In an era where rock is assumed dead, Sunset Sons are among the crème de la crème of UK bands. I recently caught up with half of the surfer-musician band following their tour with Imagine Dragons to chat new records, Youtube haters and what it takes for a European band to make it big in the U.S.
Gents, it seems that every interview I read with you guys starts with the “How did you meet?” question. How about we ditch the boring stuff and try something else, yeah?
Jed (drummer): [Laughs]
Pete (bassist): [Laughs] Yeah…
Last we chatted, you were leaving for tour with Imagine Dragons. In three words, tell me about it.
Jed: Can we swear?
Go for it.
Jed: Pretty. Fucking. Amazing.
Pete: Yeah. Really. Fucking. Amazing. [laughs]
Say more.
Jed: We didn’t really know what to expect at first. The first show was some place in Germany we’d never been – some huge arena with like 15,000 people. Everything was a bit hectic and we didn’t get a sound check or anything, we just got on there. It went by in a blur. It took three shows or so for things to settle down a bit and for us to realize that we could do it and that our songs were big enough to fill these big places. We weren’t totally out of our element. I guess that’s the best way to put it. And from there it just got better and better. We got to know the guys [in Imagine Dragons], got to know the crew. It was this well-oiled machine every day.
Pete: Yeah, we got looked after well. Everything was sorted, it was amazing. The crew was amazing. The crowds were amazing. It couldn’t have been any better.
I want some juicy stories. Anything you haven’t told anyone yet that you’d like to share?
Jed: Umm, I can think of a couple. There are some funny ones from the end of the tour – pranks, that sort of stuff. We did about 30 shows up until Christmas, and so we did what we thought was the last show in Zurich and we didn’t really know what to do. [Imagine Dragons] covered my drum kit in powder and put weird stuff in Pete’s drink. They fucked us over a little bit and we didn’t really do anything back. But then we got asked to go back out with them after Christmas and do more shows in Eastern Europe. We had another “last” show in Amsterdam because of that, which was bigger than the first last show. We were like “We have to do something!”
Pete: There were signs posted everywhere to get to the dressing room once you got off the bus, but you could literally get to the dressing room just walking straight without having to concentrate or anything. So what we did was we switched all the signs around, which led them in a big circle. They were stuck in this circle for a while so they called their tour manager and were like “Where is our dressing room? What’s going on?” She’s like “It’s upstairs.” But we had moved their dressing room sign to this tiny little broom cupboard and put four cases of water and a packet of pistachio nuts on the table. Their dressing room was right there and they kept walking around it. And we were in our dressing room doing an interview at the time but we put our dressing room sticker on their dressing room door so they wouldn’t think to go in there. So they finally get to the room and they’re like “What is going on here? What’s with these pistachio nuts and everything?!” and the woman is like “No, no. It’s all set up in there. What are you talking about?”
Jed: At that point they realized it was game on. That night Rory got dressed as a cheerleader with pom poms and everything…
Pete: He got the cheerleader outfit from the show Glee and went on stage when they were playing in front of 15,000 people…
Jed: There are lots of pictures on Instagram. If you look it up you can find some pretty good videos.
Do you all have any quirky tour rider requests?
Pete: We don’t have anything crazy. When we’re on tour, it’s hard, but we try to stay as healthy as we can. The only thing that’s a bit weird is Rory orders organic beers, so everywhere you go the people at the venues are like “organic beers?” There aren’t many organic beers.
Jed: Rory is obsessed at the minute with getting a picture of David Hasselhoff on the rider so we have one everywhere we go. You’ll have to ask him about that. It’s weird.
Pete: We have no idea why.
You all just released “Somewhere Maybe” from your new record Very Rarely Say Die. As of last night, the video has 156,000 hits on Youtube in three weeks…I’d say that’s a good start.
Pete: We have a look at it every once and a while. I hadn’t looked at it in a few days. Rory tends to follow the statistics and stuff more than anyone else, so he came to me one day and was like “Holy shit, it has 90,000 views.” We were all like “What?” It had only been out a week and was jumping up by like 10,000 a day.
Jed: It’s really hard to have any perspective. I remember when we first made a video called “[On the Road]” off our first EP and being buzzed about it because it got a thousand views in a week. I guess we’re getting out there now.
Between the car sex and the creepy mask, I’d say the video for that song is a steamy one. Did you guys give Rory hell for that?
Jed: We basically devised a plan that meant we didn’t have to be involved in that video because that’s one thing we don’t really like to do – make videos.
Pete: [Rory] had to stay back in England and make the video and we got to go to France and surf [laughs].
