Wearing Band Merch a Curse? Come watch Sunflower Bean latest music video
Photo Credit: Driely S
Tour Dates
4/06/22 - Birmingham, UK @ Mama Roux's
4/07/22 - London, UK @ Electric Ballroom
4/09/22 - Bristol, UK @ Thekla
4/10/22 - Portsmouth, UK @ The Wedgewood Rooms
4/11/22 - Brighton, UK @ Concorde 2
4/30 - Boston, MA - Brighton Music Hall +
5/05 - Washington, DC - Union Stage +
5/06 - Asbury Park, NJ - Asbury Lanes +
5/12 - New York, NY - Webster Hall • +
5/14 - Philadelphia, PA - The Foundry +
5/19 - Detroit, MI - The Loving Touch #
5/20 - Chicago, IL - Bottom Lounge #
5/21 - Minneapolis, MN - Fine Line #
5/22 - Madison, WI - High Noon #
5/24 - Grand Rapids, MI - The Pyramid Scheme #
5/25 - Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop #
5/26 - Toronto, ON - Lee’s Palace #
6/01 - San Diego, CA - Soda Bar $ %
6/02 - Los Angeles, CA - Fonda Theatre $ %
6/04 - San Francisco, CA - The Independent $*
6/07 - Portland, OR - Mississippi Studios $%
6/08 - Vancouver, BC - Wise Hall $%
6/09 - Seattle, WA - The Crocodile $%
6/11 - Denver,CO - Bluebird Theatre%
• Mannequin Pussy
$ Palehound
+ Hello Mary
# Jackie Hayes
% - Liily
* - Fake Fruit
New York trio Sunflower Bean—vocalist and bassist Julia Cumming (she/her), guitarist and vocalist Nick Kivlen (he/him), and drummer Olive Faber (she/they)—are gearing up to release their long-awaited new album, Headful of Sugar, next month. Following the previously released “Who Put You Up To This?,” “Baby Don’t Cry” and “Roll The Dice” is “I Don’t Have Control Sometimes,” out today. On the track Cumming revels in a period of recklessness and instability that brought her to the breaking point that made this new album such a force. But there’s no darkness to mine here "I Don’t Have Control Sometimes” is a jangly, bright pop song reminiscent of The Cure, confident in its refusal to be apologetic. “I don’t care what tomorrow thinks/ Today I’m totally mine,” Cumming sings, her scintillating vocals communicating a witticism and self-awareness that swallows any suffering beneath.
“I’ve always thought that my reckless side was both a gift and a curse, leading me to my best choices on stage but my worst choices in life,” explains Cumming. “I don’t have control sometimes is the admission, acceptance, and almost celebration of the parts of yourself that are impulsive or maybe even insane.”
Sunflower Bean released their sophomore album Twentytwo in Blue in 2018, which skyrocketed to the UK’s Top 40, and quickly followed it with 2019’s King of the Dudes EP, which saw the band’s Triple A debut with “Come For Me.” Now, three years later, the band returns with their long-awaited third studio album. Headful of Sugar will be released on May 6 via Mom + Pop, and follows Sunflower Bean navigating the agony and ecstasy of contemporary American life. “Tomorrow is not promised, no tour is promised, no popularity is promised, no health or money is promised,” bassist/vocalist Julia Cumming says. “Why not make what you want to make on your own terms? Why not make a record that makes you want to dance? Why not make a record that makes you want to scream?” A psychedelic headrush designed to be played loud with the windows down, Headful of Sugar features songwriting collaborations with the likes of Shamir, Suzy Shinn and Jacob Portrait (who also produced, mixed and co-engineered the record with Faber).
Pre-order Headful of Sugar HERE
Sunflower Bean are known for their singular live performances, which has seen them perform at major festivals like Glastonbury, Governors Ball, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Reading & Leeds, and tour with the likes of Beck, Cage the Elephant, Interpol, Courtney Barnett, The Pixies, The Kills, DIIV, Courtney Barnett, and Wolf Alice, and even open for Bernie Sanders during his primary campaign rallies. Now, the band is gearing up to get back on the road for a massive Spring tour in support of Headful of Sugar. See below to find a show near you and get your tickets HERE.
Headful of Sugar is about outsiders disillusioned with the modern world; they search for freedom and meaning in a culture that runs on the 24-hour newscycle, soulless laptop jobs, and dozens of brands of hard seltzer. In spite of their alienation, these misfits refuse to be beaten down, buoyed by the relief found in interpersonal relationships that counteract the daily barrage of cheap entertainment and convenience. “We wanted to write about the lived experience of late capitalism, how it feels everyday, the mundanity of not knowing where every construct is supposed to ultimately lead you,” Nick Kivlen says. “The message is in the title: this is about fast pleasures, the sugar of life, the joy that comes with letting go of everything you thought mattered.”
If their acclaimed sophomore LP, Twentytwo in Blue, was a self-described “ode to the fleeting innocence of youth,” then Headful of Sugar shoves the listener into a new, dangerous world, one that is less safe but also less suffocating. This ethos offered Sunflower Bean a freedom they hadn’t experienced before. They came up as teenagers in a New York music scene oversaturated by indie and always felt like their music, designated firmly in the category of “rock,” didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the city’s output. Nevertheless, they amassed a following rivaled by few of their contemporaries, made up of young people staring down a terrifying future and finding camaraderie in the eclectic rock ‘n’ roll aesthetics championed on Sunflower Bean’s earlier work.
While Sunflower Bean have cited both contemporary and classic influences in the past, they didn’t look to the rock canon for inspiration for this new album.”We worked quickly and passionately in primary colors, following only our instinct of what inspired us in the moment, says Kivlen. “We weren't precious about anything, there was a gleeful anarchy.” Recording largely at home allowed drummer Olive Faber to step into the role of engineer for the first time, offering Sunflower Bean a sense of solitude and safety that a traditional studio environment can’t. “We didn’t have to rely on anyone outside of the band and our producer, Jake Portrait, to get Headful of Sugar made,” Faber says. “Self-sufficiency helped us tell the story we wanted to tell.”
These songs aren’t always autobiographical, and in co-writing, the members of Sunflower Bean seek to tap into alter-egos who resonate with the listener, like archetypes in a film. Nevertheless, the songs speak to members as individuals, too. For Faber, who recently came out as transgender, the album offers up a sense of promise that a different kind of life is possible. “Even though Julia and Nick handle the lyrics, these songs speak to my experiences as a trans person. I relate to the sense of willfulness I hear in them, this urge to roll the dice and let yourself make huge life changes in pursuit of happiness,” she says.
Headful of Sugar is an album that seeks to answer the question, “What do we lose as individuals if we have no faith in the future?” And, conversely, the band finds resolution instead with, “What might we gain?”
