ifitbeyourwill S06E18 • sundayclub

A happy mistake at a concert.
A guitar rediscovered in the back of a closet.
Two students on totally different paths who somehow found the same sound.

That’s the origin story of sundayclub, a rural Manitoba duo whose music feels like it was pulled from an ’80s Polaroid—warm, hazy, and quietly intentional. Their new EP, Bannatyne, captures that balance perfectly: pop instincts wrapped in dream-pop atmosphere, four tracks that melt into one continuous mood.

When you talk to Courtney Carmichael and Nikki St. Pierre, you get the sense that their process is equal parts chaos and craft. Courtney writes with a diarist’s honesty, often chasing the feeling a moment left behind. Nikki builds the sonic world around those words, leaning on production chops and an obsession with tone. A simple tuning shift to open C cracked something open—suddenly, new harmonies and melodies started falling out of the guitar.

They work fast to capture the spark, then slow down for the final stretch, refusing to rush a lyric or sand off a rough edge just to be “done.” That patience shows. Bannatyne isn’t a playlist of singles—it’s a short film in sound, one that breathes and unfolds with intention.

Their path to Paper Bag Records came with its own lucky breaks—a well-timed mastering grant, a few key community ties, and a lot of persistence. Listeners have already gravitated toward Nuclear Fallout, a track that wasn’t meant to be the standout but hit something unexpected. Courtney and Nikki say that kind of connection means more than any genre label could.

Looking ahead, they’re teasing a reimagined “Last Christmas”, a run of Canadian shows, and new singles that stretch their sound without losing its heart.

If you’re into indie pop, dream pop, odd guitar tunings, and the craft behind a cohesive EP, this one’s for you. Stream the episode, spin Bannatyne front to back, and see which moment sticks. And if you love what you hear, share it with a friend—because that’s how good music travels.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Sunday Club From Manitoba
• 2:10 Origin Story And University Beginnings
• 4:00 Finding Indie And Shaping A Sound
• 7:15 Songwriting Voices And Dreamy Textures
• 10:25 Tunings, Tone Hunting, And Production
• 13:20 Process Speed, Perfection, And Burnout
• 16:00 Lyrical Inspiration And Vulnerability
• 18:15 How Songs Form And Why These Four Fit
• 21:00 Navigating Today’s Music Industry
• 23:20 Paper Bag Records And Momentum
• 25:20 Reception, Sequencing, And Cohesion
• 27:20 What’s Next: Cover, Singles, Tour

Transcript

colleyc: 0:29

Alright, everyone, welcome to another episode ifitbeyourwill Podcast. We're out searching for musicians to share their story of happiness, joy, creating music. As you all know, I'm from Canada, and I always love it when I have Canadian artists coming in, and I have a budding duo here from Manitoba. Courtney Carmichael and Nikki St. Pierre from Manitoba, rural Manitoba. We were just talking about their town. They're from a town called Boseju. I'm saying it in French, but they're saying there's a Ukrainian influence there, and we'll talk a little bit about that. They have a new EP that came out October 31st called Banatine. Am I correct in saying that, guys? Banatine. Oh. And this is just a little teaser to something that I think we'll hear more of as we have our conversation. So, guys, thanks so much for taking some time to uh come and talk about what you guys have been doing music-wise. I was really impressed with uh this EP. I feel that it you guys are hitting on, you know, dream poppy, you know, just this hazy kind of I like the aesthetic that you guys use of kind of like an 80s Kodak Polaroid feel to it. And it really does. It feels authentic and genuine and I want to know all about it. Before that though, guys, how did how oh and I didn't even mention your name yet? Sunday Club. All one word, guys. They have it in lowercase, which I love. Canadiana music, so a Canadian group. How do how did you guys get together? Like how did how did the moons and the sun's rotation bring you to where you are now with this release of this new EP?

