Sometimes, it just feels right, ya know. You can’t really say how or why because it’s not about how or why. It’s about a feeling that this is just the way it’s supposed to be. The way it was meant to be. The way that it’s right.
That’s how I felt after I spent half an hour on a Zoom call earlier this week with Dan Wallage (guitar, banjo), Nic Johnston (vocals, keys), and Jack Rollins (vocals, guitar, harmonica), known collectively as Sons Of The East. The Australian indie-folk (more on that later) trio have spent the last two months touring Australia, Europe, and the UK, and are currently a week into the North American leg of their three month world tour. Any of the rest of us would be exhausted, cranky, and well past ready to go home. But not these three. They were fresh, full of energy, and excited about that night’s show in Philadelphia.
“We just love playing,” says Jack. “We can be backstage, you know, tired in the green room, but as soon as we walk out on stage, we kind of just come alive. We just love playing music in front of people, so we’re truly blessed to be able to do it, I guess.”
Jack continues, “Sometimes when you do have even just a few days off and you rest is when it catches up with you. But if you kind of just keep going and keep pushing it, you can fall into a rhythm.”
Dan agrees… “When we were touring Europe, we were on stage at 9:00 pm every night, and I feel like your body just gets trained to go at like 8:45, it just switches on, and then you’ve got an hour and a half where mentally and physically your body just lifts you up and the adrenaline kicks in. And it just kind of seems to work every night. We had a run at the end there in Europe where we did 16 shows in 18 days. Some of our biggest shows, it was pretty much back to back, but everyone in the band was going really hard every night.”
And that’s what I’m talking about. Three incredibly talented singers/songwriters/musicians doing exactly that they were meant to do, and loving every minute of it. It’s just right.
Sons Of The East are on their way west, and will arrive in Denver in less than two weeks for a show at the Summit, on Tuesday, October 21. They’re riding the wave of early success of their latest album, which was released in June. Simply called SONS, the twelve-song set is absolutely outstanding. (But don’t take my word on it… it’s been nominated for the ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) Music Awards Best Blues & Roots Album of 2025.)
The genesis of SONS would appear to be another of those ‘just meant to be’ things. The band had an internally agreed upon schedule for releasing a new album this year; however, their busy 2024 tour schedule threatened to compromise that timeline.
“The gigs just started piling up, and the tours kept coming, and we ended up doing like 110 shows last year”, says Jack. “We had a bit of the album written, but we knew we had to come home and pretty much go heads down into this thing to get it delivered. So during those touring months last year, we were writing on stage. We’re writing in green rooms, using our phones for voice recordings. And when we came home, we had all this stuff to choose from and pick through to finish the album off. Coming home after 110 shows and going straight in the studio, I wouldn’t recommend it to any artists out there, but we’re pretty happy with the outcome.”
Since it worked so well with SONS, are they doing the same thing during the current tour?
“Less so,” says Nic. “Still, it’s quite nice to just grab a guitar and take it to a quiet part of the venue and strum away sometimes, and that’s where some of the ideas came from last year, and actually the album before as well. But there’s also the thing that you’re surrounded by it on the road. You’re, you know, doing it every night. You’re playing an hour and a half every night so when you do have time off, you just don’t really reach for the guitar as much, or the piano, or what have you. It’s something where you have to push yourself a little more to pick it up and see what comes.”
“Mind you,” interjects Jack, “if there’s a piano in the green room, you can’t get off it.”
“That’s true,” concedes Nic. “That is true.”
“We have to drag this guy off the piano,” continues Jack. “If there’s an acoustic piano in the green room, literally, he’s got to be dragged away from it. Silence, please. We just want some rest. No music for at least 10 minutes!”
Realizing he has no ground upon which to base a defense, Nic admits, “It’s to the point where now, when we walk into a green room and it’s got a piano, someone will be like, Oh noooo.”
“Silence in the green room!,” concludes Dan.
And right there, in that playful exchange between the bandmates, is where the magic lives. If I came away with only one thing from my time with Sons Of The East, it’s that these guys are a family. They’re tight. The love being on stage together. They love being on stage period. They love being off stage together. They’re doing what they always dreamed of doing, and they’re having a blast doing it. No wonder it just feels right.
The origins of Sons Of The East date back to 2011. Dan, Jack, and Nic had known each other since high school (Dan and Jack go back much further than that… reports are that they’ve known each other since the age of two). They released their self-titled debut EP in 2013, and followed up with two additional EPs in 2015 and 2019. In 2022 they released their first full length album, Palomar Parade. And, of course, they followed up Palomar Parade with this year’s SONS.
Everything they’ve released has been independently published. In the beginning, that was more or less a necessity… recording contracts with established labels aren’t handed out like candy. But over the years, as their reputation and fanbase has grown, they’ve caught the attention of several labels interested in signing them. But they remain steadfast in their desire to stay independent.
Says Dan, “I think we’ve managed to (make it work) because we’ve been so hands on our whole career, and we’ve done so much of the business side of things ourselves. We’ve always wanted to have our hands on everything, and we’ve learned how the industry works. We’ve basically built our own record label within Sons Of The East. And we’ve built a team now that we love working with… this amazing team around the world. We love working with all those people. It just seems to work, and for now it’s working really well. And the fact that we get to own all the music we make is obviously a big, big plus.”
