By LESLIE EIKLEBERRY
Salina Post
Throughout our lives, certain days hold special meaning. For the Sunset Sinners, this Friday is one of those days.
On Friday, the group's newest single, appropriately named "Friday Night," will be released on Spotify and all streaming services.
"This song was a collaboration with us and two very heavy hitter Nashville songwriters from Anthem Entertainment/Publishing that we’ve been working with -- Randy Montana, who wrote Luke Combs' massive hit song 'Beer Never Broke My Heart,' and Blake Chaffin, who has written hits for Brantley Gilbert, Logan Mize, Rodney Atkins, and others," said Blake Blackim, Sunset Sinners' drummer.
Bringing the band together
All four Sunset Sinners -- Chris Brungardt, Tony Bowell, Brad Johnson, and Blackim -- had been in different bands and projects before, Blackim said. Blackim had a vision for a new band, one that included the other three men, so he brought them together and explained his idea.
"I just met with those guys and gave them the vision I had: not only taking some cool cover songs and what we call 'Sinnerizing' 'em, so we kind of tweak 'em and change 'em up, then writing our own material and recording our own material and then just trying to make it as cool as we possibly can, play as many cool venues as possible, and just see where it goes," he said.
"One thing that had been on my mind, for whatever reason, all of a sudden I had a bunch of song ideas that kind of fit more of this red dirt country, '70s rock vibe," he continued. "And so I named it like its own genre called Whisky Barrel Rock, which is kind of a fusion of red dirt country, southern rock, and '70s classic rock."
That new genre is also the URL for the band's new website: whiskeybarrelrock.com.
Blackim said the band didn't come together with the idea of making big money.
"The music business is a brutal business and a brutal game and it's hard to make any real money, so we all have our own regular jobs, but this is kind of our passion," said Blackim, president of Midwest Music.
The band began rehearsing two years ago and tossing around ideas for songs to write and record.
"I was wanting to write song, and I had a bunch of lyric ideas about people getting together, drinking beer, and partying," he said. "There's all this political in-fighting, but you know, it's kind of funny because when everyone gets together, say on a Friday after work, that part goes by the wayside and everyone's together, just hanging out, drinking beer, and having a good time."
That idea was the basis for the band's first single and music video, "Always Time For One More Beer," which was released last fall.
Blackim credits one of his best friends for the title of the song and video. He explained that whenever the two of them were out enjoying a few brews together, his friend would always be looking at his watch, telling Blackim that he needed to get home, only to then decide that he had time for one more beer.
"If you think about it, you hear people do that all the time," Blackim said. "I'm like 'bam!' That's it! And that was the inspiration for the song title."
The "Always Time For One More Beer" video, which includes footage from a shoot at The Hideaway with several hundred Salina extras, has become quite popular.
"The music video today, which basically has been promoted through Facebook, has like 350,000 views now, and that actually grows about 1,000 to 2,000 views per day," Blackim said. "It's pretty cool to track because it really is shared a lot -- we can see who is watching -- especially in the deep south of the United States, like Louisiana and Alabama, because it's kind of got that swampy southern rock vibe."
What is even more interesting is how the video is trending internationally, he said.
"Also, it's gone international, and this is what's kind of cool: it's like really big and tracking in Prague and Eastern Europe," Blackim added.
He explained that the Sunset Sinners' fan base is made up primarily of first responders, military personnel, and motorcycle enthusiasts, including motorcycle clubs in Eastern Europe.
Big-time recording contract no longer necessary
It used to be that a sign of success for a band was to sign a contract with a well-known recording label and head to a recording hotspot such as Nashville to make music that would be distributed to the public. That's no longer the case.
"The good news-bad news about the music industry today is you really don't have to be living in or from Nashville or Austin or L.A. You can be from anywhere," Blackim said.
The Sunset Sinners record locally, at Studio 1117 in Salina, although guitarist Chris Brungardt, of Hays, records his guitar parts in his own studio and then mixes those with the recording/tracking from Studio 1117, Blackim said.
"After that he and I trade the song back and forth to swap ideas, tones, phrasing, etc., and listen in multiple devices until we think we have it ready for release," Blackim explained.
While they do play concerts, when not hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Sunset Sinners do not rely on the antiquated method of touring to promote themselves and their music. Instead, they rely on social media, which, considering their first music video has 350,000 views, seems to work well for them.
Who you know
While a recording contract might not be necessary, the old adage about "who you know" still holds true.
"There's a guy in Nashville, a little bit younger than us, named 'Blake' also -- we call him 'Nashville Blake.' He's been down there about 15 years. He's originally from Hays, Kansas. Ironically, my guitar player, Chris, used to give him guitar lessons and I used to actually sell him stuff when he was a kid," Blackim said. "His parents still live in Hays, but he went down to Nashville as a guitar player and song writer and he now is a signed publisher with a group called Anthem Entertainment and Publishing. They're one of the largest in the world."
Blackim said he made arrangements for he and lead singer Tony Bowell to go to Music City, U.S.A. to meet with Nashville Blake (Blake Chaffin).
"At the facility we were at, they (Anthem) have about 26 song writers on staff. A lot of times when songs are written, it's very rare that it is just one person doing it. It's usually a collaboration of two or three people. Sometime the actual artist is involved and a lot of times not," Blackim explained.
"They were totally cool with showing us around and telling us how the business works. We also spent some time in a listening room," he continued.
After Blackim and Bowell returned to Salina, Chaffin called Blackim to discuss a song. Chaffin told Blackim that he had a song that no one else had picked up on that he thought fit the Sunset Sinners. After listening to the song, Blackim asked Chaffin, "why hasn't one of the big boys picked up on this." Blackim said that Chaffin replied that he asked himself the same question every day.
That song was "Friday Night."
While the song will be released on Friday, the band also plans to shoot footage for the "Friday Night" music video this weekend, Blackim said. That video should be out within the next couple of months, he added.
If you would like to hear the Sunset Sinners' music and watch their videos, head to their website or their Facebook page.