Jed: What happened was the first take of the video looked cool and sounded cool but it was all a bit tame. We were like “We need to make it a bit more ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ or ‘Natural Born Killers’ or a bit more Tarantino and weird.” We wanted to make it more interesting. The song is about running away with someone. It doesn’t have to explain exactly why or how. They totally ran with it and made edgy. It turned out good.
What I find interesting is when music videos like yours start to take off, and then all of a sudden there is this tiny fraction of folks that will give the video a thumbs down on Youtube. It’s like, why would someone waste the energy? Do you ever wonder who those douche bags are?
Jed: Clearly it’s people that spend a lot of time in their bedroom.
Pete: There are lots of people with too much time on their hands and a very fast internet connection.
Jed: I’ve got to say, if I’m being totally honest, I’ve never commented once on anything ever on Youtube.
Pete: There are people who put on whole comedy routines just out of reading comments on Youtube. You think people are crazy on Facebook but it’s really Youtube where people are crazy.
So this is a good segue. I came across some Youtube comments to the “Somewhere Maybe” video and I want to read a few and get your reactions…
User “ADT” says “Juno and Yuki are real.”
Jed: I’ve got a feeling that means that there’s some sort of story somewhere that someone’s into and that the video mirrored that. But who the fuck knows – that’s my answer to that one! [laughs]
User Lerumo says “they should tour with The 1975, i’d pay to see that.”
Pete: The 1975 are quite big at the minute.
Jed: Their new record is pretty good. It’s quite out there. Have you heard it?
Barely.
Jed: It’s really good but it sounds like 17 different bands. I really like it. I wasn’t a big fan of the first album but this one is good. Especially once it gets about halfway through. The second half is really good. I’d be happy to tour with them.
Another band from the UK that’s getting some traction here is The Struts.
Jed: Yeah, I’ve heard of them but I don’t really know them. Aren’t they all leather jackets and haircuts?
Yeah, sorta. It’s really poppy, catchy rock. Kinda like a Queen-esque throwback band with a glam look. But I hear of them more and more so I thought I’d throw them into the conversation.
Jed: There’s a circuit in the UK of shows and bands and I’ve heard of them through that but I don’t know them too well.
Okay, back to it. User Oscar Rangel on Youtube says “Ariana = illuminati”
Pete: Now we’re getting conspiracy theories coming.
Jed: Tom Hanks. I have no idea. [laughs]
Since we’re discussing new music, I also got to hear your song “Know My Name” recently. Last time we chatted we discussed another song of yours about a girl called “Medicine”, and Rory described the girl in the song as a “mythical creature”. Tell me that this one is about a real girl?
Jed: That’s an interesting one. Sometimes we do weird things with the lyrics, but for that particular one Rory wrote the verses and I wrote the chorus. We just wanted to have something on the album that was like…like that feeling when you’re at a bar and you look at someone in the corner and you’re like “Yeah, you’re not getting out of here alive.” It’s not much deeper than that, but everyone know what that feels like.
You know, it’s funny to me because I look at you guys and you’re four good looking dudes in a band that has a legit following. I hear that song and I find it hard to believe that any girl you play in front of whose attention you’d want you wouldn’t get.
Jed: I mean, there’s always that slight element of doubt, isn’t there? There’s got to be.
Well then let me ask you this – do you have any celebrity crushes?
Jed: Yes, loads.
Pete (looking at Jed): I know yours.
Jed: Emily Ratajkowski, hands down.
Pete: I don’t really know if I have any.
Jed: Actually, go on Instagram. There’s a girl named Brook Power. She’s actually my favorite.
“It’s hard to get used to people being in awe of you when we’re just four fucking guys that like to play music. “Photo: Hayley Louise Brown
What’s been your craziest female fan encounter?
Pete: Ooooo. A lot of people – when they meet you – you go to shake their hand and they tremble. That’s always quite a bizarre interaction to overcome. There are some crazy things on Instagram though…
Jed: Yeah, you get some serial commenters who say stuff all the time.
Pete: Some fans will draw pictures. Some of them are really good but some of them are, well….
Jed: I’m trying to think. The thing is, there’s nothing really that crazy. It’s hard to get used to people being in awe of you when we’re just four fucking guys that like to play music, know what I mean? It’s a bit odd. Anyone who can get used to that, there’s probably something wrong with them. Maybe Rory gets things a little more because he’s the singer and he fronts the band.
Pete: It is weird to meet people that are scared to meet you.