Adds Nic, “Yeah, I’d agree with all of that. You’re exactly right… at the beginning, that wasn’t exactly by choice. Our manager, Bry (Jones), had always maintained that you don’t sign a record deal until you absolutely can’t say no. It’s certainly not that we’re anti record labels or anti signing a deal. We’ve had a look at a couple, and they just haven’t made enough sense for us to sign.”
“It’s not enough zeros,” interjects Jack. “Pretty much add a couple more zeros on that thing and we can talk.”
Once he’s done laughing, Nic continues, “At the end of the day, as Dan said, we’ve been able to build our own team, and we’ve been able to do most of what we wanted to do ourselves. And the other thing is, you know, people will promise you the world when they look to sign you, and no one can really tell you whether or not that’s actually going to come off. Every time you sign, it’s a bit of a Hail Mary. So for us, we’re like, we back ourselves, and we back our team, and we’ll continue to do so until such time as, as Jack said, someone comes along with a whole lot of zeros. Because really it’s more about the creative side and the decision making side for us.”
Speaking of the creative side, let’s circle back to that “indie-folk” thing mentioned way back in the second paragraph. In my pre-interview research, I came across an old quote, attributed to Jack, where he stated that to the band, “genre” was a dirty word. For the most part, I agree with that assessment. (We won’t go into that now because I do have a word limit I’m working against.) If you’re familiar with their music, you know that Sons Of The East defy any single genre label. There are elements of so many different genres – folk, country, rock, bluegrass, soul, to name a few – that attaching a single label to them does them a disservice. So I asked the band how they would describe or explain the type of music they play to someone who had never heard any of their music before.
Dan starts… “Sometimes I just say it’s, like, easy listening. Not that it always is, but sometimes it’s just easy listening. I mean, indie-folk is the one I feel we get associated with the most, but I just tend to be like, it’s got a bit of something for everyone.”
Then Jack picks it up… “I feel, for us it’s just about the song. You know, if the song is good, regardless of the genre, if it makes you feel something, or the melodies are hooky or the lyrics are bitey, then that’s what really matters for us. That’s what we try and strive towards when we write music.”
Nic wraps it up… “I’ve begun just listing off the instruments we play. I’ll be like, there’s an acoustic guitar, a banjo, piano, there’s drums. Sometimes there’s electric guitar, sometimes there’s a mandolin, or a harmonica. It’s kind of energetic, except for when it’s not energetic. And it takes its roots from a lot of stuff that we grew up listening to, which is more of the folk, country, and rock influences. But, yeah, I find it really difficult to describe it, mostly because the songs are all a bit different, you know.”
Whatever you want to call it, Sons Of The East are bringing it to our backyard in less than two weeks. They’re excited to return to Denver – they had distinct recollections of prior shows in Denver and along the front range, and had nothing but positive things to say about Denver as a music town, and the fan support they’ve received here. I asked them what the fine folks of Colorado should expect when they bring their 2025 World Tour to town…
“Hopefully,” says Dan, “just a whole lot of fun. That is, genuinely, the reason we love playing shows. We love going to concerts, and we love being on stage. And we’re a band that thrives on energy. We’ll give as much energy as we can when the crowd gives us that energy back, to where we create a feel almost like a backyard show, whatever size the venue is. I feel like our thing is just having this really intimate and fun gig that feels like it could be anywhere in the world. Hopefully, we’re going to create that environment in Denver.”
If you’ve ever seen Sons Of The East perform live, you know that Jack isn’t shy about grabbing the microphone and heading out on a walkabout into the crowd. With all this talk about being in front of a crowd, I suggested that Jack seems to not only like being in front of it, but to become a part of it.
“You know, Rick, I just love attention,” he quips. “Any attention I can get, I will take it, and I will run with it. You’ll see… you’ll see, in Denver.”
Does it ever get “tense” when he goes out into the crowd like that?
“No,” he responds. “Not unless I step on somebody’s toes. But no, I just get out there and have a dance.”
I’m telling you… if the guys are half as entertaining, engaging, and spirited on stage as they were during our interview, the Summit audience is in for a real treat. But fun and games aside (okay, I realized how stupid that was as soon as I typed it), Dan, Jack and Nic are truly living their dream. And they know that this dream life they’re living is all due to people like you, who come out to see them perform live. Dan summed it up best, when I asked him if they had even the slightest inkling, back in 2011 when they came together as a band, that they would be traveling the world, playing their music for people, only a decade later.
“No, not at all. When we had our first ever shows in Sydney, it was obviously family and friends and stuff. I feel like you’re mentally just always going for the next step, which is to do a bigger room at home, and then eventually do other cities around Australia. You never really think you’re going to get overseas. I mean, that’s every musician’s dream. And then when it actually started, it was just such a blessing, and just so nice. And America is that place where you’re like… it’s so competitive. There’s so many incredible musicians here, and so many bands are always touring. So that’s the big dream… to be able to come over here and play shows and start to get into some bigger rooms. It’s something we never really thought would happen. But once you start doing it, you just want to go bigger every time. You just want to keep selling more tickets and try and get to that next milestone.”
The next milestone for Sons Of The East, at least as far as the Denver market is concerned, it to sellout the Summit… capacity, 1,100. That’s almost twice the capacity of the previous biggest room they’ve played in Colorado (the Aggie in Fort Collins in August of last year). You can pick up tickets through Ticketmaster at Sons Of The East – Summit. I will absolutely be there… look for me after the show and give me a quote for the review I’ll be writing.
Story by Rick Witt, Photo Credits Noted www.rickwittphotography.com