Nikki: 2:26

Well, I was originally just helping her and her sister record some demos for like their folk thing that they were doing a few years ago. And and while her sister eventually kind of lost interest in in music, we just never stopped making it.

Courtney: 2:42

Yeah, and then the pandemic hit and the rest is history kind of.

colleyc: 2:45

Right, right. And where did you guys originally meet? Like you guys seem quite young, if you don't mind me saying, you guys are probably what Gen Z is?

Courtney: 2:54

Shit Gen Z. Gen Z, I guess, yeah.

colleyc: 2:57

How did how did your reunion begin? Like, how did so you were you were kind of doing music first, uh Courtney, and then with your sister, and then you guys decide, okay, let's let's do this, let's join together here and like focus on this band.

Nikki: 3:14

Well, well, we met in university, and then that's kind of how I just kind of helped her do those demos.

Courtney: 3:21

Yeah. We were kind of on separate paths entirely, and even like the way we made music at the time just on our own was completely different. But I think like maybe maybe the missing piece was each other, just because what I seemed to lack he had and what he seemed to lack I could provide. So kind of a symbiotic relationship like that.

colleyc: 3:42

Totally. And if we roll back the clock a little bit further, like where did you guys get this idea for the style of this band? I mean, it's it's quite unique for a rural Manitoba duo. Where did where did the genre kind of percolate from? Were you guys interested in similar music, or you kind of had these inventory of songs? Can you kind of paint us this picture of how all this style and coming together to create this kind of music, this dreamy music came about?

Nikki: 4:15

Well, uh, we were both into very different kinds of music before getting into indie together. So so our journey of exploring indie music really happened together, which is really great. It helped our influences kind of grow and and prosper on the same path. First time I actually was exposed to indie, I accidentally went to a Tokyo Police Club show. I bought a I bought a ticket, which and I thought I was going to Tokyo Hotel. Ah. So I took a German emo band.

Courtney: 4:44

Very different. Yeah.

Nikki: 4:45

And I ended up at a Tokyo Police Club show, and I went, what is this music?

colleyc: 4:50

Yeah. What was it about it that you that that struck you that was like, wow. Like, I mean, you must have been surprised because you were expecting something else. What was it that kind of like grabbed you? Like, wow, this is cool.

Nikki: 5:04

I think it was like the lightness of it all. Things weren't so heavy and intense. They're intense in a different way. You know, a lot of a lot of enjoyable, like, you know, riffs and and and everyone's just smiling and having a good time.

Courtney: 5:17

I think what really drew me to indie music was just the fact that I hadn't really heard a lot of it growing up. Like I I listened to very mainstream music, you know, pop, country. It's kind of what you hear, especially in a rural setting. So to like becoming into early adulthood and then kind of start exploring a genre that you'd never really that you'd never really had prior experience listening to was really, I think, like a key element to to the forming of Sunday Club.

colleyc: 5:46

Yeah. Right, right. And Courtney, did you were you writing? I mean, you were playing with your sister, so obviously you were you're writing music. How did that process happen for you? How did you come into, hey, I wanna try to write songs, you know, I want to write songs, I wanna be a musician. Like, how did you come into that as you were going through?

Courtney: 6:06

I've always I've always loved writing from like as early as I can remember. I have like a journal that goes back to like when I was eight years old, and that's like really around the time where I first started, you know, documenting things that would be happening in my life, or you know, just starting to write songs here and there. And I it took me a long time, I think, to find my own voice and my own songwriting voice. And I think that that came with playing around with a lot more like alternative, dreamy textures. And I think that's where my songwriting sort of blossomed and grew. Because, like I said before, like a lot of what I listened to is very mainstream and very pop. So when that's all you're hearing, that's sort of what you echo. And so at that particular point in time, I feel like I adopted a lot of the writing styles, a lot of the pop sensibilities that you can kind of hear in the EP for sure, especially on Vanatine. The pop sensibilities are definitely there, and we both have that influence. But I think getting more experimental with the with the music itself, with the sounds, I think is what in turn helped my songwriting improve. Yeah.

colleyc: 7:23

And Nick, what about what about your like what were your influences as you were growing up? And then what was that switch for you to to be so interested in music and wanting to be the in that creative process of creating it?

