By KATIE DE VERTEUIL
ANAND, Bharat and Dhyan Chalmers share a bond of blood, but the local brothers’ true unison lies within the chords of perfectly pitched guitar strokes and mesmerizing melodies.
Originally from New Zealand, the talented trio who make up ‘Sunrise Beach’ have called Noosa home for the past 10 years.
While the elder two, Anand, 31, and Bharat, 29, have been playing since their early teens, the band in its current form has only been together since 2010, when Dhyan, the youngest by eight years, joined the band, aged 17.
The talented trio are well balanced with Anand on guitar creating drumbeats, Bharat vocals and piano and Dhyan vocals and bass.
Each self-taught, the brothers’ passion for music began at an early age, their father a guitarist, having encouraged them to enter into the musical realm as teenagers.
“We’ve always liked writing music and we started playing guitar around the age of 13, 14,” Bharat said.
“It just came so naturally, and we love creating music, so it made sense to pursue it more seriously as we grew older.”
Their work is indeed impressive, with the brothers having created each song, from the melody to the lyrics and music videos. While their music is largely influenced by ’60s and ’70s classic rock and is often described as “indie rock” air, the musicians prefer not to limit their style to one particular genre.
“We really like to write songs that people can relate too,” Bharat said.
“Rather than just singing about your typical love story, we like to look at other aspects of life to make our music more accessible to a wider range of people.”
Jamming together most days, the musicians admitted to the occasional brotherly biff but all agreed that the family tie was a blessing not a curse.
“We are certainly more blunt,” Bharat says looking across at his brothers, either side.
“But we tend to see that as more of a positive than a negative.”
“One of the hardest things for creatives, and why so many bands break up, is often due to the lack of honesty and communication,” Anand agreed.
“As brothers it comes naturally to say it how it is and our music is better for it.”
“It has also worked out really well that we each have found our different areas in which we are most skilled so there is no competiveness in that sense,” Dhyan said.
“It’s quite perfect really, unfortunately though, our parents forgot to have one more child to play the drums,” Bharat laughed.
Playing at Crawdaddy’s late last month, the brothers drew a healthy crowd and as a result will be performing again at the same venue, upstairs at Bay Village, Hastings Street, on 13 March, from 9pm.
Entry is free.
“Before now our focus was online as we didn’t have a drummer so we never really got into live gigs,” Bharat said.
“Now that we have put together around 20 songs that we are really proud of, we thought we’d take the next step in getting our music out there and play to a wider audience.”
For more information on Sunrise Beach and to check out their latest music videos visit www.sunrisebeachband.com
