Sunna was formed 2000 and mixes dark electronic beats with thrashing hard rock to cast their own industrial-inspired sound of their own. Frontman & singer/songwriter Jon Harris who hails from Clevedon, Bristol, with DJ Flatline, drummer Richie Mills, guitarist Ian MacLaren, and bassist Shane Goodwin.
Over the years Sunna has had many musicians come and go. Currently Jon is working on a fith album. So watch this space !!
The band, who spent part of the summer touring with ‘A Perfect Circle’, released their debut album One Minute Science in August 2000.
Below are the four ablums and available on Bandcamp and All Music.
Jon Harris signed development deal with BMG RCA with Simon Cowell within three months of writing first five songs, toured UK with band Chillum.
Then went on to work with Massive Attack, wrote B-side to Enersure Creeps, also contributed other tunes for Mezzanine, and 100th Window. In this time he signed to Massive Attacks label Melankolic, subsidiary of Virgin Records with new project Sunna. Re-mixed Manic Street Preachers "If You Tolerate This."
Whilst signed to Virgin, he toured twice in USA, playing to audiences of 6000 people a night. Sunna's second single "Power Struggle" was featured in the number one movie Hollow Man, back in the year 2000, other movies he performed in, John Hurts "Love and Death In Long Island".
Toured Sunna Album One Minute Science extensively in the UK, sponsored by Kerrang magazine. Then toured Europe, supporting The Smashing Pumpkins performing in front of 20,000 people per night. Power Struggle had eight plays a day on MTV, as did the third single "I'm Not Trading" Sunna sold 80,000 albums worldwide.
During touring Jon always had a condensed Pro-tools rig with him, and was constantly writing, and by the time Sunna finished touring, Jon was ready to get back in the studio. So Jon spent a couple of weeks in the Portishead studio in Easton, Bristol, and recorded four songs, "Spider", "Rebirth", "God Says", "Know Who They Are". Before these songs were mixed, Jon secured, and signed the deal with Virgin to complete the second album.
After a couple of weeks of working back in his own studio, Jon received a call from Marc Pikin of Massive Attacks management, and subsidiary of Virgin records who looked after Jon, and his project. Marc informed Jon that Virgin were undergoing some changes, and were going to be dropping some bands, and went on to say that Sunna is one of there priority bands and were secure. Within another two weeks Jon received another call from Massive Attacks lead man 3D, who then promptly notified Jon that Virgin records had sacked the head of A&R, bringing in someone new to clean up the record company, and so terminating Jon's record deal. As Jon had signed the deal, Virgin had to pay him his advance, so picking himself up Jon invested in a new pro-tools rig, and carried on recording his second album "Two Minute Terror".
After months of persistence, and Jon's ongoing battle with drugs and alcohol, Jon fell off the grid, drowning himself in a cocktail of pharmaceutical downers, crack and cocaine, until finally he couldn't sink any lower, leaving himself with two options. Eventually Jon made his decision, cleaned himself up and spent the next six years rebuilding his life, relapsing occasionally.
Then in 2009 Jon put his second record out independently on line, hoping sales would generate enough revenue to put the band together and tour. Torrent downloads put a fast stop to this with stolen downloads reaching over 60.000 within the first month. Not wanting to loose momentum, Jon decided to get on and record the third album, but in true Harris style, he was surrounded and submerged in turbulence, and dynamics, constantly infringing on Jon's creative path, but intent on not giving in, Jon finished his third and fourth album, "After The Third Pin" and "4 Global Mourning".
Sunna's first album 'One Minute Science' was released to much critical acclaim in August 2000 on Massive Attack's Melankolic label (Virgin). It literally "blew a hole through the established sound of alternative music with its mesmerizing blend of metal and electronica" (quote from Sphere Magazine) and sold world wide. Sunna released three singles from the album; "I'm Not Trading", "OD", and the massive hit "Power Struggle"
'Power Struggle' was released 2000. The song was used in the film 'Hollow Man' when Sebastian 'Kevin Bacon' is driving to work.
All songs written and composed by Jon Harris and Ian MacLaren, except where noted.
Track listing
Two Minute Terror is the second from the British industrial music / hard rock band Sunna. The album was released on 6 October 2009 on an independent label. 'Two Minute Terror' consists of both old and new material, including the song 'Spider', which Sunna originally put together for the release of Spider-Man 2.
Sunna - One Of A Twin
Track listing
All songs written and composed by Jon Harris and Ian MacLaren, except where noted.
