It’s been almost a decade since New York’s Sunflower Bean burst onto the scene with 2016’s ‘Human Ceremony’, an exciting mix of genres and influences which sounded like exactly what it was – teenagers giddy with the thrill of creating music.
That excitement can only carry a band so far, and since then, they’ve evolved, always managing to be a step or two ahead of what’s expected of them. From the outside, it’s seemed effortless – helped along by their image as one of the coolest groups to come out of New York in quite some time. Internally, though, things weren’t quite so smooth. “It definitely was not business as usual!” laughs guitarist / vocalist Nick Kivlen, dialling in with bassist / vocalist Julia Cumming from Paris, where they recently wrapped up a run of dates supporting Cage The Elephant. “The two years leading up to recording [new album] ‘Mortal Primetime’ were probably the most difficult we’ve ever had as a band. A lot of stuff happened, which was basically the stereotypes of rock’n’roll horror stories, just without the sex or the drugs or the money.
“It was all the bad things about the lifestyle and being a unit together for years; it all came to a head at once – the band was in a very broken place, and there was a handful of core supporters who really pulled us through all that confusion.”
“What do they say about marriage?” interjects Julia. “‘Marriage is loving the person that you’ve signed up to love, through all the versions of themselves that die’, or something like that. Being in this band is a marriage of three people and all of us are artists, all of us are individuals, and what connects us is that we’ve all had the idea that what we do together is special and worth protecting.
“Along with that, there’s also the natural progression of growing up. Life has brought Nick to LA, wanting to explore there, Olive [Faber, the band’s drummer] has started her own project where she gets to be a front person, as well as going on her own journey. But through all of it, our manager, Krista, was never going to let us drift apart because I think she really knew that there was a lot more music we could make together if we could see that through.”
The result is ‘Mortal Primetime’, the band’s most accomplished work to date and one that more than proves their manager right. Crystallising what it is that’s always made Sunflower Bean work so well, flowing between genres but remaining anchored by some of the most honest and confessional lyrics they’ve ever written. It’s a vulnerability in part hard won by years of writing, touring, and maturing, but also from a sense that the pressure wasn’t quite as intense as it had been in the past.
“It kind of felt like we were playing with house money when we made it, to be honest,” says Nick. “Because I didn’t know that it was ever going to happen. Along with that, I didn’t have the skill when I was younger to fully realise what I wanted to say. I was always trying to point towards some sort of vibe or idea in an abstract or poetic way without quite knowing how to get there. Now it feels like I’m more in control and I think we all wanted to lean into thinking about how the music can reflect the meaning of the lyrics in a way that’s actually super powerful. What I’m most proud of on the album is that ability to combine lyric and melody into something greater than the sum of its parts.”
“I will also say,” adds Julia. “As much as Nick has been catastrophising the past few years, I think the biggest gift of the pandemic and all the difficulties which came during and after is that we got so much time to write. We’ve written so many songs and got closer and deeper to what those songs are supposed to do. And I think we’re in a time where what feels human and what feels vulnerable and what feels real is more and more previous, and it’s worth fighting for. Earlier in my career, I wanted to say a lot of the things I’ve said on this album, but I had to shroud them, because I didn’t know any other way.”
Alongside lyrical confidence, the band also decided to self-record the entirety of ‘Mortal Primetime’, something they first did on 2024’s ‘Shake’ EP. For a band who have always been so associated with the concept of DIY, right back to their frenetic early shows, it feels like not only a natural evolution, but something which chimes with the core of who they are. Not that all of the above makes it any easier in practice, though.
“I was spending 12 to 14 hours a day the whole month leading up to the record just obsessing over it and the fact that we were going to be self-producing,” says Julia with a groan. “Even though we’d already done the EP, a whole album is such a different proposition. Our engineer was asking what mic we wanted to use or what we wanted things to sound like, and for the first few days, I was just there thinking, ‘I… don’t…know?’ It felt like I was going to have a panic attack for the first three days of making this album.”
“Then again, I was not experiencing that at all,” Nick says. “I was like, ‘This is going great, who cares? Throw any old mic on it, sounds good to me!’”
“Ok, so Nick’s vibing, apparently, but I’m stressed,” laughs Julia. “My point being, it was stressful, but then you get over it, and you make decisions, and that’s how you grow. And the upshot is that when [lead single] ‘Champagne Taste’ came out, there was a very unexpected feeling on our side because not only are people hearing who we are as songwriters, but they’re also hearing what we think is important in the mix, what mics we actually do want to be using, they’re hearing more of us than they ever have on previous releases.
“Part of growing up is realising that you have as many rights as anyone else, even the people you most admire, to learn how to do these things. In the 70s and 80s, it was so expensive to get into the studio, and all the knowledge was gatekept from bands, but the way technology functions now is so different. We’ve always said that there’s no rulebook for this, no college course you can take, and one of the most important things you can do as an artist, or a band, is to show other people that they can do it too. All of us try to do that and try to live that, and I hope that if people like this record, they’ll also feel that they have the rights to learn everything and be in control of things as much as we have.”
“On the last album we wanted to lean into modern production, drum loops, sampling ourselves, all of that,” explains Nick. “On this album, we wanted to play together and make something that felt like a classic rock band. We have more in common with the Beatles, or The Who, or Led Zeppelin than we do with some bands and artists today.”
“I want to have as much confidence for one minute as this man does!” says Julia, open-mouthed at apparently being part of a contest with the biggest bands of all time.
“I think it’s undeniably true!” replies Nick. “That’s not me piling pressure on – I felt no pressure making this album; it just felt like I was back from the dead and wanted to see what happened. We had the opportunity and we just needed to go in and do what we do. I was just there thinking ‘I’m going to do exactly what I do when I’m recording myself at home, but there will be thousands of dollars of equipment and an engineer between me and the final output – hopefully, it will work out’ and of course it did!” he says with a laugh.
“Obviously, every band is going to say: ‘This is the bravest I’ve ever been, this is the most honest I’ve ever been’,” adds Julia. “I can’t imagine that feels unique to us, but when it comes to this record, I do think it’s true. When you’re younger, it feels like things might just continue the way that they are and you don’t understand the preciousness of it all. But this time around, we came into thinking about how we lifted each other up musically and which depths we wanted to go.
“When I listen to ‘Mortal Primetime’ I feel like we’re being brave. When you’re younger, you never think you could be braver than you are, but as life gets deeper, I’m increasingly proud of what we’re trying to stand for and the places that we’re willing to go with the songs. All I can do is hope that people love what we’ve made as much as I do.”
Sunflower Bean’s album ‘Mortal Primetime’ is out 25th April.
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