THEY’RE the local boys who are about to hit it big after being signed by Warner Music having won NOVA’s Fresh Discovery in March.
On top of being extremely talented musos, the trio that makes up the three-piece At Sunset - brothers Harrison and Andrew Kantarias plus Tom Williams - are also official Port Adelaide ambassadors and proud of it!
The trio will perform in Rundle Mall on Saturday night in the build-up to the Power’s first home game of the 2015 season, including their new single ‘Every Little Thing She Does’, which is being released this Friday by Warner Music on the NOVA network.
portadelaidefc.com.au sat down with At Sunset before their appearance in Rundle Mall to help the club kick off the 2015 game day experience and the ‘March from the Mall’ to talk music and, of course, footy.
Q: Thanks for your time fellas. First up, when did you start supporting the club?
Harrison Kantarias: From when I reckon Andrew and I were kids, about eight years old – we just jumped on the club and have loved Port Adelaide ever since.
Tom Williams: For me it my family were all Magpies supporters in the SANFL, so it was just a natural progression that I’d follow the club.
Q: Favourite current players, and why?
Harrison: I’d say Wingard, whenever he’s got the ball something electric happens, he’s such a good player!
Andrew Kantarias: I’ve gotta say Hamish Hartlett
Tom: I’m on the Jakey Neade train – I reckon he’s gonna have a great year. Also Gus Monfries, I think he’s a gun.
Q: And your all-time favourite player?
Tom: I’m a Chad Cornes man.
Harrison: I would’ve said Chad as well, I reckon it’s got to be him.
Andrew: Wanganeen for me, because I actually met him randomly at the Maid and Magpie. It was just after Harrison had made me follow the Power because, of course, your older brother makes you follow whatever team he goes for. It was the first year I’d started following Port and I’d said “Is that No. 4 over there?”…
Harrison: That’s right, you’ve said it was Wanganeen and I’ve said something like, “You’re nine years old, how would you know what Wanganeen looks like?” But it was him!
Andrew: Yeah, so probably Wanganeen.
Q: When you’re at Adelaide Oval, where do you like to watch the game?
Tom: Behind the Port cheer squad.
Harrison: The ambassadors’ quarters are pretty nice though!
Andrew: But nah, with the Cheer Squad is where it’s at…
Tom: We definitely like keeping with the spirit of the supporters, we’re big supporters so we like to keep it that way where all the atmosphere is. It’s good to be amongst it.
Harrison: You can get away with a lot more when you’re with the cheer squad!
Q: If you had a job at the footy club, what would you want to do?
Andrew: I’d definitely do the social media side of things.
Harrison: I’d play forward pocket, on-field!
Tom: It’s an interesting question. Maybe design for me. Graphic design.
Q: Do you have a piece of merch you can’t live without at a game?
Andrew: I’m a scarf man. Got the new NEVER TEAR US APART one for this year and love it.
Harrison: I wear my guernsey proudly over a jumper, or something like that.
Tom: I always have to take a footy with me!
Q: Let’s talk band. At Sunset – where did the name come from?
Andrew: We sometimes tell people we used a name generator on the internet.
Harrison: Seriously, we wanted a name that reflected who we are, what we’re like; fairly relaxed. It comes down to what we think about Adelaide a bit as well.
Tom: I think that’s what it’s about. Being relaxed and chilled out.
Q: Tell us a little bit about how you met and how you got to where you are today.
Andrew: It’s actually good, because all three of us actually grew up listening to pretty similar bands. We like all the old school bands like Simple Plan, Green Day.
Tom: Good Charlotte…
Andrew: Yeah, Good Charlotte, Sum 41, there were so many we liked that had the same vibe as we do now. About three or four years ago we started writing similar to bands we liked, but over the years we’ve evolved into the sound we have now. You can see where we’ve come from, but now we really come together and write our own stuff.
Tom: In the last six months, though, our music has really shaped into what At Sunset is now, and what it’s going to be about.
Andrew: We’re really happy with it and we can’t wait for people to hear our music this year, there is some really exciting stuff to come over the next few months
Q: So you feel like you’ve developed into having your own unique sound now?
Andrew: Definitely.
