Please list all of your band members and their roles in the band.
Chasing Down Sunset consists of Jimmy Fasulo on lead vocals, Jill Beckett on guitar and vocals, Ryan Ross on bass, Dan McCool on drums, and Zion Dixon on guitar.
For starters, what bands were you guys a part of prior to Chasing Down Sunset? How long has the band been around?
Jimmy was in a LOT of bands before this, most notably All The Above, Stereotypical, and he used to play bass in the math rock band Milkmen. Dan performed for a few side projects. Current Jimmy and Ryan are in another project called Ernston. Other than that, this band is the first real and main thing for us. Chasing Down Sunset officially started up in March of 2015 so we’ve been around for about a year and a half now.
What’s the origin of that name and have you changed the band’s name before?
The name Chasing Down Sunset basically came from a long list of ideas for band names from Dan, our drummer. When Jill and Dan decided they wanted to start a new project together for real in fall of 2014, we felt like Chasing Down Sunset had the best sounding vibe we were going for. Since then, we’ve stuck with it.
Who writes your songs? What are the main themes or topics for most of your songs and do you think these topics will change over time?
Jimmy and Jill write the lyrics and sometimes we throw in lyrics of Dan’s, we’re definitely a band that works together. For this EP that we’re releasing this July, “A Proper Introduction,” we have four songs on it which have completely different themes about different subjects/situations for each one. We’re always writing songs not specifically to make more songs for the band to have, but we write because it’s what we love doing and it’s like therapy, and some of those songs that are the best out of all of them, come out to be successful enough to be used as a song of the band’s. A few topics in the new EP is finding a happy ending with a loved one after a long history with them, a break up song about karma, a song about resisting someone that you know you shouldn’t be getting romantically involved with, and a song about addiction to alcohol. We’re really proud to be releasing music of such topics that are so personal and significant to us.
What bands are currently inspiring the music that you’re making?
We’ve been drawing a lot from The Dangerous Summer lately, we love upbeat songs that still convey a personal story or something that isn’t necessarily in line with the cookie-cutter pop punk subject matter. Along with that we like to pull from The Wonder Years in the aggression and energy department with a lot of inspiration from State Champs in our dedication to hooks haha.
Was there a particular band/artist or concert that inspired you to start a band?
Jill: Definitely, I think for all of us there was. There were a lot of shows I went to that made me be like, “wow I want to do something like that.” But I remember going to a State Champs concert last summer which was probably the most fun show I’ve ever been to in my life, and it made me come to a realization that I want to be doing this for the rest of my life and have shows just like that one. The crowd was so awesome and friendly and it was just one big community of enjoying the same band, and State Champs put on such a great show. It really made me realize that one day I’m going to eventually have shows like that with my band. It empowered a lot of determination to me.
Jimmy: I started doing Theatre when I was 8 years old and I’ve always loved performing, and when I was around 12 or 13 my cousin started playing original music and I started going to see him play in the City a lot, and I just got it right then. I was like wait, you can go all out and perform and give everything you have on stage without having to learn music or lines that’ve already been written for you? You mean I can literally make my own score and script and just get up there and have my OWN show and play myself instead of like, Captain Hook? Right on, I’m sold. I started my first band soon after when I was in 8th grade and I’ve been stuck to it ever since.
What do you do to prepare for a show? Any flexing, exercises, etc …
Jimmy does a lot of weird vocal warm ups that he learned in Theatre then drinks enough water to drown internally, and Jill usually hops in on the warm ups with him now too. Dan is usually beating the crap out of any surface you put in front of him with his sticks to warm up, and Ryan and Zion just tune up and get really zen and in the zone beforehand.
What has been the biggest highlight of the band’s career so far?
We played a show in Clifton, NJ at a bar called Dingbatz and absolutely KILLED IT, afterwards a woman approached us and thanked us, telling us she has stage 3 terminal cancer and while she watched us perform she felt no pain. She told us that we need to share our music and our personalities with as many people as we can get in front of and to never stop, and that’s probably the greatest inspiration we’ve ever gotten let alone the biggest highlight of our career. Her name was Belle, that’s all we know about her unfortunately, but now our entire mission is to make it for her.
If you could tour with any bands, past or present, who would they be and why?
Fall Out Boy for sure just because, you know, it’s Fall Out Boy, The Wonder Years would be super tight too, getting to warm up a crowd that’s already hyped to see them would be an absolute blast.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Thanks so much for having us and thank you to whoever took the time to read this! Hope to see some new faces on the road for this tour, and we hope you all check out this EP we’re extremely excited about!