Nikki: 7:38

Well, I didn't grow up grow up in a very musical household. It was just kind of what was ever was on the radio, but but I went out and kind of found my own things, and a lot of them were like greatest hits albums, right? So one of my favorite albums of all time is like Motown, like 40 year greatest hits. I spun that CD so much as a kid. So I think a lot of like my pop sensibility comes from only listening to the hits as a kid, right? And then yeah, how we ended up with kind of indie music and and all of that is just I like like I heard metric, I heard I heard breathing underwater and like give me sympathy, and I went, Whoa, this is crazy! Like, what are these tones? What is like how are all these things working together? Especially like, you know, in my teen years, being really into like emo and metal music. It's just it's so opposite. So I just I wanted to find a way to to to make that, and and I did, and you know, even like going back a little further, my journey started. I found a guitar in my closet. And I went, This is this is super cool. I'm gonna learn how to play this. I think I was eight years old, and then I I just I did, I picked it up and I just kind of taught myself how to play it. Self-taught. Yeah, and then Sonda Club really kind of started to grow when when I changed my tuning. So I went from standard to something else that had zero resources anywhere on how to play like that. So I had to come up with all the theory and everything on my own, and it just kind of allowed us to create our own sound.

Courtney: 9:11

Yeah. And then he taught me the tuning, so now that's what I play in as well. So that really shifted things for me too, because I think we were both feeling super stuck. Yeah. In standard tuning, we just weren't getting, we weren't getting what we wanted to hear from it.

Nikki: 9:23

Yeah. Great. And it's kind of it's kind of funny because like here in in Winnipeg and everything, like this is where Joey Landrith is from, big blues guy, plays in OpenC, which is what we play in. And I was interning at the studio that they do all their stuff. And at the time, when I happened to change over, I got so much flack for that, dude. You're just gonna call the Joey, I'm like, I promise I'm not.

colleyc: 9:47

So I mean, I mean, music is quite universal, so I love this idea of kind of switching it up a bit, right? Because I mean, you know, three chords, you can write a ton of songs, right? And growing up, as you were saying, with this Motown, which is uh, you know, pretty easily structured, and I would even add, you know, emo and hardcore. I mean, they use the same uh structures, right? It's just the delivery and what you're going to do. Uh when did you start realizing that you can manipulate sound uh beyond the instruments, but in the recording process itself?

Nikki: 10:26

Well, I started doing studio stuff when I was 13, I think. I think Squirrelix had just come out, and I was like, what is like electronic music? Kind of the same awakening that happened five, six years later with Indy kind of happened with electronic music. And then I got, you know, I I did that for years and really, really learned how to get exactly what I wanted from whatever I happen to be using. And then and then for me, songs have always been about the overall vibe of it. Like a very, very obscure thing. I think in the last two weeks, I don't think I've listened to anything in English, right? So it's not like it's not for me, it's not about the lyrics, but it's about the melody and how they it interact with the music.

Courtney: 11:07

Well, and for me, it's completely opposite. For me, like all I hear is the lyrics and the melody. And for me, like the melody is king. So I'm always trying to have create a melody that best supports the lyrics that are being delivered, which is like again, very obscure, very hard, very hard to wrap your head around. And it like it's not something that you can really like force or coach yourself through. You kind of you you sometimes sit on a song and you don't have a verse melody for six months or a year. Like we've literally had songs that we've played live, but just didn't play the verses because we just simply didn't have them ready. Like they just weren't, we had tried all kinds of different computations and permutations, nothing stuck. It was just patience and time that you know.

colleyc: 11:54

Yeah, yeah. D does your process the two you when you are putting something down on tape, is that is it a long process, or do you guys get get going pretty quickly at it? Like once you have your ideas, is the process pretty quick, or do you always it's quick, it's it's quick, but it's also long.

