June
Interview with Mark Sutor

Words: Chris Henderson

With the release of their second album, Make It Blur, and a demanding touring schedule, these Chicagoans are on the verge pop rock superstardom.  The boys in June are currently in between tours and I got chance to speak with drummer Mark Sutor to talk about how things are going.

REAX: With your time off what are you doing to relax?
Mark Sutor: I’m a huge sports buff so I’ll watch the Cubs game as much as I can; they’re starting to tear it up.  Besides that we’ll all go swimming.

REAX: I got a chance to listen to listen to the new album and I was wondering if you could describe it those who haven’t heard it yet?
MS: We wanted to use our influences a lot more this time around.  We wanted an individual identity for each song.  We thought if one song has a particular groove, why do we like it so much?  Instead of just sitting around trying to make 11 or 12 song we thought were good enough just to be on a CD, we wanted a bunch of songs.  We demoed about 20 with the traits of the music we all listen to.  It was a little weird at first and we were a little apprehensive once we started going over the songs and putting those ideas to the test but we ended up loving what was coming out of it.  I would say definitely a more pop direction for sure.

REAX: What were some of the influences?
MS: Mine from the drumming angle definitely Third Eye Blind, Foo Fighters, more of the pop rock feel.  Just steady beats instead of going all over the place.  Tim is really into Maroon 5; A.J. loves Saves the Day and we just brought that all in.

REAX: I read that the band first started off as kind of a joke just playing around Chicago.  Can you explain the mindset of the band when you first started and how that’s changed over time?
MS: We all love music and played in different bands.  With this band, when we first started, we were actually doing it for a fundraiser for a place that Mark our guitarist and Tim our singer both worked at.  It wasn’t getting a lot of attention so we were just like why don’t we put together a band and see if we could get a bunch of people there.  After we had started practicing we wrote five or six songs within the first two weeks and from that point on we all kind of realized this could be the one.  It just became a more and more serious thing and obviously right now it’s what we want to do with our careers.

REAX: Was there any doubt at all when you were approached by Victory Records to sign you guys and can you imagine being on any other label?
MS: It was just the best situation because they’re from Chicago and we had met a bunch of their staff when we were that super young band just playing around Chicago not knowing how far we were going to take this.  They helped us out a lot and they were telling us what they thought of the music, what they thought we needed to do.  I can’t imagine being on any other the label.

REAX: Chicago is a hotbed for a lot of emerging bands coming out right now.  Why do you think that is and how is June setting themselves apart from those other bands?
MS: I don’t know, I definitely think the emergence of the bigger bands helped out the genre.  When you have Fall Out Boy and The Academy Is… leading the way and now even Plain White T’s who are just blowing up like none other.  It wasn’t easy for other bands to just come out and make good music but they showed the example of how much work needs to put in and how much touring you needed to go out there and do to gain a fan base and make it credible.  As far as us trying to make ourselves different we just want each one of these songs to have its' own identity.  We don't want to make generic songs we aren't really happy with.  We want to focus on all of our influences and we make the songs and if people love them as much as we do then that’s what is going to help us stick out.