Interviews: Places Around The Sun

On this new occasion, we have had the opportunity to interview the Rock band, Places Around The Sun, from Portugal. Check out the interview and follow the band on their FACEBOOK PAGE.

1. Where did you get the idea for the band name, you planned it or came out just like that?

“Places Around The Sun” came up when we were trying to figure out a new band name since a big brand here in Portugal asked us to change it because our old name was too close to theirs.

We didn’t really mind it because we were tired of our old name, so it came in handy. So we were just brain storming a few ideias and in one of our lists the Name “Places Around The Sun” just made the most sense to us without really knowing why. Something that started just as a cool arrangement of words, got to make even more sense as time went by and the fascination we have for space themed, or mythology themed proved us closer to the Sun than we thought, and what it means and how things feel depending on how close or distant we are from the sun.

2. Why did you want to play this genre?

Our genre wasn’t really a conscious decision. It was just what came up naturally as we wrote songs. Obviously based on what we listen to and our influences. We’ve always been really open to whatever we want to write, if we feel we want something heavier or dancier we just go for it. That’s one of the most important things as a band, you do you first then release it to the world and if it makes sense to people and they connect with your sound great! As long as it makes sense to us we are happy.

3. Did you know each other before the band was formed?

Yes! Me (António, Lead singer) and Alex (bass player) knew each other from college, Alex was in a band with some of our friends and we got in touch when I asked him if he would play bass on a cover I was working on at the time for my old YouTube Channel! Our guitar player João was in the same band as Alex and when we started to book a few shows he was the first one who crossed our minds to join the band, but he was the only one I didn’t know that well at the time and we became really close friends! Our drummer Ricardo I knew from way back in the days when I played in a metal band in highschool and he was in other bands we shared stages with. Our old drummer had to leave the band and I invited Ricardo out for a jam, and although we knew each other we had never played together and amazingly enough we all instantly clicked!

4. Each band member favourite band?

António, lead singer: I have a few, but the ones that take the podium for me are with no doubt - Queens Of The Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures and Royal Blood.

João, guitar player: No doubt - King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard

Alex, bass player: Tool for sure!

Ricardo, drummer: Twenty One Pilots is my favorite band right now but also Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit.

We all have really different tastes and I think that plays a really big part in our sound!

5. Who or what inspires you to write songs?

Normally we get a riff out of the blue, most commonly in the weirdest places or situations and we have to sing it to our phones awkwardly, to then try and record it in our studio and see what can be made out of it. The weirdest inspiration we’ve ever gotten was when we were trying to write a song and we weren’t happy with any ideas and we decided to watch an Intreview with Josh Homme, the lead singer of Queens Of The Stone Age, and António was playing around with the bass while watching and randomly came up with the riff for one of our singles “Moon Daisy”.

It’s never something in specific, unfortunately we don’t have a “go to” plan to get ideias, we just have to be prepared for when an idea pops up in our heads to record it in whatever we have in hand and then try it later.

6. Where was your last gig?

Our last gig was at a private party in a town called Santarém here in Portugal! It was our second year there and we always love to go there because it has a different feel to a normal show. We like to describe it as a family BBQ out in the country side! The owner of the house where the show takes place just loves to gather his friends have them pay a small fee to cover the costs and include unlimited food and beer for everyone and we all have a great time and share the stage with a few local bands! We got invited to play there for the first time because our bass player is a friend of one of the owner’s friends and now it has become our vacation show as a band!

7. Where would you like to act?

Right now our main goal is to tour outside of Portugal, we want to experience the audience out there! Whether small shows or bigger shows, we want to go through that experience of being out for a few weeks and get to know different people from everywhere. So if anyone is interested and is reading this shoot us an e-mail!

8. Whom would you like to feature with?

We would love to either have a feature with Josh Homme or have a song produced by him. That would be a dream!

9. Whom not?

No one in specific. I think the only reason we’d never feature with someone is available from both parties or either just not identifying with each other’s sound! Other than that let’s do it!

10. Any of you has ever suffered from stage fright? Any tip for beginners on how to beat that?

All of us do at some point! It really depends on the show! Our advice is: Just get through that first song, after that you’ll be fine! You’ll probably always feel you could do better and that is great keep going at it and it’ll become natural. Don’t be afraid to let it out, and everything you might think can go wrong, it’ll probably happen at some point so just do it and learn from it!

11. What bands have inspired you the most?

Besides any of the bands we listed as our favorite bands, we also a get inspired by lot of other bands and artists, even if they don’t have a similar sound to ours! We’ve always loved, Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, Kyuss, Jack White all those classics. In the early days of our band, Radio Head, Muse and Foo Fighters.

Even more commercial artists, Billie Eilish, Rosalía, Dua Lipa, anything that gets us grooving a feels inspiring! Nothing better than going out of our world to get inspiration for our sound!

12. What's the weirdest thing a fan has ever asked you for?

I feel like we haven’t got to a point where fans go out of their way to ask us for anything crazy, we’re still pretty recent and people are still getting to know us! But if we ever get a strange request we’ll let you know!

13. What do you think of your fans?

We are very thankful for them wanting to listen to our music! We make our music just thinking about what we like and what we want to do, so when it comes time to release it and we see people loving our music it’s as if we were at a bar and meet a stranger that loves the same things we do. It’s a mutual nod of “I like you, you’re cool”.

14. What do you think of our site?

Your site is very important for us and all bands get to more and new people around the world, without your work, things would be definitely much harder! 

15. Something add?

Thank you for having us, we appreciate you and all the people reading this and whoever wants to get to know us better. We’re here just to share our music and feeling like there are a lot of people connecting with it and getting interested makes us feel like we bring something of value to the table! So feel free to sit with us, we’re all just sharing our experiences with each other!