Nikki: 12:12

You get to that 95% really quick, but that last five percent takes off.

Courtney: 12:15

Yeah, right.

Nikki: 12:16

Like we've done some co-writes, like we did some co-right in London and in LA, and like people seem to be surprised at how fast we were but that last five percent.

Courtney: 12:28

Yeah, so like five years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

colleyc: 12:33

Yeah, yeah. Well, I was talking with Joel Gibb from the Hidden Cameras uh last week, and he was saying too that like he doesn't listen to the record once it's out because he's just so saturated with it. He just you know, it's like it's like done on to the next kind of project. Like I appreciate that, yeah. I mean it's and and people don't often get that, right? Like how long, how many times you actually listen to the minutiae of every little detail of the song. Every note. And it can get a bit like exhausting.

Courtney: 13:03

And then when it's especially you can't separate yourself from what you've made. Like, I believe that a part of you goes into every single thing that you make. And so, like, there is no escape, there's no seeing that from another perspective, and you're always gonna hear certain things that other people might not pick up on, but you'll always hear it. And so it does sometimes you have to take a break from certain songs, or then you'll then you'll have a moment where you'll remember, like, yeah, I remember, I remember putting that specific thing into that song. Like, that was a great decision, you know. You'll you'll have good moments too, but sure, sure, sure.

colleyc: 13:34

And Courtney, as as a lyricist, what what inspires you with the songs that you you know, the lyrics that you put together, wh where do they come from? What what what experiences do you draw from that that you feel that you write the best songs around lyrically wise?

Courtney: 13:52

I first I look up to a lot of different writers and I try to be a good student and sort of take little bits and pieces here and there from some of the people that I that I look up to most. I think for me the process just became refined in the sense that I just started to say what I felt and not what I was thinking about. Like the EP is it's very vulnerable, it's very personal. And I think I use sort of a combination of what I'm seeing in my surroundings, sort of that kind of physical or visceral image imagery mixed with how I'm feeling at the time. Sobanatine is a little bit more upbeat. There is like a thread of sadness in there, kind of like a parting ways, a feeling of parting ways. But I think my process really just comes from like an in being inspired by by my surroundings and then and then trying to pinpoint the feeling that I that I'm having at that particular moment. So sometimes I actually write retroactively. Like sometimes I I'm not writing necessarily always about what I'm feeling in the moment. I could be writing about a moment that had already happened two years ago, but I can still remember how I felt at that time. So I don't really write like up to date sort of to to speak. Yeah.

colleyc: 15:22

Okay, okay. And how does how do you how does your collaboration work in the sense who brings what into the mix, into the game, into the song? Like how do they come to be these songs? And if we were to look at the EP that you guys just put out, like how did those songs come to life and how did you choose those ones in particular other than other ones that you have in your archive?

Nikki: 15:45

These collection of songs kind of just felt like they belong together. Like they i it it's hard to describe other than that. Especially when you do eventually hear what comes next, it'll make a lot of sense. Um because everything was together as a part of a big collection, and we went, Oh, I think maybe this should be an EP. You know, we sat down with our label and our management, and and we we talked about splitting it up. And so that's we're yeah.

Courtney: 16:10

I think we bring every song starts out differently every time. Yeah, but we each seem to bring something, the same thing, every single time. So like I'll bring, you know, the lyrics will hit me usually right away, and if they don't, then that means that they're not right yet, and I and I need time to to make sure that they're right. The melody comes almost always immediately, I wanna say. Sometimes I I sing over what he's played on the guitar, but sometimes that's kind of hard because it's like you're there's almost not enough information there to go off of.

Nikki: 16:51

Yeah.

