How did you guys come together as a band?

Christo: We were all musically inclined and interested in music at a young age, and so just growing up in similar areas in the San Fernando Valley in California we all ended up meeting each other through school or music or whatever over the years.

And by the time we had gotten into a rehearsal room, me and Gavin and Miles had been playing together for a few years and then once we had all met up with Ray… Like I think it was as simple as Ray sent me a Facebook message cause he had seen our band play and he said, “Hey, I like some of your songs. Let’s jam.” We were looking for a guitar play at the time cause we were just a trio, and then we jammed and it was like, “Oh, this is it. Great!”

I was actually thinking about this the other day, from that period, five months later we recorded “Cardiac Arrest,” “We Move Like the Ocean,” “Matthew James,” like it all happened so fast.

How did you decide on your logo?

It’s the Zia sign. Actually, I remember the day it happened. We were taking pictures or something like that. I remember the Zia sign came across my peripheral vision, and it was something I had noticed in the past and, obviously, thought it was really cool to look at.

I looked into it and everything was just hitting me in the face. We had just named the band, we were Bad Suns. And everything about the sign, it talks about the four stages of life, the four seasons of the year, and all these different things. And I remember reading into the Zia people and how they worship the sun and all that stuff. I thought, “This is really cool. This really applies to the way that our band is so importantly linked to that number four.

And we just thought it felt right and looked good and we like what it stands for. And we’ve been happy to adopt it.

What is each of your favorite pieces of equipment you’ve picked up over the years?

Christo: My secret weapon is my Way Huge Aqua Puss delay pedal. I’ve used that on like every recording ever, so it’s just my tone right now.

Ray: I have this black Strat that Chris’s friend, who makes guitars around where we live, and he makes them really, really well. So my black Strat that I play was made by him, and it just feels like a big boy guitar.

Gavin: I have a Yamaha DX7 I got when we were making the second album, and I think that is a fascinating instrument. You can do so much with it.

Miles: I am much less interesting. I just bought this cheap little timbale for like 40 bucks, and it’s my recent thing. I just added it to the side of my drum kit. I’ll find myself using it at unnecessary times cause it sounds so cool.

So what’s up with your cymbal set up? I’ve noticed that you use three ride cymbals and no crashes, which is really cool. Is that still the case?

Miles: I do – I did. I still play two rides. I have one new cymbal called a Trash Smash; it’s a Zildjian effects cymbal. It’s really cool; it’s a 19-inch one.

Are any of you guys sponsored by anyone?

Christo, Gavin, Ray in unison: Ernie Ball.

Oh shit, so you’re on the back of the pack of strings?

Ray: It was the box that the strings come in and we’re on there.

Christo: I think the first time I saw that I was in a Guitar Center, and I was like, “Oh, I wonder…”

That sounds so surreal to be on the box of strings that you’ve been using your whole career.

Ray: In all reality, I’ve probably been 14-years-old and thought, “One day…” I probably haven’t had that thought since then, but I can guarantee you I did.

Do any of you guys have any “I made it” moments? Or even just surreal moments where you realized that this is your life now?

Christo: Real success in doing this isn’t one finite destination. There’s just a lot of checkpoints on the road you’re building. So yea, those checkpoints. There are times where I have to step back and say, “Oh, wow, this is real, this is happening.” But those don’t happen all the time. I would say that most of the time you don’t feel like that. You feel exactly the opposite, so when it does happen it feels like a crazy moment.

Ray: Yea, I remember in Toronto a couple of days ago we were playing on The Morning Show. We were there and setting up to play, and we were on a little sound stage and we were like, “This is cool.” Obviously, none of us had ever watched "The Morning Show" so we didn’t know if it was a local broadcast or a national broadcast or what. So we were hanging out, and Dax Shepard and Michael Peña walk in cause they’re promoting that new CHiPs movie, and we watched them have a full-on, legitimate television interview. Turns out it is a national broadcast and that was kind of like…cause even when we were there it was like, it was cool, but when they walked in it was like, “Oh wait, yea, we’re totally gonna be on TV.”

Christo: Honestly every night, when you have people singing along with these songs to you, I’ll often find myself kind of like, looking at all these people, and you can see it. Like, that person’s been in the car with their friend and they’ve been listening to the songs, maybe that person went through a breakup and they listened to that song, and you start to see all these different realities happen because you think of the way that music has influenced your life. And the way that you’ve had relationships with music and records, and for a moment imagining all these people having those experiences with what you created.

Ray: That’s kind of the ultimate “wow.” It kind of hits you really hard when you think about it. You think about your night at a concert, and we’ve been to a bunch of shows ourselves. We like to go out with our girlfriends and get dinner and, you know, it’s a whole night’s plan. And every show it’s kind of trippy to think about. So many people are spending their time and money to come see our band. That’s one of the craziest things probably. It makes us very thankful that we’re able to do this. I think if anything it makes us wanna be the best band we can because if anyone cares enough to devote their time or their hard-earned money on what we do, it’s up to us to provide the best that we can provide. It’s a good reminder.

We’ll wrap it up here with a kind of basic question for all four of you. What’s your favorite song to play on the current tour?

Christo: I think right now our whole encore section is boom, boom, boom. We play “Rearview” and I go out in the crowd, then we come back and play “Heartbreaker” and I love playing that, and after that, we play “Salt” and that’s a perfect way to end the show.

Ray: Yea, it’s like a nice little treat. I love seeing where Chris ends up in “Rearview” too. I’ll see him enter the crowd and then I’ll be playing or I’ll look at Miles and then I’ll look back and Chris is like in a bar or somewhere in the venue. I like “Outskirts of Paradise,” too, cause me and Gavin have this cool keyboard intro that we get to do.

Gavin: I like that part. I think I’ve been liking “Daft Pretty Boys” a lot. It’s kind of playing downstrokes the whole time, which is fun when you’re not doing it all the time.

Miles: Yea, that one is good. “Sleep Paralysis” is always a fun song. An exciting live song. That might be where it’s at.

Photos by Sidney Spear for Bullet Music