Interview with The Sunrise Paradise: ‘We’re sitting on our best song yet’

Last month, Amsterdam feel-good and – in their words – ‘soft cabin rock’ duo, The Sunrise Paradise, gave us their debut EP, Dear Tomorrow, a heartfelt letter to themselves about life in their 20’s.

The Sunrise Paradise comprises Robin Smit (lead vocals and guitar) and Jaap Koopman (vocals and guitar), who met 18 months ago when Koopman applied to be one of Smit’s housemates. ‘The name stands for the upcoming sun in paradise which, metaphorically, speaks for hope,’ Koopman said. ‘Our logo is based around the ‘infinity sign’ ‘cos the sun will always rise and set. Therefore, it also reflects the personal ups and downs we go through in life.’

Dear Tomorrow features four innterconnected tracks which Smit describes as ‘a time capsule for ourselves, they kind of reflect a mood’. Each track represents a season and the stories flow from one track into the next. The opening track, ‘Fox On The Haarlem Road’, is the ‘autumn’ song: ‘It’s about when you go to a party and you feel even more lonely there than before,’ Smit explained. ‘Afterwards, you’re going home on your bike, a bit stoned ‘cos this is Amsterdam (laughs) and you see a fox on the road that means hope.’

As the chorus goes: ‘Whenever I’m going down, this one way lane, there is a friend of mine hiding. From the stubborn rain (and the rain keeps falling). Whenever I’m feeling stoned, on the Haarlem road, there’s a fox on the roadside and he’s a friend of mine. (And he’s a friend of mine.)’

‘I play the guitar every day, so I get melodies or chord progressions coming out of my head!‘

‘We started writing ‘Fox’ in the first lockdown,’ Koopman said. ‘I was writing a piece of music, I passed it to Robin and he started writing the lyrics. Within an hour it was finished. I play the guitar every day, so I get melodies or chord progressions coming out of my head! Robin listens and picks out what inspires him and does the lyrics.’ Smit is nodding: ‘I like to get a chord scheme, an intro, verse and chorus, he might want to put in synths or something and I pump in some drums, a bass line, additional harmonies. We started playing together last year but forming a band is our eventual goal.’

The second track, ‘Brave Boy’, kicks off with the next part of the story, arriving home: ‘It starts when you put your key in the lock and you tell yourself that you’ll be better tomorrow,’ Smit explained. ‘It’s inspired by Oasis, can you tell?! When you ask yourself what to do next, you ignite yourself in a way.’

I tell them that I particularly like that all four tracks sound very different, from the stadium rockiness of ‘Brave Boy’ to the acoustic gem that is the third track, ‘Burn Me A Little Bit’. ‘That’s sort of conscious in a way,’ Smit said. ‘This was a very personal project for us about our lives, so we wrote four completely different songs with four completely different sounds and ideas.’ They say that ‘Burn Me A Little Bit’ is about the next morning, ‘waking up to sunshine’, and was inspired by their love of artists such as Jack Johnson and John Mayer.

Closing the EP is the song ‘Chupachoney’, a word made up by Koopman, which stands for the bravado of the summer and the overconfidence, slight arrogance and a sense of invincibility which epitomize the typical summer months of your 20’s, they said.

Next up is their single, ‘The Only One’, which will likely come out in the autumn: ‘We’re sitting on our best song yet,’ Smit said. ‘It’s synth pop rock and focused on the last few weeks of lockdown. I like the vocal scaping, the guitar sound and the synth lead. It has a lot of ingredients that could make it a radio hit, I hope, at least.’

‘We discovered that we love the 80’s!’

Koopman describes it as ‘more poppy’ than ‘Brave Boy’ and I agree: ‘We discovered that we love the 80’s! One of the inspirations for the chord progression came from ‘Just The Way It Is, Baby’ by The Rembrandts. I fell in love with that song. I put synths over it and I thought that Robin would hate it but he loved it.’

As he’s chatting, I find myself looking at the wall of guitars behind him, particularly a beautiful red guitar on the right that appears to be a make I haven’t seen before, so I ask him what it is. ‘You’ve hit the sweet spot!,’ Smit laughed. Koopman starts laughing as well and goes to get the guitar so that I can take a closer look: ‘I made it myself, it took me over a year, I took a course.’ Smit looks astounded: ‘I did not know this, man!’

Smit is a big fan of Di-rect, a rock band from The Hague, the Netherlands, which was formed in the late 90’s: ‘Their stuff is great, I completely fell in love with their last album (Wild Hearts, released in October 2020).’ Koopman loves Dutch rock band De Staat from Nijmegen: ‘They’re in their own genre, they don’t sound like anyone else,’ he said. ‘It’s pretty aggressive rock, I love Bubble Gum (their album from 2019).’ Smit also cites Amsterdam-based rock band, Jason Waterfalls, local pop punk band The Vices, who I’ve interviewed, and German/Dutch alt rock band Ten Times A Million, as well as five-piece Amsterdam pop band, ‘Chef’Special, who I also really like.

if they could hear their music played anywhere, Smit would like to have it played on American TV show, Californication: ‘If Hank Moody (the main character, played by David Duchovny) is riding though the sunrise and one of our songs is playing, I’d go insane, I’d get a tattoo here,’ he grinned, pointing to the back of his neck. Koopman would like to perform on The Graham Norton Show: ‘I LOVE him!,’ he said.

Koopman has been heavily influenced by John Mayer: ‘Initially by his electric guitar playing but I ended up playing acoustic guitar like he does, he flicks his index finger when he plays.’ Smit cites bands such as Muse, Green Day, ‘Chef’Special and Ben Howard. If he could tour with anyone, Koopman goes with English rock band The 1975: ‘With their synth sound, drum computers, we could be their warm-up, we’re the same sort of genre,’ he said. Smit is thinking: ‘I was talking with my friend about this. I have to say Pearl Jam, I’m completely in love with them. ‘Black’ is one of my favourite songs of all time, I love their Ten album (1991) and Eddie’s Into The Wild Soundtrack (2007) but I hate his ukelele songs!’ I tell him that I absolutely love them and he laughs. ‘They’re too soft, they’re singing me to sleep, they’re like lullabies!’

(Photo from left to right: Jaap and Robin)