Jed: Oh I got one! We were in Leeds last year and a couple came up to me and basically the guy kept saying “My girlfriend – she just fucking loves you. She thinks you’re so hot. But just don’t fuck her, okay?” What do you say in that environment? [laughs] It’s like “Okay, I’m not going to fuck her. I don’t fancy her.”
So I hear you recorded the new record in a pretty badass studio where you got to experiment with lots of equipment. Is there any equipment you discovered that you’ll be making a regular part of your arsenal?
Pete: It was a bit funny for me. I walked in there and was excited thinking it’s one of the biggest studios in the world and they’d have all this gear. So I walked into the room and the bass amp that I played out of the whole time was up to my knee. I’m six foot three and I’m playing this tiny amp. I played that amp on every single tune. [laughs]
Jed: I played a different drum kit every day. We’d go in everyday and decide what tune we were going to play and [the staff] would say to me “What drum sound do you have in mind?” and I’d say “I really like what the drums sound like on ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town’. Can we do that?” So they’d take me to this room that was as big as most people’s houses with all these snare drums and everything and just set everything up.
Pete: The quality of the stuff over there was just…everything was spot on. And it cost like a million bucks as well.
I would say that for every 10 artists or so that make it big in Europe, maybe one or two really make it big in the U.S. What would you say is the biggest challenge an artist like you faces in cracking this market?
Jed: Well, for one, America is massive.
Pete: America is the biggest music market in the world, by far.
Jed: And also, it’s just physically massive. [laughs]
Pete: It’s just people from start to finish. It’s not like there’s a gap like in Australia.
Jed: We’re not scared of touring or anything. It’s not like that. How do I put it? We’ve basically made ourselves [in Europe] the old-fashioned way – touring, a little bit of radio, good supporters. But really, we’ve just toured for two years and haven’t stopped. We go round and round. It’s our third time around now and all the venues know how we prep for gigs and stuff like that. I wouldn’t have a problem with doing that in America but it’s about having the time to do that and fit in everything else. And there’s an element of luck in there as well, isn’t there? I’m pretty confident that our new album has a few hits on there that would sound good on the radio, but it’s just that old school thing where someone has to pick up on it and start playing it.
In your experience, how are the crowds in Europe and the U.S. different?
Pete: We didn’t do too many shows in the U.S. but I reckon it was similar to when we first started doing shows over here. People would come to see bands that are playing their first show in the area because they’ve done some research. They don’t just go out of nowhere. You don’t just accidentally walk in somewhere and go see a gig – or at least not that often. So a lot of those people were into the music, or got into the music. The hardest thing to do is to get people to come to those early shows to start the chain reaction.
Jed: Being in a band is quite frustrating sometimes, or it can be. If you’re a control freak, there’s a lot of stuff you can’t control. You can control the music you make, but you can’t control how people will respond, or who’s going to show up at your shows – stuff like that. All you can really control is going out there every night and giving it everything you’ve got. Anything else, people will form their own opinions. We can’t control what people will think, but if we’re fucking great every night then people will comment about that on social media, and that’s become a massive part of our band. That’s where we focus ourselves.
Pete: And if other things come to boot – like you get a big sync on a movie or something like that – how many bands have been made because…I mean, The 1975 started getting big when the one guy in One Direction tweeted about them and said they were awesome, so they had an extra hundred thousand fans overnight.
Jed: At the beginning, there was no plan. But now the plan is just to slay it every night. If we go back to the same town and there are twice as many people as the first time, it’s because people are telling their mates and we’re doing something right. I like that.
In the last interview, we did a little thing where I asked you a series of questions where you would choose “this” or “that”, and one of the questions asked you to pick between Superman or Batman. Now that the movie is out, let me ask you again: Superman or Batman?
Jed: I still think Superman is the best superhero. I’ll say the same thing as before.
Pete: Is it just because he’s a normal dude?
Jed: No, it’s because Superman is always Superman. He’s just in disguise. Everyone else is dressing up the other way to be the super hero, but Superman is always Superman, even when he’s got his Clark Kent glasses on.
Pete: But why is Batman not always Batman when he’s Bruce Wayne?
Jed: Because Batman relies on money for his power. The reason he can do all his stuff is because he’s got the money to do it. Superman is just amazing because he’s built that way.
Pete: What about Spiderman?
Jed: Is he always Spiderman? I don’t know, I’m still going with Superman.
Your record is called “Very Rarely Say Die” but I’m pretty sure neither Batman nor Superman would ever say die. What do you say to that?
Jed: They’d never say that?
Well I don’t think so.
Pete: They’d very rarely say die.
Editor’s Note: You can check out Sunset Sons’ new album, “Very Rarely Say Die”, available now.
