Chicago – The Baltimore boys of SUN CLUB have begun to turn heads with their cheerful indie rock, energetic live shows, and goofy personalities. Songs like “Beauty Meat” and “Summer Feet,” off the debut EP Dad Claps at the Mom Prom (Goodnight Records), leave you smiling and dancing along with the young, magnetic East Coasters, who often use actual refrigerator magnets to inspire their quirky song names.
While on tour with Wildcat! Wildcat!, Best New Bands caught up with Shane Justice McCord (Guitar & Vocals), Adam Shane (Bass), Devin McCord (Drums), Mikey Powers (Guitar & Vocals), and Kory Albert Johnson (Percussion, Keys & Vocals), on a stop in Chicago. In the dressing room of Schubas, between goofing off and telling stories, Sun Club spent some time chatting about music, magnets, and their upcoming full-length.
I read you use magnets to name your songs. Is this true?
Shane: Yes.
Do you just randomly put magnets together?
Shane: Yes, it’s a combination of random words like “Cheeba Swiftkick,” “Beauty Meat,” “Language Juice,” “Hot Unique Forest Moment.” “Dad Claps at the Mom Prom” was not off the refrigerator. Gotta be honest about that one. We’ve actually really been writing quite a few songs that haven’t come from the refrigerator… [like] “Summer Feet.” We just use the refrigerator as a basis now. We think in refrigerator magnets, even if we don’t have them.
What is the song “Dad Claps at the Mom Prom” about?
Mikey: The story behind the song? So basically we had, before playing the worst show we ever played in our lives, the van just didn’t leave. It just stayed in the driveway. It just didn’t move.
Shane: We were on our way to CMJ.
Mikey: Yeah, we were trying to go to New York, so we had to borrow my parent’s, at the time, very, very broken truck.
Shane: We all got into the van, all of our stuff in there. Everyone’s like okay let’s go. We put it in reverse, and it wouldn’t move.
Adam: We were already late for the show.
Mikey: So then we played the worst show we ever played and will ever play because we didn’t have our equipment, and it was raining. It was terrible, but on the way back home, after all of this goes down, smoke starts pouring out from the front of the van. We were like, “What’s wrong with the car?” We can’t figure it out. Kory’s like, “Dude, it’s not over-heating.” Then Adam sits up in the back, from his weird sloth-like slumber thing that he was in while this whole situation was going on, and he gets up and was just like, “If it ain’t over heatin, it’s over sweetin.”
Shane: It was a really stressful time, and he just said that. Everyone was like, “What did you just say?”
Did you make it home?
Shane: Barely.
Let’s talk about “Summer Feet.” This song puts me in a great mood. What inspired it? And did you write it in the summer?
Shane: We wrote it in the summer. [Devin and I] hadn’t been playing or writing music with each other for a month and a half, and then we got back [from being out of town]. Both of us got back on the same day. We wrote it that day and played a show that night. That night we played a crazy sold-out show in Baltimore. It was really awesome.
You have a really interesting sound. What types of music do you guys listen to? What artists inspire you?
Shane: Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of eighties music. Like the Talking Heads, but not necessarily their eighties stuff. Some of their late seventies stuff is really good. Some David Bowie, New Order. Mikey’s been really into The Cure. I like The Cure, too. We all love The Cure, I think… There’s one more band I’ve been listening to a lot lately. Oh, The Beach Boys, but that’s been happening for a while now.
Mikey: Well, The Cure is huge for me right now, especially with songwriting. The Cure is probably at the top. But I feel like I’ve also just listened to a lot of post music, that’s like kind of shoe-gazy. I listen to a lot of super noisy, aggressive kind of stuff.
Shane: Oh, I remember! There’s this guy. He released an album in 1960. His name is Joe Meek… He has this album called I Hear a New World, and it’s so good! It came out in 1960, but it sounds like it’s from now. It was ahead of The Beatles, The Beach Boys. It was ahead of everything! It’s insane! You gotta listen to it.
Mikey: I think I can say this for everyone. I don’t mean to talk for everyone, but just from observations, we all get down to some Future Islands, you know. (everyone in the band cheers yes.) Future Islands, Animal Collective. But Kory is probably the most specific… he’s always doing his own little thing.
Kory: I’m doing my own little thang, you know. I have a lot of music. I could go for The Kills or Tom Waits. Either one. They’re really good. I really appreciate a lot of stuff.
Devin: I really like the Talking Heads, Animal Collective. Somebody once said that could describe us, so that’s pretty cool… Adam really likes Mariah Carey. (laughs)
Do you have a release date for your upcoming full-length?
Devin: We do not have a release date, but we’re planning on releasing it in the spring or early summer. We’re pretty much done recording it.
Shane: We recorded it in a really big warehouse in Baltimore. It has a lot of that reverb sound to it. We {recorded] it live in the warehouse. It was very cool.
SUN CLUB will be touring with Alvvays this December, including a performance at the Tomorrow Never Knows Fest. Click HERE for tour dates, and click HERE to purchase Dad Claps at the Mom Prom.
Sarah Hess
After attending The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Sarah went on to study education at Dominican University, earning a degree in history. When not teaching, writing, or taking in a show, she is most likely to be found with a camera to her eye or hanging out in a darkroom.
You can follow Sarah Hess on twitter at @Sarahhasanh and view her music photography on her website: smhimaging.com.
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