SugarBeach: Pop duo Marlee Walchuk & Nathalie Callender talk making music, falling in love--Part 1

Marlee Walchuk and Nathalie Callender are passionate about two things: making music and their love for each other.

The couple, who perform as the pop music group, SugarBeach, have a unique tale to tell...about both music and love.

SugarBeach's Facebook page describes it perfectly:

"In just 3 years Marlee Walchuk & Tully Callender (have) moved from Australia to Canada, have released 2 albums, spent 3 months at number one on the OutVoice Top 40 chart in the U.S., won 2 PITA (Pride in the Arts U.S.) awards including "Favorite Group of the Year", been nominated for an Outmusic Award ….and got married…to each other."

I couldn't have said it better myself...

Part One of my three-part series with the duo takes a look at creating music together, collaborating with film director Linda Andersson and, oh yeah...the hot women dancers at Truckstop in Los Angeles!

(Note: SugarBeach video at end of article.)

How and when did you first become interested in music?

Tully: My family (have) all played an instrument and my dad is an amazing piano player so I was inspired to be as good as him. I always loved singing and spent more time in high school doing that than anything else... actually I only seem to remember the music. I felt back then that I couldn’t imagine doing anything else with my life. I veered off the path and built my own accounting firm in Australia for 6 years before heading to Canada to pursue my passions: Marlee & music.

Marlee: My brother and sister were already quite well known in Canada and the UK when I was a kid (from The Judy and Jim Show). My sister was a big band singer with 2 albums out and my brother a leading jazz bass player on TV when they joined forces and began writing. I joined their band when I was 14 and performed in show lounges across Canada. After each set I had to be taken to the kitchen so as not to be in the drinking area of the club. That may have lead more to my love of food…but that’s a different interview.

So I’d take my homework on the road and sang most weekends through high school…I loved it. The weirdest part was that we were opening for some big acts at that time so I had played the Vancouver Coliseum to thousands of people several times before turning 16. You don’t think much about it at that age…it’s just your life. My brother and sister were by far my biggest inspiration to get into music and to write.

Describe your unique sound and how it evolved.

Tully: Being natural pop writers we started our first EP “I Just Love Girls” with very catchy hooks and we wanted the music to uplift people, make them think a little and hopefully get them dancing as well.

Nancy Ford from OutSmart Magazine described us as "Electroni-Lesbi-pop" and we loved that. Over the course of the following year we wrote another cd’s worth of songs including “Living Out Proud” for Vancouver Pride’s 30th Anniversary. They used it for 2 years and 14 other major cities around the world also took it for their Pride celebrations.

Then I think Len Rogers from the Outvoice charts described our second album Not Deserted best when he said it was the “meat & potatoes with just enough gravy to make it go down easy”. This album has more genre variation and more live instruments and less electronic programming.

How did you meet and begin working with movie director/screenwriter, Linda Andersson?

Marlee & Tully: We received an email from Linda Andersson in 2008 requesting the use of two songs from our first album. “I Just Love Girls” and “She’s With Me” for her new lesbian short film, The 6 Month Rule starring Michelle Wolff.

We were very happy to give the music to her and loved that she was out there as an independent writer and director putting glorious GLBTQ content in the world. As it was our first film to be included in, we decided to fly to LA for the red carpet and the premiere.

It was a great time - we hung out with Linda and some of her friends who also flew in for the event and even got a chance to take in the GLAAD awards while we were there. The whole weekend was inspiring and exciting. We also got to take in our first LA “Truckstop” event which included hot women dancers on the bar feeding alcohol mouth to mouth to the rather enthusiastic patrons below. You gotta love L.A.!

We have kept in touch with her since and sent her our next album “Not Deserted” which she used several songs from for her new web series “Insight…The Rise Of The Seer” starring Deborah Stewart.

Last fall I asked her if she would be interested in combining some of her sexier footage from the series with ours to create a music video for our song “Give Me Your Body.” She was totally up for it so we released it in April 2010 and it is currently racking up the views.

Linda is a powerful force. She is highly committed to her work and the community and a very generous promoter of other artists. We are very grateful for the attention she has brought to SugarBeach.

What are your current and future projects?

Marlee: Currently we are story booking two new music videos for our songs “Mama I Love Her” and “Not Deserted”, preparing for some touring this summer- Halifax, Texas and the UK and we are in the process of creating a GLBT music video channel called RightOut TV. The purpose of it is to give fans greater exposure to Out artists through music and interviews.

As the music business quickly evolves so do our plans. It can take about a year to write for an album and record it and although we had originally thought we would release a third CD in 2011, we would like to get new music out more often so we are looking at releasing singles over the next year instead.

One of our favorite projects is always the filming and editing of our music videos. Honestly, we have both spent much of our time deferring to others to handle the technical aspects of creations whether it is in work or music and have recently discovered an untapped love and ability to do these ourselves. We can sit for days looking for the “gold” in tapes full of takes and connecting them with lyrics and the feelings we want to convey. This process makes us feel very alive.

We would love to tour the U.S. for an entire summer and are putting some wheels in motion to try and make that happen - hopefully for next year.

For more information: SugarBeach.

To read Part Two of my interview with SugarBeach, click here.

***N. E. Francis is an established news journalist, specializing in arts and entertainment features and is a radio correspondent for the weekly LGBTQ radio program, Alternative Perspectives, every Tuesday on WRFG.org. She also writes Tales from a California Blonde, a weekly column published every Saturday exclusively at Examiner.com.

Ms. Francis is also a published poet, ghostwriter, film & theater critic and upcoming children’s author. She owns an online art gallery featuring women artists around the world. Contact her at ArtExaminer@comcast.net.***

**To receive N. E. Francis's future articles via email, just click on the "Subscribe" button at the top of this article.**