Sunflower Bean premiered nearly half of their fourth full-length, Mortal Primetime, right here in the 215, during the second half of their eight-song set on the April 18th edition of WXPN’s Free At Noon at World Café Live. In the time since, the NYC rock trio (who we last spoke to in May of 2022) dropped the album (April 25th, courtesy of Lucky Number, who released 2018 sophomore LP Twentytwo in Blue in the UK), played an album release at Rough Trade in New York, headed to the UK for a record store tour, came back home, and this Thursday they kick off more than a month of North American dates, which will have them headlining Johnny Brenda’s this Friday, May 16th, for the most intimate show the band’s played in the city in quite some time. Just after getting back from the other side of the pond, Sunflower Bean vocalist/bassist Julia Cumming took some time to talk to me about all of this, in addition to a few of our mutual favorite things.
*Interview has been slightly edited for length and clarity.
Izzy Cihak: I know that you just got back from the UK. How did those dates go?
Julia Cumming: It was really, really fun! I’ve always had a dream of doing a record store tour. I don’t know why! It doesn’t seem like a totally common dream, but there’s something kind of romantic about it, in its own way. And Rough Trade East in London is a really legendary record store and they put on amazing shows there. It’s a really great opportunity to see the fans who we haven’t seen in a long time and make that human connection. I’m just glad to be able to connect with independent record stores and bring people out there. It’s very good for the soul.
Izzy: Yeah! It feels like, for whatever reason, record store tours are more common in the UK, for whatever reason. It seems like a cool thing.
Julia: Yeah! People are buying a lot of CDs, too. I think kids are really into that thing of having something physical, and vinyl might be a little bit expensive for them. I just think it’s great to have any kind of culture where people can engage with music and engage with the artist.
Izzy: Have you had any favorite reactions to Mortal Primetime so far? I was really excited, because I was at the Free At Noon, so I heard a number of the live premieres from the album.
Julia: Oh my god, you were there for the real premiere! I was really happy with how people were responding at that performance. I think the reviews have been really, really nice. That’s cool, because you certainly can’t base how you feel about yourself on others’ reviews of your work, or you would just go crazy. I think there’re a lot of subtleties to the record and nuances that, when you’re making it, you just don’t always know how it’s going to land. And I feel like a lot of the gentleness is coming through and people are responding to that, and that makes me really happy.
Izzy: How was it producing the album yourselves?
Julia: We definitely couldn’t have self-produced without everything we’ve learned from the producers that we have worked with before. Which is cool in a way, it feels like a rite of passage, because I think a big part of being a modern artist now is that you kind of need to have that understanding of how recording and all this stuff works. I think we learned a lot from them and, for this album, it felt very developmental. It felt like, “Okay, we’ve all been really interested in recording ourselves and recording each other. It seems like this is the kind of task that we can push ourselves into a little bit, and we’re probably more prepared than we think we are.”
I think I was the most nervous about it, because I tend to run anxious. I would say in the first three days we were definitely confronted with a few moments where you’re trying to figure out which mic to use, and you’re sort of getting into the nitty gritty, and I was just like, “Man, I do not know the answer to this question.” But the beautiful thing about that is that, in life, those are the moments where you grow the most and you also surprise yourself and have the capacity to overcome. I got through those first few days, and I think the whole thing gave us the chance to make a really, really vulnerable and powerful record without having to worry about impressing anyone else in the room or what they think about it. And that was cool!
Izzy: I know that you worked with Sarah Tudzin on some tracks, and I totally love her, not just illuminati hotties, but the stuff with Pom Pom Squad and Daisy The Great and Daffo… How was working with her, and what do you think about her in general?
Julia: I think she’s amazing. I’ve been a fan of illuminati hotties for a really long time, and I had the privilege of working with her on a different set of recordings, before this, and that was how I met her. We realized that with the skillset she had, and what she was doing, it just felt like she was gonna be the right team member. She has a very calm presence in the studio. She’s a studio pro and a pro in general. Having someone like that there and in the mix added a feeling of safe hands. Because I trust her and respect her so much, I knew that we were not gonna fail with her on our side.
Izzy: I know you’re back with Lucky Number for this one, which is such an amazing label. How is it working with them and being part of that family? They have so many of my favorite people in music, like Hinds, Momma, Jay Som…
Julia: Stephen and Nathan are just amazing. I made this joke onstage in London, I said that if Lucky Number is interested in your band, you should consider yourself lucky. Because they have a style of A&Ring that’s really hard to find these days, which is the idea that if the artist is being authentic to themselves that that is what they’re supposed to be doing and that is also how they’re going to reach people. I think Lucky Number and their belief in us, their enduring belief in us, has allowed us to blossom in their roster and in their family, so I’m extremely grateful for them.
Izzy: I just realized that it’s the 10th anniversary of Show Me Your Seven Secrets, the first EP, so I’m curious how you feel about that album now, in addition to what you most remember about that period of the band?
