Introducing...
who's who and who's playing what these days
As mentioned in the prior post, Sungaze has technically been around since 2015ish. There have naturally been many transformations between then and now, and I’d love to introduce you to the current lineup and share some lore! This post is going to be a bit longer than you can typically expect from us, so grab yourself a cup of coffee or a little treat and let’s hang out!
I’ll introduce each member in the order they joined, starting with none other than our Founding Father, Ian Hilvert.
Producer, mixer, multi-instrumentalist, guitar wizard extraordinaire. Ian started playing guitar at the age of 12 and joined his first band around age 15. It was a punk band, which shall not be named.
Ian later started Sungaze after leaving his long-time metal band, Fenrir; he was very into Tame Impala and Washed Out, and that’s kinda the vibe this project had in its early days. He wrote all the music alone in our bedroom and then recruited a few coworkers (thanks Whole Foods) to flesh out the first iterations of the live band.
He couldn’t find a keyboardist, however, which is where I come in!
Ian asked me to play keys temporarily until he found a more permanent fixture. We were dating at the time and living together, in a tiny apartment on the third floor of an old building near downtown. The band’s first rehearsal space was in this tiny apartment. Yes, loading in and out was fun. Anyway, I didn’t have any kind of training on piano, but figured it wouldn’t be too hard to just have Ian show me what he played for the songs and memorize it. So that’s what I did. He never found that keyboardist he was initially searching for and maybe a year later I recorded some vocals on an open Garageband project just to see what it would sound like. We were both excited after listening and it ended up being a turning point for the band. After that, we began writing collaboratively and I started singing back-up on a few songs.
2016-2019 saw our first “long-standing” lineups. Tyler Mechlem joined on drums, and Mark Easterling played bass until 2019, when Jimmy Rice took over. We were so fortunate to work with all three of them! 2019 was the year we released our debut album (Light in All of It), the year I sang lead on my first song (Washed Away), and the year we did our first proper tour.
At the beginning of 2020, Tyler and Jimmy both left the band to pursue other things. Ian and I played with the idea of performing as a duo. Just as we were working out how to go about it, the world shut down. We had been working at a local health food store (not Whole Foods) for a couple years at this point, and I had been dealing with some not fun health things of my own for awhile. I decided to leave my job and spend some time just decompressing and trying to get myself in order. During my time off, I played a lot of guitar (Ian built me one for my 26th birthday) and ended up writing most of what would become album 2, This Dream, from the couch in our sunroom.
Our first show back ended up being at the Back Alley Ballyhoo Music Festival in Indianapolis, IN, in 2022. This show marked the beginning of our next “long-standing” lineup and saw the addition of Justin Van Wagenen on drums, as well as our next two current member spotlights.
Zach Starkie joined us on rhythm guitar. He had played a one-off show with us a couple years prior and when it came time to add a second guitarist to accommodate the extra guitar layers in album 2, we reached out! Zach has a couple projects of his own: Tooth Lures a Fang, a power-pop band where he is the lead vocalist and guitarist, and The 2th, a solo improv synthcase project. He’s a teacher, crochets cute animals for his niece and nephew, and always has a joke on the tip of his tongue.
Angela Colvin also joined in 2022, on bass. She is my younger sister and played a slew of instruments in high school marching band, eventually making her way to upright bass (despite being like 5 foot nothin) and finally electric bass in jazz band. The festival show was the first she had ever played with us or any band. Angela’s main interests and activities outside of the band are birding, fashion, her cat Meep, and spending time with her partner Charlie. Who coincidentally…
Is our next introduction. Charlie Hausfeld joined Sungaze in 2024, shortly after he and Ange got together and shortly before our third album, Sungaze, was released. Charlie can often be found experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen, loves spending time outdoors, and is sunshine personified. He is a cat dad to Meep and a dog dad to Ino, a rescue he picked up while living in Denver a few years back. Originally, the plan was to have him take over keys so I could step into singing full time, and then he would play guitar on the songs we didn’t need keys for. We soon realized it was more fun to have a third guitarist, so keys were added to a backing track and Charlie took up his current post as rhythm guitarist.
Our final introduction is our newest member, and friend, Tyler Collier. Tyler may be the most fashionable of us all, has the best sense of humor, and is such a peaceful energy to be around. Outside of music, he spends his time as a chef, a dog dad, and with his girlfriend Maeve, an honorary member of this band. Charlie and Tyler have been friends for years and when we found ourselves in need of a drummer this past summer, it was an easy recommendation. It ended up being the perfect fit in so many ways.
And here’s where we are today! I’m mostly lead vocals now, except on a few songs where Ian sings lead. It’s been a fun challenge for me to step out from behind the keys and feels more like home than I expected it to. Ian and I are still writing all the songs, although there have been some fun post-rehearsal jams recently, so we are exploring a change in that dynamic. Charlie has started adding some backing vocals to a couple things recently—excited for you to hear the recordings when they come out. For the performance pictured above, Charlie subbed for Ian on the songs where he sings lead, as Ian recently had vocal surgery for a nodule (doing great now!).
Lots happening over here! Will share more this week and then give you a little bit of a break (;
Ivory
My wife and I have been listening to and following your band for several years now. We routinely play your songs on our radio program on KDVS in Davis, CA. We're hoping that you eventually make your way to the west coast. Would love it if you could play in Sacramento. If not, then we could drive up to San Francisco. Looking forward to getting your next album at the station.
Proud to be an honorary member🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