With the release of their second album Twentytwo In Blue last March, Sunflower Bean have been internationally acclaimed for their work and they are definitely on the right path to get all the success they deserve. These rising stars from New York have been selling out many venues during their UK tour and have already charted the top 20. The evolution from their very promising debut album Human Ceremony is quite conspicuous and the music business seems to have high expectations regarding their future as a band. Bassist/vocalist Julia Cumming, guitarist/vocalist Nick Kivlen and drummer Jacob Faber are all 22 and thanks to this triumphant record and live performances we can imagine how well they must be celebrating the passage to adulthood.
RAMzine: The UK tour seems to be pretty much sold out, what do you expect from it?
Julia: The UK is an amazing place for music. I think we are mostly excited just to finally get the songs out to people here because that will feel really full circle for the album. Music is super communicative for us, so playing live is a really important aspect of how we get our art across.
Jacob: Yeah we are super excited to be playing these songs in front of people. Also excited to explore them in a live setting. That is something that is valuable to us, being able to have the studio recordings exist as they do, but then also being able to explore the songs in different ways live.
RAMzine: Do you guys have a favourite song to play live?
Julia: My favourite song to play right now is ‘Memoria’ because we just re-worked it and made it really special!
Jacob: We just started playing ‘Only a Moment’ live and I’ve been loving that.
RAMzine: Your new album Twentytwo In Blue is finally out and you have received much positive feedback, how do you feel about it?
Julia: We are thrilled. We worked on this record very quietly, and knew why we were making it. We wanted to rely less on flashiness, and be able to really go inward instead of outward all the time. Moaning and stage diving are still huge parts of who we are but we just felt like there was more to us than that and wanted to show it.
Jacob: It’s been great! The best part is getting personal messages from people through Instagram or Facebook saying how much the music means to them.
RAMzine: What is the coolest thing that happened since the album came out?
Julia: We have charted really well here in England in the top 20, and that’s really special for us.
RAMzine: Three words to describe your new album?
Julia: Resilient, Hopeful, loveable.
RAMzine: What is the most memorable gig you have attended to?
Julia: I saw Iggy Pop in October at a festival and it was one of the best moments of my life. It’s like seeing all the stages of man existing in a one-hour long set.
Jacob: Yea Iggy Pop at Desert Daze in October of last year was pretty surreal. Bob Dylan at Firefly last summer. We were standing like 40 feet away and the pull of his performance was spellbinding. I didn’t think it would affect me so thoroughly as it did. He smiled and danced and I swear looked me directly in the eye. The musicians he was playing with were absolutely spectacular. One of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen.
RAMzine: Musically speaking, how do you take the comparison with Fleetwood Mac?
Julia: Fleetwood Mac are some of the best pop writers in modern musical history, so it is a great compliment! When we wrote this record, we were not attempting to be like Fleetwood Mac, we just wanted to be creative and concise.
RAMzine: What are your plans after the UK tour ends?
Julia: We will be touring Europe and the USA for the rest of the year, and we are definitely always looking forward to coming back to the UK! We love the people and also the fry-ups.