1."Spider" 4:30
2."One Of A Twin" 4:38
3."Know Who They Are" 4:33
4."Ashes To Ashes" (D. Bowie) 4:33
5."Rebirth" 3:38
6."Sex Glue" 4:14
7."Eyes" 3:38
8."God Says" 4:33
9."Heaven Sends" 3:19
10."You Had To Steal" 5:28
11."Empty" 5:02
12."Alice" 1:27
Hard copies available. Price includes Postage & Packaging
SUNNA has released their third album "After The Third Pin". The album has been written and produced by Jon Harris. There are many different drummers playing on the album, such as Josh Clark, Mark Richardson and Tim Harris, Jon Harris created all songs and instrumentation himself. Except the guitars on "Feel The Blade", performed by Jon's son, Sid Harris 14, and bass performed by Alex Clemetson.
Other songs, like "After TheThird Pin", have banjo contributions by Leon Hunt and bass by Chris Blanden. There has been pre-production contribution from Neil Davidge, who edited earlier SUNNA material during the recording of Mezzanine. Then later further into the creation of this album the legendary Eds John got involved with additional production, who then also mixed the final product to its high standard.
"After The Third Pin" is essentially a rock album. That revisits Jon's critically acclaimed first album "One Minute Science" in the sense that it is diverse in style, moving from deep heavy drums, aggressive vocals in songs like "Forced Attrition", and "Emoticon Expression" to gentle and emotional songs like "Stutter" and the song "After The Third Pin".
This album is intensely interesting in sound, and creatively innovative, it holds deeper meaning behind the lyrical content. Though Jon has his own personal reflections in many ways for the words within each song, he believes it will leave the listener intrigued to know where these lyrics are coming from. Within the meaningful layers of each song, lyrically it provokes many different thoughts on several levels, as many people who had the opportunity have already independently revealed. Anyone absorbing these songs properly will have the opportunity to evolve by listening to this album over and over.
Track listing
All songs written and composed by Jon Harris, except where noted.
1. Suffer The Pain 04:25
2. Forced Attrition 03:14
3. Too Good 04:45
4. Razing The Damned 04:10
5. Dirt & Soda 04:22
6. Hold Me Tight 06:09
7. Feel The Blade 03:35
8. After The Third Pin 05:13
9. Emoticon Expression 03:49
10. No Money 03:47
11. Stutter 04:10
12. Feel The Blade ( Acoustic) 03:33
'4 Global Mourning', being the first to come from the band in two years we know how highly anticipated it is and all we can say is that it’s worth the wait. Now we should confess that we don’t fully understand industrial rock and aren’t exactly partial to it, but with this album Sunna may have made a believer out of us. ‘4 Global Mourning’ has all of the ingredients needed to make a stereotypical industrial album, but Sunna have added so many extras to this album that it’s difficult to compare to any other artist or genre. The first track, ‘Geomagnetic Storm’ is a peaceful and calming instrumental piece that we get lost in almost immediately amongst the psychedelic synth sounds and the country-influenced banjo melodies from Leon Hunt. This track has us mesmerised so we were caught off guard by the second track, ‘Teaspoons’ with a heavy intro that hits us right in the face leaving no time for recovery.
This is the industrial sound that we expect, but it leaves us asking why Sunna would let us feel such calm and then lead us into what will be a majority of the album with abrupt and heavy intros, mind-melting distortion and some harsh vocals. But shortly after recovering from our feeling of being led-astray, we realise that we’re being taken on a musical journey prominently featuring the vocals of Jon Harris telling us tales of confusion, addiction and aggression which can more notably be heard in ‘My Chemical Evolution’, full of impressive drums and Alex Clemetson’s driving bass lines.
Mixed in with some tracks that sound more influenced by the metal side of the genre such as ‘Quetiapine’ and ‘Tubes’ are some more complex songs that we love unwrapping note by note like a shiny Christmas present. ‘Painting Salvador’ allows us to do exactly that with layers of bells, chimes and harmonies over rocking guitars. The complexity of this track works well with Jon Harris’ alluring vocals leading us through what feels like a fantastical ‘wonderland’. While there is a lot going on in this track it all flows perfectly together in a chaotic way.
Even though we find ourselves falling deeper and deeper into the album with each track, we still can’t seem to stop scratching our heads over the first song and how it fits into the album as a whole. That is, until we hit the final track, ‘Global Plates’, which unveils a curtain that reveals that the contrasting sounds of the album all suddenly come together and culminate in the final banjo-heavy track.