Courtney: 16:51

So I feel like we arrange a lot of our songs based on already existing melodies that I've written.

Nikki: 16:57

Definitely, and like even then, like I'll she'll come up maybe with a chord progression, and then I'll entirely change it when we get into like Protools or Luna, like our daughter, right? I won't tell her, I'll just do it. Right? Because like you know, she works so hard at at trying to write about this feeling, and now I have to capture the the gut part of the abstract that class to serve the same thing.

colleyc: 17:19

And Nick, do you know when she's on to something? Like, can you tell, like, all right, this is gonna be something that I can find myself in as well?

Nikki: 17:28

Yes, and 99% of the time when she comes up with something, it's there and we have it. Like we're we're very intense about uh like making music. Yeah. Like, and we don't we we find ourselves especially since you know, like doing things to the level that we're doing it at, we don't have as much time to sit down and do the actual music as we uh would like to. So when we do sit down, it feels like there's a lot of pressure and you know, we need to come up.

Courtney: 17:55

And it's funny, I think we've always had that pressure, like even before like everything that's happened in the last year, I think there was always that sort of that sort of rush to do things as quickly as you can because we, you know, both were working jobs, we were both were going to university. You know, it took me seven years to finish my degree, I finally did. And so it's like we were doing all of this music while, you know, life was just happening. So we never really took any free moment for granted, and we just tried to try to get some material down on paper as soon as we could, yeah.

colleyc: 18:37

Yeah, yeah. Do you guys find that that embarking in this musical industry, like how do you guys navigate it with all that? You know, like finding the time and you know, I mean, dance have to go out on tour, they have to try to find ways to raise money or it just becomes a project rather than, you know, a part of who you are. How are you guys navigating the landscape of the music industry in 2025?

Nikki: 19:02

Well, we're pretty like aside from being isolated in rural Manitoba, like we are pretty social people when we're in it. Um so we do we kind of we do fit naturally a little into the music scene just because we love talking with people, we love getting to know people. You know, that's how we built our entire team. And every single person on our team is like very dear to us, and we all have that connection that is not just there because of Sunday Club.

Courtney: 19:30

I also think we're just willing to like navigate anything because it's just what we want to do, and both what we've wanted to do from as early as we can remember. So I think you know, you sometimes have to take a step back and just be grateful that we're even here, you know, with every little step, even though it may feel like you know, a non-step, it it's everything adds up, and yeah, we can only just be grateful for for what we've experienced thus far.

colleyc: 20:00

Totally. And how did your relationship begin with the paperbag records? How did how did that reunion happen?

Nikki: 20:08

We sent our record into uh Manitoba Film and Music for a grant to do uh to do our mastering, which we got mastered by Matt Leffert Schulman, who did does like Beach Us. Yeah, wonderful, wonderful human. And then the head of that organization on like the music side as the guitarist of a band called the Weaker Thans. Yeah. And he had he just he knew the head of paper bags, so he's like, Hey, I really think you should check this out. And then within 15 minutes, uh the Brendan, the the head of our label said, I need to get these guys on a call right now. And the rest is kind of history.

Courtney: 20:47

Within the next few weeks, we were like already like negotiating her. Yeah. Kind of a whirlwind experience. It was like we're just coming up on a year, but yeah, it it's been it's been insane. Yeah.

colleyc: 21:01

Yeah. So your record's been out, you know, a you know, a week or two, I guess. How how how are you feeling it's getting received? Is it is it is it achieving what you guys hope people would get out of it? I mean, I guess it's hard because you can't read people's minds, but just the feedback you've had, the reviews that have come out, which to me seem really amazing. How how is how is all of that uh reception for what you guys created has has it surpassed what you anticipated, or you know, you just hunger for more? Can you fill us in a little bit on the I'd say in two?

