piano skills are getting a little bit better and I wanted to showcase my piano…my vocals and the message in the songs. Also, we're dealing with not a lot of people together all in one place so I was just trying to get it as simple as possible too…that way, having no drums and no guitar that was kind of like a plan that evolved in the way that it came together. I reached out to a few guitar players from around the world that I'm friends and fans of…then I just thought I'll just go with no guitars. On this album we have Harpdog Brown…he's very well known all over the place and so he agreed to do a song or two and then he ended up liking a bunch of them so he ended up putting some harmonica on five of them. And we added a clarinet player from down in Philadelphia area.
Ken Wallis
Harpdog Brown has got to be one of my favourite harmonica players…how did you get to know him?
Sunday Wilde
He said to say hi. Well, you know he's a blues family member in Canada like I’m a blues family member. I met Harpdog Brown at The Blues Summit in Toronto a couple years ago. I was a showcase artist with my partner Reno Jack and Harpdog Brown was there. He saw me and he gave me a big bear hug and then we became friends. He travels through where I live sometimes on tour and I said hey if you need a place to stay ever hit me up. It ended up that he could this past year and we just became friends…stayed up late drinking and talking and laughing. That guy likes to have fun…and me too. Actually, one of the songs on the album I wrote about him so it was cool because he ended up putting harmonica on it.
Ken Wallis
What's the significance of the title Peace And Trouble?
Sunday Wilde
Two of the songs on the album…one is called Peace For Everyone and that finishes out the album and the first track on the album is called Trouble for times like these. But I’ve also been through lots of different things and when we are bombarded with challenges in our lives the best way I find personally to get through them is to take a step back and just relax and try to find a little bit of peace within…if we can…if that makes any sense whatsoever. So that's kind of what it's about…that's the meaning of both of those songs. Trouble, it's clear what that song is about…it's always around us sometimes and the song at the end…it's sort of a summary of no matter what walk of life we're from, it will come to us at some point.
Ken Wallis
When you're composing your songs, what comes first? Do you sit down at the piano and you get some of the tune or do you start writing the lyrics first?
Sunday Wilde
It happens both ways. I'm still learning the instrument and all musicians that I know, they're always learning an instrument…you keep learning forever. Sometimes it happens both ways but often for me it's about observing something in the world with a human condition factor…somebody walking down the street…a couple walking down the street. Often my songs are based on some kind of factual thing that I’ve gone through myself so it's most often about an observation about a human condition whether it's in my own life…me personally…or I'm observing it around me with somebody else. Those concepts I try to put into a song but also when I’m trying to come up with the musical part on the piano because I I’m trying to capture that mood…whether it's sullen or some songs you can just do very simple instrumentation and they are very powerful that way because of the meaning of the song. I try to incorporate those types of things into the song when I’m writing it if that makes sense.
Ken Wallis
It sure does! When you first started out, did you start singing or start with the piano first? What got you interested in music in the first place?
Sunday Wilde
I started singing…I had a lot of trouble when I was a younger woman…I'm 51 now and I got into music in my late 30s and I got into piano in my late 30s…but I’d written a few songs prior to that. I did it only because I needed to sing and it made me feel better. I didn't get into music because I had any gigantic star dreams or anything like that…it just made me feel better. I buried a few children actually… and I used to wander in the bush and go for walks and I would sing in the bush and it was almost like a prayer…it would be like this angst and the sadness that would come out of me and so I got into music for that and then it just kind of escalated from there.
Ken Wallis
Well escalated is a good word…I think it's more like a rocket ship that's taking off. Your career has been fantastic. I thoroughly enjoy the album and again the album title Is Peace And Trouble…where can our listeners get a hold of your album?
Sunday Wilde
The album is on Bandcamp for anybody who's aware of what that is. I have all most of my albums I put up on Bandcamp and then they'll be on digital distribution sites everywhere. If people want to get a hold of me personally through my Facebook or email or website, they can buy a hard copy… just get in touch with me because right now a lot of the cd distribution places are no longer doing that so now artists have to kind of try to sell them on their own. When I do shows I have cds with me but shows are kind of slowed down right so when this ends which hopefully I'm kind of thinking maybe this summer definitely by the fall.
Ken Wallis
Any plans for you to be touring around and promoting your album?
Sunday Wilde
We will see what happens. I’ve been invited down into the States down in Minnesota to play a little festival down there but right now we can't even get across the border…so I will just continue to see what happens. I think that's the best thing for me to do…I don't want to get my hopes up in planning that right now and even just playing around where I live in Thunder Bay… a few shows in the summer. I think that'll be a good thing to do.
Ken Wallis
Well, we'd love to see you down here and again Sunday thank you so much for your time…it's a terrific album and we will follow your career because I know that’s going places.
Sunday Wilde
Thank you Ken…thanks so much for having me and supporting the music. Stay safe.
Website: www.sundaywilde.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SUNDAY-wilde
Twitter: twitter.com/sundaywilde
Instagram: www.instagram.com/sunday_wilde
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