Julia: I hadn’t thought about that, actually! Since it’s usually out of print, and Human Ceremony is when most people heard about us, it doesn’t always cross my mind. But we’ve sort of been in the process, in the last couple years, of reconnecting to the musicians we felt like at that time, that sort of childlike naivety/delusional spirit that you have at that time in your life, where you can just really sink into your instrument without worrying about the future. So, I think we’re all more connected to who we were then now than we were on Headful or King of the Dudes, or even Twentytwo in Blue. I think it’s really cool that we have like a legacy that we’ve been building, and my hope is that it will continue to be this beautiful journey of music together.
Izzy: Since this is a Philadelphia publication, I have to ask your thoughts on the city, as you’ve played here a lot over the years, including just a few weeks ago.
Julia: Philly has such a great DIY history! We’ve played so many cool venues in Philly. I remember the batting cages, I remember the First Unitarian Church. Every time I go, I engage in the process of eating cheesesteaks as much as possible [laughs], all the silly, touristy stuff, too. It’s a very cool musical city and it has the East Coast kind of grit. It’s a very rock n’ roll place.
Izzy: I agree! I’ve been here for almost 22 years now. And there is a cheesesteak place right across the street from Johnny Brenda’s, so it’s very convenient!
Julia: Thank God!
Izzy: On that note, what can be expected of the live show this time around? I know we got kind of a preview of it at Free At Noon, but Johnny Brenda’s is such a different atmosphere and obviously it’ll be a full show.
Julia: Not only do we love being a live band, but I think we try to give the same performance in a room of five people and a room of 10,000 people. We have a lot of respect for people who wanna spend their evening with us and who come out and see live music. We’re gonna try to leave it all on the stage and give it our all. We take it very seriously. I just want people to see us in our humanity and take what they need to take from it.
Izzy: On a related note, Johnny Brenda’s is the smallest room you’ve played here in quite some time, and I think one of the smaller rooms on the tour. How do you like playing extra intimate, sweaty barroom settings?
Julia: On this record store tour — on the last show, in Brighton — I played on top of my amp for the entire set, because that was the only place to stand, which I have never done in the history of our career. Sometimes these smaller rooms give you a chance to bring something else to the performance. Most of my favorite shows, that have been formative to me, have been in places like that. I’m just super excited to be at a venue as legendary as Johnny Brenda’s.
Izzy: At the time, you’re going to be on the road with Laveda, who also seem super cool. What are your thoughts on them? Are you excited to spend some time on the road with them?
Julia: I’m super excited! That’s one of the best parts of being on tour, getting to spend time with other bands in that kind of way. It could be nothing, or it could be relationships that last a lifetime. Getting to see how their shows develop is gonna be pretty amazing. I’m also super excited to tour with Gift, who are good friends of ours, and I think they represent a lot of cool rock coming out of New York right now. It’s gonna be a great tour, a great group of bands.
Izzy: Your currently scheduled/announced tour dates wrap at the end of June, so I’m curious how you’re hoping and planning to spend the remainder of the summer, whether relating to work or play?
Julia: Once the album is out and people start hearing it, you kind of never know what is gonna happen with the rest of the summer, if other festivals come up or where we’re gonna be. So, I’m looking forward to the summer surprises that always show up. But we’re always writing, always working, always in the pursuit of making this work. I’m just happy the album is out. Once something is out, it’s like a spider web. It just starts taking up space, and then you can get an idea of what you actually did. When it comes to the record, I’m excited to see how it continues to play out, and I imagine most of the summer will be related to that.
Izzy: Finally, and this is a totally personal question, but I heard that you characterized the new album as, “Belle and Sebastian meets Alice In Chains,” and I totally love both of them, but Belle and Sebastian is actually my all-time favorite band, so I’m curious to hear if you have any favorite works of theirs or experiences with them?
Julia: They asked us to go on tour around Twentytwo in Blue; we were supposed to open for them and we couldn’t because we had something else booked, maybe it was with Interpol. It was really a bummer, because that would’ve been so fulfilling. If you’re a fan of songwriting in general, you gotta love Belle and Sebastian. So many of those albums are absolute classics. I hope that that kind of combo doesn’t sound insane [laughs]. I think it makes sense on something like “Waiting For The Rain,” where you have a lot of instrumentation that feels sort of whimsical and a little bit twee in the way that some Belle and Sebastian stuff does, but always kind of toying around with this dissonance. I think it’s kind of an interesting crossroads for me that wasn’t totally intentional at the time. I think if it was your intent to make a record like that, it would probably be pretty crappy [laughs]. But I’m really glad that we were able to balance those influences on this record.
Izzy: I think it totally works, and I grew up listening to both of those acts. I mean, I’m 40 and a college professor and I feel like with younger generations, there’s less of a taboo in being into different genres than there was when I was growing up. Like, if you listened to this, you couldn’t listen to this. Whereas now I think there’s less of a regard for the notion of genre just in general.
Julia: Absolutely! I think you’re totally right! And I think it’s something that Gen Z does very well. Technically, I’m a Zillennial, like the youngest Millennial or oldest of the Gen Z, which I am going to hold onto for my life [laughs]. I think that Gen Z certainly has a real freedom when it comes to how they interact with the arts and music. And I think it can be hard sometimes for some of us who remember what it was like to feel a stronger culture, or ownership over subculture, and how that could help you kind of know yourself or define yourself within it. But I also admire their freedom, and I think it only benefits everyone to allow themselves to like what they like without judgement.
*Get your tickets here.
