ABOUT SUNNA
Enough has been said about the history of the band Sunna. Far too much time has elapsed preceding the release of our second album "Two Minute Terror".
The past eight years have been a rollercoaster ride of emotion, soul cleansing, triumphs and tragedy… with many paths followed. One hundred doors have closed, but in the distance, far in the shadows, was a solitary one left ajar… Now, this door has been blown off its hinges, and through it Sunna has burst like some savage beast! The idea, the lyrics, the songs, the dreams and the nightmares. Eight years, eight fucking years…
Ok, so stop looking at purely physical things, dare to step out of yourselves, and SYNCHRONIZE!
Once again synchronicity has pulled Sunna, the band long since presumed dead, back to life! All events could, and should, be seen as coincidence, for without a doubt all that has taken place, and everything that is about to happen, is because many paths have coincided.
Our name comes from the idea that one can have faith without religion. These three words were not plucked from some self-help book, or any group session in rehab, and there were certainly no floating Gods or Devils professing words of wisdom. No! We were just four people making a record. Coming up with a name seemed somehow childish, like we were playing some game. We said that when the true name for the band comes we will know, kind of half joking. It was a way of avoiding the issue. Sure enough it did. Two days earlier we had been talking about the Sun, our Sun, you know the big bright orange glow that’s up in the sky. Amazes me how it is placed at the perfect distance from us so we can exist… Any closer, we’d fry, any further away and we’d freeze. Whether we think it’s creation, or all by chance, is irrelevant! Do you think that the surrounding stars and galaxies give a toss what we think? No! Our universe is just there, everything in its perfect place, and because of that we are here. This was the kind of shit we’d talk about whilst in the studio. Anyway, unconvinced, we thought maybe we could use the word "Sun" as band name.
Our then manager, and friend, Barry Campbell, knowing what we were about and having had the lyrics and rhymes of "One Minute Science" flooding his head for the previous year, called me in regard to the name of the band. In his southern Irish brogue he asked me what I thought of the word Sunna. Straightaway I loved it. "What does it mean?" I asked. "Well as far as I can gather, having read lots on the Internet, it’s like having a faith but without religion" he replied. That was it! I knew instantly this was the name for the band.
For the next few days we talked about this word a lot, and at Virgin and of course at Massive Attack’s Melankolic label, they were all mulling it over. Even Emily the secretary at the studio and her mum were looking into it. Emily turned up with a whole bunch of papers for us all to read - pages of information about Allah and Islam. As we read through our faces began to drop, and when we had all finished reading we looked at each other deeply confused and concerned about the implications of this word.
We continued working on tunes in the main room at Christ Church studios, but underlying the day was this bloody word, and what to do about it. In between the main speakers, just above the mixing desk, was a huge TV screen that was always on. We were taking a short audio break and eating a curry from up the road, watching the news. When suddenly out of nowhere the reporter announced "today is the ten year anniversary of Salman Rushdie’s fatwa". Of all the days for us to be thinking and talking about using the name Sunna. Coincidence? Fucking right! It totally coincided and it freaked us right out. One by one people from our Record and P.R companies started to call. Such concern was mounting as to whether the use of this word would be detrimental to us, that a meeting was called.
Barry and I met with around five others from Virgin and Melankolic. I’d gone to London the day before and booked into a hotel in Kilburn. We all met in some fancy restaurant in Soho and debated the band name over very small food on big plates. By the end of the meeting it was clear that the majority vote was that we should come up with another name, even though we loved it. During our conversation it was suggested that we try and find an authority with knowledge of what using this word could mean to us, and leaving the meeting Barry and I took a cab back to my hotel, continuing our discussion. We were just arriving at my hotel when Barry said to me "where are we going to find someone to ask then?" and as I climbed out of the cab, right there in front of me - the very next building to my hotel - stood a very proud and almost out of place Mosque, with big gold lettering over the front of it reading "Islam House".
"Why don’t we go in there"? I looked at Barry in shock. We were both utterly stunned at the chain of events that were continually happening. I remember saying to Barry, "Well mate, where attention goes energy flows. Let’s get over there!"
Arriving at the huge doors we were unsure whether to knock or just go on in. Barry turned to me saying, "you might wanna cover up that T-shirt mate", and looking at my chest I realise it says FUK. So folding my arms, covering the obscenity scratched across my front, we nervously swung open the doors. First thing we notice are around thirty pairs of shoes lined up along the corridor, so looking at each other and shrugging our shoulders we stoop down and take off our shoes. Tiptoeing through the corridor like a couple of naughty kids we start to whisper shout "hello", it was so quiet and there was no one to be seen anywhere.
As we passed doors to the left and right we could see people in their robes praying and reading the Koran, people on mats rocking back and forth, and as we made our way up a staircase to the first floor we were confronted by a man wearing a long black robe. "Can I help you?" he said with a deep and stern voice, frowning at what I can only assume to be the absurdity of two barefoot white blokes tiptoeing through his house of God looking very out of place. I then began to stutter my rather bizarre request, explaining that I was a musician and so on. Still extremely stony faced he told us to wait while he went to fetch his senior… and then like the shopkeeper from Mr Ben he was gone.
Barry and I looked at one another, feeling quite intimidated, indeed I think it would be fair to say we were fucking shitting ourselves. It wasn’t long before he returned with another man dressed in white robes and asked me to repeat what I’d just said to him, so I did. They talked together fervently for about five minutes in Arabic. Barry and I just watched in terror, it all sounded so aggressive. The guy in black then turned to me and asked, "What kind of music is it that you play?" So I lied… The translating of this four-way conversation went on for twenty minutes or so, the whole time my mouth becoming drier and drier.
Eventually, the man in black turned to us and said, "The fact that you have come here to ask for permission to use this word shows great respect. You have absolutely come to the correct place to make your request. We do not mind that you use this word for your band’s name, and we give you our blessing. However, we strongly advise that you do not use this word as you could find that you have a problem with fundamentalists!" The chap in white gave a slight bow, shook our hands, and left. The man in black then took us on a bit of a tour, gave me some CDs of their music and showed us to the door. Between you and me, I couldn’t have seen the other side of that door quick enough.
Over the next week we were still wrestling with the name and trying to come up with something else, but nothing seemed to have the same impact. Those words "faith without religion" haunted me day and night. I loved them!
So, Sunna had found its way to us… and it was certain that, whether we wanted this name or not, Sunna was already deeply injected into the very core of who and what we are.