Nikki: 21:40

Yeah. I'd say reading you know the articles that that get written about this, about about the songs that are out. I was not expecting it. I wasn't expecting people to latch on to these specific songs as much as they have. Uh so to to read some of the wonderful things that that people have taken the time to write about us has just been an amazing experience.

Courtney: 22:00

Yeah, it's been really cool, especially because I think we kind of thought that these songs were a little bit of outliers just compared to some of the other things that we've written.

Nikki: 22:09

Right.

Courtney: 22:10

But for people to have received them, you know, so warmly. We were just talking about it the other day. We got like a couple more like paperbags sent us a couple more articles yesterday, and we were just reading them through, and we're just like, we were really happy that we feel as though other people like are getting it. Like is it so hard to convey, yeah. Even though music is universal, it can be so hard to find your niche. And I'm just I'm I think we're both happy that we both seem to have found that niche, and other people have also found it, which is especially this collection of the these songs in particular.

Nikki: 22:48

I'm really happy that that came through.

Courtney: 22:50

Yeah.

Nikki: 22:50

You know, if if you write a s if we're writing a song that sounds like, I don't know, always or metric, and and then that reference comes through an article, you're like, okay, well, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. But to have nuclear fallout be talked about like that or banner time, it's uh it means it means a lot, and it means that what we put into it at its core really does resonate.

colleyc: 23:11

Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah, I mean, some of the like one of the comments that I read, well, actually, Julie sent it to me. Your your your PR person about how this is the EP to listen to this year. I mean, it's just and Nick, you said something before too. I just wanted to come back to. I mean, it's a four-song EP, but like you said, uh it it feeds itself so well to the next song. Like, I think your arrangement of how you put the four together, uh like it's a it's a full listen, right? It's not like a I don't think they're singles. I you know, I think it's its its own thing, which I really, really appreciate. And that takes time and effort and tons of thought to figure out just even sequencing and how is this gonna bleed into the next and the next, and are we building or bringing down? Like, I just love the way it makes me feel that uh your ladies DP. So I want to thank you guys for for putting that out.

Nikki: 24:04

I really appreciate that because you know I think if we weren't any other label, they would have been like, no, we're pushing singles, wherein you know, we were like, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

colleyc: 24:12

No, I think that it I think they need one another, and I love that you had said too that these four just felt right together, and I totally feel that. I feel what you're saying, so I love that. So, guys, kind of to bring us to a close here, uh again, thanks for your time. This has been really cool. Uh, I think you guys are are cool cats there, and I love what you guys are doing. I think that your honesty and you know, openness to building relationships and being out there and learning and hustling it can is very commendable. So congratulations on that. Uh what can we anticipate what for the rest of this year 2025 into 2026 that you can share with us?

Nikki: 24:54

Well, we do have a cover actually coming out in November. We did a cover of last Christmas. Uh and so we did it, we originally did it last year just for fun, like really low pressure. We'll put it out for our friends, and then Label wanted us to to to put it out this year, so we kind of redid it from the top, from the top down. That'll be coming out in a couple of weeks. Two weeks, yeah. Two weeks. Yeah. And then I think then we're gonna start doing singles for something that's to come.

colleyc: 25:26

Cool. And are you gonna hit the road at all to play these tongues for your people?

Courtney: 25:30

And yeah, next Saturday we are leaving on tour, actually. Just a small Canadian tour. Yeah, nice. Small route. We got a couple showcases lined up in Montreal and in Ottawa, and that'll be good.

colleyc: 25:43

Yeah, I think you're playing twice in Montreal, which I am surely gonna be at one of those shows, that's for sure. So I look forward to meeting you guys in person, actually.

Nikki: 25:51

Yeah, it's like that.

colleyc: 25:53

Yeah, cool. Well, I wish you all the best, guys. As 2026 comes into light, I'd love to have you back on if we can keep this conversation going. I I'm you're on my radar now, so be for that. And I just wish you all the best. Keep doing what you're doing, because so far this little taster has been amazing. So congrats.