NEWS
EVENTS
We spoke to Sunset Sons about 'She Wants' and summer festivals
Indie | Wednesday 22nd July 2015 | Zakk
Since Sunset Sons released their latest EP The Fall Line back in March this year, it’s fair to say that the band have been busy bees, from playing just about every UK festival under the sun (their personal highlight being Glastonbury’s John Peel Stage) to releasing a titan of a hit in 'She Wants' on Polydor Records. Sunset Sons have set the groundwork to become one of this year’s most exciting new bands, and we caught up with Jed to talk about the band’s new single and what lies ahead.
So your new single 'She Wants' is out in three weeks (14th August), are you excited about the huge reaction it’s had since the music video was released in June?
Yeah it’s brilliant man, this is also pretty new for us and the only reference I’ve got is what’s happened with the other singles and EP’s. With the others you can make a video and put it on YouTube and when it goes on the radio everyone starts watching it, but this time it’s just been smashed absolutely everywhere. Before it even went on the radio we were like “woah”, we’re loving it man, it’s good.
How was working with Adam Powell (previously the director of Charlie XCX’s 'Doing It' & Jessie Ware’s 'You & I') on the music video?
He is an absolute legend that man! We first spoke to him while we were on tour in Germany, we were doing about 90mph on the autobahn and we all had to stand up in the back of the van while he was coming through the speakers. We spoke to him for about ten to fifteen minutes and in the last thirty seconds he just summed up his idea for the video perfectly and we were all like, “Yep, that’s what we want to do”. Basically he just wanted to allow us to get our personalities across, people don’t even really know us yet. We’ve done a lot of briefs with people before and it never ends up looking or sounding like what they say, but with [Adam Powell] from the minute we started the video to the minute it was finished it was exactly how we imagined it.
It feels as though 'She Wants' is a very personal song, what was the sentiment behind the track? Is it wholly autobiographical?
We write all sorts of songs, we can write deep ones, we can write emotional ones but this one… We’ve been living this sort of life for a while now, and we just thought we can write a tune with the sentiment of what we’re all doing. Not in a cocky manner, it’s just our own celebration of what we’ve been doing the last few years, and that’s just how it came out. We always usually write songs in a similar format, the four of us just jamming in a room with an idea, like a drum beat or a bass riff or whatever. Rory’s great at melodies, he’ll usually sing jibberish over the top until we have a structure and then we’ll sit down and write the lyrics together. We’re a bit of an old school band in that way.
Isn’t that basically how you met? I read somewhere you heard Rory tinkering around on a pub’s piano and decided to form a band!
I’m actually sitting outside the bar where I met him! It’s the first time I’ve been back here in ages because we’ve been away so much! But yeah I came to see my mate, and Rory was doing a little gig on the piano in the corner and I thought he had a fucking amazing voice. So I watched him for a bit and we had a few drinks afterwards and just decided to make a band. This place is a bit of a melting pot and we just found the other boys around, like in the pub or on the beach and stuff, and that was it.
This year has been a big year for you in terms of playing festivals as well, what has been your favourite thus far?
We’ve had an amazing festival season so far, it’s all been mint – but Glastonbury was next level for all of us, we were totally blown away. We were quite early on in that John Peel tent, and it’s massive! I had a little look before we went on and there were a few people there, we went and had a beer and got ready to play and by the time we went on it was full, and by the time we had finished you seriously couldn’t get in. Michael Eavis was standing on the side of the stage watching, it was totally mental. So yeah, definitely Glasto.
Brilliant! And I think it would be fair to say that your October/November tour with Imagine Dragons is the biggest you’ve ever done. It’s all coming up Milhouse.
Oh yeah it’s easily the biggest tour, we’re doing 29 arenas! It’s all a bit scary, but exciting scary, ya’know? It’s funny because we got wind that we were in contention for doing this tour, and Imagine Dragons are just massive aren’t they? There were a few different bands that wanted to do it, in the end we just sent them some tunes to have a listen to and a little while later got a phone call saying they wanted to have us, so it’s only just starting to become a reality. We’re all really looking forward to it.
You’ve been recording your debut album with Jacquire King (Tom Waits, Of Monsters And Men, James Bay), announcements to follow shortly we hope?
It’s not totally finished just yet, I reckon it’s about 90% there. We started recording it in September, but we’ve been so busy touring it’s hard to lock the time down. We went and did a load of recording in February and March but the whole time we’ve been writing more songs. The record’s not coming out until next year and we have a couple of singles, so obviously we wanna get it out but we’re not in a huge hurry. We’re gonna record a few more tunes and then choose the best ones to all go together, it’s the smart thing to do. 'She Wants' will be on there, it’s basically the first proper single from the album. But yeah, [Jacquire King] is an absolute legend, we’re recording in a studio called Blackbird Studios in Nashville, which is up there with the best studios in the world, so we’ve gone from recording our EP’s in a shed to making records in Nashville in the space of about six months. We’re all pinching ourselves.
Lastly, any crazy tour anecdotes from the festival season?
Well we were playing T in the Park the other day, and we have a few breakdowns in our tunes, and there were a couple of thousand people in a tent shouting “here we fucking go!” over and over again. I just never realised that would fit so well into some of our songs!
'She Wants' out on 14th August on Polydor Records. Follow Sunset Sons on Twitter.
