Ihr Sound liegt irgendwo zwischen Tom Petty, Kings of Leon und den Red Hot Chili Peppers. Die erste EP tauften sie "Le Surfing", nach der Bar in der alles begann. Dann ging alles Schlag auf Schlag: Plattenvertrag, Festival Gigs, internationale Bekanntheit und schließlich das Debütalbum.

Nicht schlecht für vier Surfer, die vor drei Jahren die Band gründeten, um damit vor allem ihre Rechnungen bezahlen zu können. Vor der kommenden Deutschland-Tour, habe ich Drummer Jed zwischen Tür und Angel erwischt.

JB: How are ya Jed? Let’s just start this off from scratch. Talk about humble beginnings: I’ve seen a picture of that dinky van you guys rolled through the alps with. Seems to me like it’s a bit of a miracle, that you’re even alive today. What was it like, navigating those dodgy mountain roads?

JL: Hey Mate – Yeah, that’s actually where the name of the album came from. We were driving home really late one night in a crazy fucking blizzard and nearly got shunted off the road and down a cliff by a piste basher. We were all like: ‘we’re gonna die tonight’. Rory (who occasionally gets these things mixed up) said: ‘No, we Very Rarely Say Die’. We all fell about laughing and when it came to naming the record, it was an obvious choice.

JB: Mountain roads, ey? Personally, I fuck’n hate après ski music. How did you keep your sanity during your stint in the alps? What’s the ski-resort-band-scene like?

JL: You’re right. Most of the bands up there are shit, kinda wedding type bands playing bland tunes to punters. We were never that musically talented but played better tunes with drunken enthusiasm. The seasonnaires seemed to respect us for that.

JB: Sure, you could call it that… So tell me about the transition from the coverband-gig to the sunset sons. One to pay the bills and the other as a labor of love kind of thing? Or a natural progression?

JL: We’d played a couple of seasons and when we got back down to Hossegor in the summer, we just all decided we fancied trying to write some tunes. The first one was pretty shit, the second was ’She Wants’. We kept the cover band thing going for a little while, as it was the best way for us to stay together as a unit and make a few quid. I remember the day I turned the Facebook page off.

JB: Could’ve just changed the name… how about dawnpatrol dudes?

JL: Haha. Naah! I don’t like getting up early. It’s rare I see a sunrise…unless I haven’t been to bed. 

JB: Fair enough! The music-press and mainstream media are fairly quick to classify. With your surfing-background and that name, any issues with being pigeonholed?

JL: People are always going to be pretty quick to judge. I don’t expect some spotty little teenager living in a bedsit in Camden to have any idea about the life we’ve come from. When we started, we were sleeping in our vans and living on baguettes and €1 bottles of red wine. We made a band so we could continue to live the life we wanted by the beach. We never sat and played ukuleles around a campfire. I think they should be burned. And those dicks with the bongos. There’s always some dick with a drum on the beach, isn’t there?

JB: Ha! Is that why you say, that surfing doesn’t define the sunset sons – is that strictly musically speaking? I mean, would the band even have formed, if you all didn’t surf?

JL: Surfing doesn’t define Sunset Sons, no. It’s just something we all like to do. You’re right though, without surfing we wouldn’t have met. That’s why we were all in Hossegor. 

JB: And what was going on when success first hit you? When it all exploded how did you cope with the ensuing madness?

JL: We just got on with it. There was never a plan with this band. We wrote a few tunes and made an EP. Put it out and it went in the charts. Labels started calling and before we knew it we were up and away. We haven’t really stopped since. It’s been a fucking blast though!

JB: Seeing as this whole thing started to fund your surf-lifestyle, your success is almost counterproductive to the cause. Do you get in the water as often as you like nowadays?

JL: It’s right that we don’t get in the water as much as we would like these days but we do have a pretty good time, all the time. The first couple of tours we did in the UK, we stuck to the coastal towns so we could surf between the shows. We’ve moved on a little since then but whenever we get the chance, we’re back in Hossegor.

JB: Really dig your debut album. Took you quite a while to record it, right? What was that process like?

JL: It did take a little while to come together. But you only get one chance to make your debut record. We started it in Nashville about 18 months ago and recorded in Blackbird Studios with Jacquire King. He’s a total legend of a man and a great producer. We came back from Nashville and went straight into a pretty big tour and then it was festival season. We were writing all the time and by the end of last summer, we had a bunch more tunes we wanted to record and give a chance to be on the record. We decided to finish it in the little studio next to where we all live in Hossegor. James Lewis, who produced our first couple of EPs, helped us finish the record and get the sounds we were looking for. We recorded one of the songs in Wales too, and one in London. The album has travelled the world with us.

JB: Well before you start your next Euro-Tour… We’re always giving away free trips in our blue time-machine at the end of these interviews. Future or past, your choice. Where would you go and what would you do?

JL: Nice! Can I go to some island in the Mentawais please? With a bunch of mates and a nice hollow right hander. Maybe Prince could come too and play us a few tunes?

JB: You got it! Famous last words?

JL: And Why Not!

JB: Sweet as, cheers Jed! 

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Die Live-Shows haben es in sich und die Jungs geben immer 120%. Check ’em out!
TOUR-DATEN HERBST 2016