Wowing audiences across 300 stages around the globe, Toronto’s dynamite rockers Goodnight Sunrise are here to bring the experience of a soul-gripping arena rock show straight to your stereo. Founded in 2011 by Vanessa Vakharia (keytar, vocals) and David Kochberg (guitar, vocals), the band formed via their shared love of the raw power of classic rock. We spoke with David Kochberg on the band’s new album, touring, future goals and more…
Rockin’ Interviews – How are you?
David Kochberg – Very excited that our new album is finally out after almost 3 years working on it!
Rockin’ Interviews – Last year was the tenth-year anniversary since Goodnight Sunrise formed. How do you feel the band as grown as a whole and how do you feel you’ve grown as individual musicians throughout those ten years?
David Kochberg – We have come a LONG way. We started the band literally with the question “do you think we can write songs ourselves?”, and neither of us had played our current instruments in a band before. Our first album in 2013 was ambitious and fun to look back on but since then we’ve gotten light years better as musicians but especially as songwriters. These new songs are the best we’ve ever written, and this year has really felt like the start of a brand new chapter for us.
Rockin’ Interviews – “Against All Odds” is your first full length album release since 2016, how do you feel your sound has changed and grown since “Falling Awake”
David Kochberg – We’ve always enjoyed experimenting with elements of different genres but on this album we really embraced being a rock band, and a large part of that was working with producer/mixer Brian Moncarz. He is a wizard at creating a wide-spectrum sound that is somehow raw and aggressive while still having clarity and dynamics.
Rockin’ Interviews – What was the recording process like for this (Against All Odds) album?
David Kochberg – A dream! Brian has worked with Our Lady Peace before and suggested we bring on their rhythm section of Duncan Coutts (bass) and Jason Pierce (drums), and we still can’t believe a) that they played on our album and b) how incredibly talented they are.
Rockin’ Interviews – You both share lead vocal duties, how do you decipher who is going to sing what parts of each song?
David Kochberg – We don’t really have a system and it changes for every song. Sometimes it’s just obvious which part fits which of our voices, other times one of us feels really drawn to a part – it can be influenced by which of us wrote those specific lyrics or melody, or maybe just which one of us sounds best singing it.
We actually tried a lot of new arrangements on this album exploring different registers of our voices and how they overlap when we sing harmony – for example on Timesick we trade back and forth in the verses then in the choruses David sings high and Vanessa sings a low harmony, but on Footsteps In The Dark it’s reversed with Vanessa singing high and David singing low in the choruses.
Rockin’ Interviews – The cover art for the singles released, as well as the album cover art, seem to all have one cohesive theme, where did the aesthetic and design choices stem from?
David Kochberg – It was a group effort! We discovered a Montreal-based multimedia artist named Marina Totino who had a series of photo manipulations that felt evocative of the mood of the album. She takes daytime photos and then photoshops them to make them appear to be at night which creates an eerie and dreamlike feeling, and she also plays with enhancing windows so they end up really standing out. Especially as we were finishing up these songs during the pandemic and with a lot of the lyrical themes exploring isolation and belonging in the world, the idea of this bright internal light trying to escape a world that feels dark really connected with us. We then worked with her and graphic designer / illustrator Tiago Palma to enhance all the art for the album and singles with different neon song titles blended into each one and little easter eggs – Tiago even photoshopped photos that we took ourselves at home on our phones into the final art!
Rockin’ Interviews – You’ve recently embarked on a headlining tour, what songs off the album were you most excited to play live and how have the songs been translating over into a live setting?
David Kochberg – We have actually been playing a lot of the new songs through the year long before they were even released which was a real joy – it was a relief to finally share them with people after working on them in isolation for so long, and they had a whole new energy live that really connected with audiences. We always thought the song Timesick had something special to it and the first time we played it live in August the crowd went nuts and even started singing along by the end – nothing beats that feeling!
Rockin’ Interviews – You can go back in time to see one concert/festival, who would you chose to go see and why?
David Kochberg – Tie between Woodstock and Lilith Fair. Both legendary cultural game-changers in complex ways.
Rockin’ Interviews – You can only listen to three albums for the rest of your life, what do you choose?
David Kochberg – U2’s “The Joshua Tree”, Florence + The Machine’s “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful”, and Blue Man Group’s “Audio”.
Rockin’ Interviews – What would your dream festival lineup look like if you were able to choose the other bands on the bill to play alongside Goodnight Sunrise?
David Kochberg – At this point, since the rock festival circuit still is so male-dominated when other genres are moving closer to parity, we’d assemble a rock lineup where every band is either female-fronted or has at least 50% non-male members. Some bands that come to mind are The Beaches, Against Me!, Plush, Haim, Heart, The Warning, Halestorm. Secret headliner – Lady Gaga.
Rockin’ Interviews – Is there anything else you would like to add?
David Kochberg – Our biggest goal in recording Against All Odds was to capture the energy of our live show which is where we really shine – so go listen to the album and then come rock out with us on tour!
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