Sunflower Bean’s sound has been steadily evolving since the release of their debut album, Human Ceremony. Their latest record, Mortal Primetime, is their heaviest and most fully realized record yet! We had the chance to talk to singer/bassist Julia Cumming from their tour van about the record, the tour, and, of course, it wouldn’t be a Spinning Platters interview if I didn’t ask about an early cult project from when they were a teenager. There are only two weeks left of their North American tour, and tickets are available here!
(Interview has been edited for clarity)
I’d never seen Sunflower Bean, and I still haven’t seen you guys live. But upon digging into this, I have seen YOU live… I saw your old band, Supercute! (with Rachel Trachtenburg open for Kate Nash. What was this experience like as a teenager going on tour with two “icons”?
Supercute! was, was, ? you know, it started when Rachel was 15 and when I was 13, and we had been friends since we were like 7 and 9 years old in the music scene in New York. Because my dad was a bass player, not professionally… His way of staying connected to the music scene was by offering to play bass for musicians he liked. ? And so he offered to play for the Trachtenburg Family Slide Show Player and on Jason Trachetenburg’s solo stuff. And then that was how I met Rachel. So when we started that band, she was stepping out of the project and starting her own thing. And, ? I had always wanted to be in a band. ? and I was sort of, there’s just no path for that. So I was always looking for a way to get into it. ? And I think it was a pretty amazing schooling in how to be an artist, especially conceptually, and how to commit to an idea. And you know, we had a lot of ethos even as children. ? And that idea has stuck with me as I’ve grown and continued to make work in the world is just to, you know, be able to stand behind what you care about and have that be a part of your artistic identity as well.
Sunflower Beans’ sound evolved a lot, pretty like between your first record and now- a bit heavier and less “twee.” What prompted that evolution?
You have the yin and yang there, where there’s always a sweet and a dark, or a sweet and intense. However, the needle has shifted slightly. You know, we’ve used the plethora of experiences that we’ve had to create the area where we feel comfortable and like ourselves. And I think the fact that we were able to self-produce the record is a big part of that, you know, because it’s just pretty, it’s in a lot of ways pretty unfiltered. Yeah, which is great. I feel a better connection to this one than the older stuff, which is fantastic. And yeah, that makes sense that it comes from there.
You’re a two-lead singer band. Does that ever create tension between you and Nick Kivlen?
The cool thing about where we’re at now is that a lot of those tensions that, you know, if you’ve made it here, you’ve made it through those. Do you know what I mean? Like, it doesn’t mean that that stuff doesn’t, you know, I think that stuff exists in any setting, but I think to get to this point. You also like; everyone knows where they stand in terms of tension, and everyone knows why they want to be there. So in a way kind of the time sets you free from the stuff that used to really bother you because you have a lot more acceptance about who you are and who everyone else is and it’s I think it’s kind of been in this era I feel like it’s a little bit more freeing than more tense which is really nice.
Will you continue self-producing because it works well for you?
I think I could, now that we’ve opened that up, I believe that we will, I don’t know, it was kind of like facing a monster head on… Like thinking something that you feel like you can’t do, and then, you know, just like, I don’t know, being faced with those insecurities and then getting through them. I think that, regardless, we now have that understanding, and I believe it will influence the rest of the music we create, allowing us to write and record together more easily. However, we’ve learned a great deal from the producers we’ve worked with. I hope that we can continue to work with producers of such a high caliber, and now we can apply the knowledge we have to make the music even deeper and more awesome in the future. You know, like no matter what, I think it’s a really skill that we have in our arsenal, no matter what the next thing is that we record. Yeah, yeah, I’m excited about what’s to come.
Full Tour Dates:
US Tour (with Gift #):
6/05 – San Diego, CA @ The Casbah #
6/06 – Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room #
6/07 – San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel #
6/9 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios #
6/10 – Seattle, WA @ Madame Lou’s #
6/12 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
6/13 – Fort Collins, CO @ The Coast #
6/14 – Denver, CO @ Hi-Dive #
6/17 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St. Entry #
6/19 – Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village #
6/20 – Detroit, MI @ Third Man Records
6/21 – Toronto, ON @ The Garrison
UK & EU Tour:
10/23 – Manchester, UK @ Yes
10/24 – Glasgow, UK @ Room 2
10/25 – Leeds, UK @ The Wardrobe
10/27 – Brighton, UK @ Patterns
10/28 – Bristol, UK @ Strange Brew
10/29 – London, UK @ The Dome
10/31 – Paris, FR @ La Boule Noire
11/1 – Amsterdam, NL @ London Calling
11/2 – Rotterdam, NL @ Rotown
