The California sun-kissed group, The Joy Reunion, breaks down barriers and makes a name for themselves as a budding Country music-making collective to keep an eye on this year.
The group's spectacularly astounding layered harmonies and the eloquent affecting nature of their songwriting skills are showcased throughout their creative musical amalgamations. Their latest single, "Suntan Lotion" is drenched with the kinds of vibed-out Contemporary flare that we all crave.
"Suntan Lotion" grooves with a confident-forward propelling pace, and into the husky frames of music where waves of luscious Southern signifying sonics congregate from the cornerstones of Blues, Alternative, and Contemporary Country. Over a glossy and modern brushed-up production of sizzling gliding guitars, a bumping rhythm section the three-part harmonies that the Cali-based have earned renown for captivating with a magnetizing pull.
The aesthetic of this track shines dazzling and vibrant with an upswing tempo and an enamoring top-line hook that glazes over the three intoners' synergistic nature as they all sing together at once—weaving and mingling their soprano, tenor, and bass like veteran professionals. The journey through "Suntan Lotion" —and frankly any of The Joy Reunion's Country Catalog—provokes an urge to sing along as the crooners versify about turning back the clock on Summer, slapping on the UV protection and soaking in the Sun rays.
How do you manage to synergies and blend your vocal performances together so effortlessly? Are you naturally musically connected in this way, or is this the product of years of practice?
We’re blessed in that our vocal synergies happened naturally! We definitely have to work at being tight, learning parts, syncopating, and aligning our phrasing and when to end particular melodies, but wonderfully we naturally hear all the harmonies and most often just know where to go. The blend and the sound came pretty effortlessly. We always say that when the three of us sing together it creates one unique sound instead of three individual sounds. We really listen to one another and really try hard to make sure that one of us isn’t overbearing. We’ve been singing so long together now that we automatically blend and adjust to make sure we hit that sweet spot.
What's been your most impactful moment of growth and development as a band, and how do you all work towards continuing that progression?
I don’t know that there was just one moment, but early in our friendship, we realized we could just really be ourselves. All parts of ourselves, be it our dorky inner child, broken-hearted messes, serious or playful, etc.. That was really freeing to be able to write and create because there were really no inhibitors. I think that can only grow as we continue to process our life together through music and friendship and I think that’s probably our greatest strength in working together, which will keep us progressing. But also, learning each other’s strengths, we have gotten much more “efficient” I guess you could say in our process.
When did you realize your identity as 'The Joy Reunion," and what were some of the initial challenges of identifying what makes you unique and individualistic as a Country music band?
I think we could write a whole book on this question alone – lol. Ultimately, the three of us just know that we have to be making music together and singing together, in any capacity. We’ve played together collectively for over 12 years, but it wasn’t until we realized that “any capacity” meant that we didn’t care about “Making It” anymore or playing the game to move ahead in the music industry, we simply just said, “Let’s enjoy making music together, let’s write whatever we want to write, let’s create something that gives us pure joy and let’s be authentic.” It wasn’t until we let all the other stuff go that comes along with being artists whose dreams are making a living in the music industry, that things started to flow. Authenticity and humility are what we keep telling ourselves, it fuels us to stay true, it’s our compass. As musicians, it’s really easy to say “Oh there’s already a band like us” or “There’s already a 1 Girl / 2 Guy country act out there killing it,” you can easily discourage yourself in thinking that there is no room for you (both personally in life, or musically in the world). It’s simply not true. Everyone has a story to tell, and for the three of us, we really overcame that way of thinking and we dove into our songwriting, our stories, and the authenticity of our music. When you have three extremely close friends who trust each other personally and musically going through all stages of life (long-term marriage, divorce, singledom, break-ups, raising children, parents dying, rekindled love, etc.), the things to write about are endless – and you blend that content with harmonies, and country, folk, blues, Americana, pop and rock backgrounds – we use all of this to fuel our uniqueness as artists and creators.
Can you dive in and tell us a bit about the animated music video for "Suntan Lotion"?
For this video, we collaborated with Brick Corner; who are legendary stop motion Lego animators. It was amazing to see them bring Lego characters to life and tell a story alongside our music. The video reminds us not to waste time chasing things in life that aren’t meant for you. Brick Corner told this story in such a unique and fun way and we couldn’t be happier with the result!
When can we expect some more music from you?
We are currently in the studio working on a new project that we are really excited about. We will be announcing it in the coming months and are really looking forward to this next chapter of music. We can’t wait to share what we have up or sleeves... Stay tuned y’all.
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