Sunny Ray: “One guitar and a dollar in my pocket”
Her life is full of interesting stories, so let’s read some lines out of her fingers and listen to her sound on Wednesday 19th February at H 21 at the Sudwerk in Bozen. She will be in town with her show called, “One guitar and a dollar in my pocket“. Prepare for a few travel stories of Sunny Ray.
“Where I’m from and who I am”
My name Sunny comes from my name Sundara, which in Sanscrit means “one who radiates beauty”. Even my mother has called me Sunny since I was young. I grew up In Waitakere, on the west coast of New Zealand North Island, running free on the black sand beaches surrounded by cliff faces and caves, climbing mountains and trees and building huts and making fires. I am from a family of 5 children, and for most of my childhood it was just me and my three brothers, so I learnt how to do boy things, although I was always a lot more careful and calculated about my risks. I didn’t grow up with the same restrictions that cities give people. Nor did I accept close mindedness about what is possible. My attitude on life is “let’s see what is possible by trying to push our own limits always a little more“. I believe it’s this freedom in nature that has given me the strength if mind and heart to do what I believe in regardless of the un-supportiveness of a system that sucks the life out of dreams. I am a creative person. I like to draw, paint, write stories and sing and dance and I like to make things with my hands. I love children and enjoy the purity and lightheartedness of their company. I hope that I will always be able to play the way a child does.
“My life mission”
I want to bring those principles of balance and harmony and unity that nature demonstrates, into the dysfunction of our current society and influence positive change in the world. I want give people a bigger vision of what we are all capable and of the world we could create if we could only live more in our world and less in the fictional dramas of the mind. In order to be able to be any kind of role model to anyone. First i must learn and understand as much of the world as I can only then can I understand where the root problems of our society lie, and how to best contribute to the change many of us want to see. This is why i began to travel. “What we cannot do is not our limitation, our limitation is not realizing the things we CAN do”.
“What music is to me”
I was singing and making up song from 5 years old, as a lot of children do. I just didn’t stop. I was lucky to have a family that supported music. My whole family can play guitar and sing. Often we do it together. I started to play the drums when I was 13 and the guitar when I was 14 years old. Playing guitar and writing songs has now become my main form of personal expression. For more than 6 years now I have been writing, performing and recording music. I have recorded a solo album and traveled much of the New Zealand and Australian music festivals. I have collaborated with many bands and musicians while maintaining my freedom as an individual artist. Now I’ve been traveling Europe and have played shows in Spain, France, London, Ireland and Italy. Music is my way of connecting with people and sharing my story with those who haven’t had the chance to experience what I have, and it gives me the freedom to travel the world. When you have a guitar and a smile on you face you always have friends. Sound is a wave, it’s a movement and all of life is built of moving matter. 
To me sound is a tool that can effect the body and the mind. I like to have this in mind when I make music. I write my songs about nature and human nature. I like to tell stories, of my experiences and also of other peoples lives and viewpoints. I want to make music that makes people happy and feel good, but also makes them question their actions a little. The intention is of influencing them to live more truly to themselves. The best way to portray truth in the music I create is to be as true as I can while making and performing it. If I am creating from my heart the vibrations and sound waves I produce will hopefully connect with the hearts of my listeners. This is how I contribute to the creation of unity in the world. As have many musicians and artists, when their art brings people together. As much as I do it for the audience, there is also a part of me that is doing it for myself because I am aware that one day I will be dead. To waste a life without striving for anything to me, seems the most regrettable thing. So with death in mind and life in my hands I am choosing not to hold back, but to put it all on the line for the love of music.
“Traveling stories”
In 2009 I traveled India and Thailand, that was a great eye opener and I loved it, although it was difficult in many ways.
In 2011, I made a solo summer road trip all across New Zealand. Playing at festivals and in the streets and sleeping in my car.
In 2012 I hitchhiked over 3,000 km from the top of Australia to the bottom, After witnessing a total solar eclipse in the Australian desert that attracted over 13,000 people for a 7 day Music Festival.
In 2013 I bought a one way ticket to Barcelona and a video camera and me and my guitar began this adventure I’m on now. I was invited to be a fire performer and musician for a project called the “Junk Raft Armada“. The idea was to promote recycling and Eco living and mix it with arts and live performance. We built three rafts from recycled materials. Mainly old furniture and empty plastic bottles. We then embarked on a trip down the Rio Ebro for one month. We called ourselves river pirates and made shows in all the towns, talking about recycling, creative and Eco living and the problems with plastic and water pollution. I performed music and fire dancing in the shows.
I made it to the European Juggling convention in Toulouse, France. Over 3,000 of the worlds best jugglers in one festival. There I learned how to speak pirate french and juggle knives. This made for great conversations. 
I then went to the Festa del Fuoco di Stromboli, a two week festival on the Volcanic Island of Stromboli off the coast of Italy. It showcases some of the worlds best fire spinners and circus performers in nightly spectaculars. There I performed music and spun fire. But best of all I climbed a volcano and stood at the top in the moonlight watching it erupt. An image I will never forget. I traveled via autostop from Napoli to Marseilles to Paris to Brussels and then again back to Milano and then Bologna. I have also made trips to Ireland and London. It was not long after, that i found myself in Bolzano, where I have settled for a small amount of time in the winter while taking my opportunities to perform at local venues. Now I am putting together a trio band with two talented friends from France and America and we are working on plans for our 2014 Summer European Tour. I plan to turn home around September this year. My dream is to make the journey back to New Zealand by boat, as many of New Zealand’s original settlers would have first arrived. This is how I tour the world. Solo, with a guitar on my back and a dollar in my pocket. One step at a time with a whole lot of courage and trust. For the love of life, and the gifting of Music.