Harrison: The last 12 months has been about us maturing as a band.
Tom: We’re really growing with our music and with our fans and can’t to share our music over the next few months.
Harrison: When you first start you wonder what you’re doing and where you’re going, you think a lot about where music in Australia’s going, but then you realise that what you enjoy doing is what’s going to come through. We are really excited about the year ahead and just in the last week since we won NOVA Fresh Discovery we’ve been all around the country including the Ed Sheeran party last Sunday in Perth.
Q: It sounds like it’s all fallen into place at the right time, because you’ve just won NOVA’s Fresh Discovery and signed a contract with Warner Music and you’re looking to push beyond Australian borders…
Harrison: Absolutely, we’ve already been to the US a few times and had a terrific response and we are developing fan base from all around the world. We have some exciting plans this year and to have signed with Warner Music is amazing and will provide so many opportunities for us.
Q: So you don’t necessarily feel restricted by the rules or feel the need to play by them?
Andrew: We’re pretty lucky that our music sits well on radio but at the same time we love to write our own stuff and try different things.
Tom: That’s what I was about to say. We’ve written it our whole life and love music so it’s great when you can do something you love, we are so lucky…
Q: What does your year look like?
All: Busy….no crazy busy!
Tom: We’ve just signed a new deal with Warner and we’ve got the new single that’s about to be released called ‘Every Little Thing She Does’ – getting that out is our first chunk of the year – then the second half is just touring and progressing from there…
Harrison: We’re going back to the states as well…
Andrew: Like we said before, we’ve been writing for years and we’ve got the songs. Now we’re just itching to get our album out and we see a lot of touring this year and in our future.
Q: So Australia and the US?
Harrison: We went to the USA last year and played a festival, being independent at the time gave us so much of freedom creatively to just go for it and share the journey with our fans on social. We were doing interviews on Z100, KIIS FM in Los Angeles, the Ryan Seacrest Foundation – all in America…
Andrew: All the stuff where if you follow Taylor Swift and the big stars, they say ‘Hey, I’m at KIIS FM today’ – big radio stations – and now we’re doing them. It’s like wow. It shows the power of YouTube because we kept going to different cities and meeting people who knew of us…
Tom: There were people there who knew us, we couldn’t believe it...
Harrison: It filtered back because when we got home we were asked to perform at the KIIS Music Festival alongside Miley Cyrus. It may not have happened if we didn’t take a few risks and put ourselves out there. It’s good to have it pay off…
Tom: Now we’ve had a mentoring session with Ed Sheeran which was great...
Harrison: But we can’t wait to have our own songs on radio.
Q: Is it surreal, where you’re at?
Tom: I think we’ve all worked really, really hard to get where we are, but we know that this is just the start…we have so much hard work in front of us but at the same time, we love it.
Andrew: It’s the most exciting year for us, we really can’t wait to put some of the things we’ve been planning for years into practice.
Tom: It’s nice to have the acceptance of the Australian music industry, saying it’s now At Sunset’s turn.
Q: And tell us about this weekend – are you able to let us into some of the Port Adelaide game day secrets?
Tom: I’m not across the secrets, but last year I did the March for the Richmond final and couldn’t believe it, so to be playing in Rundle Mall to help kick off the March is going to fantastic …I’ll just have to work out how I get off stage quickly to make sure I can march also across the bridge and into Adelaide Oval with my fellow Port fans!
Harrison: We are pumped that the club asked us to perform in the Mall to help make the pre-march a bigger event. We are just passionate Port fans ourselves. We’ll be playing our new single ‘Every Little Thing She Does’ and a couple of our other songs – plus we have a very special surprise that we’re not allowed to tell you about
Andrew: I don’t think you should have said that Harrison!
Harrison: Also, there will be 2000 flags handed out in the Mall to make sure the March from the Mall is going to be an amazing sea of teal coming across the footbridge to Adelaide Oval.
Thanks guys, and we’ll see you at the March from the Mall on Saturday night and we look forward to watching your journey closely in 2015!
Ambassador profile: At Sunset
portadelaidefc.com.au sits down with Port Adelaide ambassadors At Sunset to talk about their love for the club, their new record deal and what we can expect from them at the March from the Mall.