By Sean Maldjian, Contributor

Meet funsucker

Would you rather…

your fingers turn into Twizzlers or your legs turn into Kit-Kat bars?

Definitely rather have Kit-Kat legs, so I could still play guitar, and if things ever got really dark I could just eat myself in peace

Some questions with funsucker

Hey, nice to meet you. Can you give us a brief introduction to your solo project? Who is funsucker?

Hey there, thanks for asking me to do this! My name is Jo Casanova and I sing and write songs under the name funsucker. Before covid, I was going to open mics fairly regularly and figuring out how to sing in front of people - kind of just workshopping the songs I would write by myself at home. After I had enough time to demo some of my songs last summer, I got together with a few of my best friends and they encouraged me to really take the plunge and make these songs bigger and better than I had envisioned. The rest of funsucker is:

Daniel Olitzky - drums/percussion

Alex Pope - keyboards, synths, piano

Joe Brennan - bass, samples

Damian Diaz - guitars

What was the inspiration to adopt that moniker for the project?

I thought of the name funsucker many years ago and kind of just kept it in my back pocket. When I felt ready to start my own project, I couldn't come up with a name I really loved so it kinda just made sense to me. I guess it doesn't really mean all that much, but i'll just leave it up to interpretation for the listener and remain elusive about this one haha

Who was a significantly influential family member growing up?

My older brother Alex was my biggest influence. Growing up on Long Island, we had a pretty big music scene and he would take me to harcore shows pretty often. I'd say he's a big reason for why I listen to the music I do today and make the kind of music I do.

Are you better at thumb wrestles or staring contests?

I'm a big thumb wrestler, but I also cheat using a sneak attack move that often annoys most people. I don't change my contacts enough so I'm not too fond of staring contests

With this being a solo project do you mostly create in a vacuum? Do you have anyone that you workshop your music with?

I generally demo out my songs and then show them to the rest of the group. I feel so lucky to be making music with my best friends because there's so much trust between us. Even if a song doesn't change too much from my initial demo, Daniel will usually change some of the drums and Alex will always take piano/synth instrumentation to the next level so tastefully. Damian is currently wrapped up in his main project Trees Speak, but he usually helps produce and really helps round out the guitars. Our newest addition to the project, Joe Brennan, has been a real help in bringing samples into some of the tunes and coming up with better bass grooves than I ever could. funsucker would be so much less special without all of these guys, they all make me feel real lucky

If you could make a musical instrument out of an unconventional material what would it be?

This is a tricky question. I really liked what Gene did in the new Bob's Burgers Movie, making an instrument out of a napkin holder with spoons attached to it. Something like that probably haha

Are you self taught in all the instruments you know how to play? I count four on this latest release alone. Do you know even more than that?

I would say I am pretty much self taught in all my instruments besides bass; I played a bit of upright bass in middle school instructional orchestra and took some jazz guitar lessons but reading music has never been something I've worked hard to learn or try at. I enjoy playing and making music by ear with whatever intuition I've acquired from playing in bands over the last decade for sure. I've been really enjoying messing around with the lap steel guitar my partner bought me for christmas last year, so you'll probably hear a lot more of that too as I figure it out.

When writing a song, do you privilege harmony, melody, or lyrics first?

It kind of depends on the song, but like most guitar based music, it'll usually start with a riff and then I'll focus on a melody. Lately I have been thinking a lot more about lyrics and how to write less cryptically.

What can we expect to hear on the upcoming LP ‘Only Fantasy’?

Only Fantasy is going to be ten songs (3 of which you can hear the demos of on our bandcamp/spotify pages!). I am hoping to release it towards the end of this winter, right before spring. That's kind of how I feel about this record, there's a lot of darkness within it, but it ends with a light at the end of a tunnel. I always try to channel that in my music; it's okay to focus on the bad dark shit in this life, but if you can turn that into something beautiful then that's the best

Any Final Comments?

Thanks for the interview! check out the other projects some of us are involved in! Trees Speak, Dropper, and Heavenly Host.