The boys from The Sunshine Underground were unlike your average rockstars; lovely and chatty and it’s them who begin to ask questions first at our interviews. Thrown off guard, it takes us a bit too long to reply to the simple question “Where are you from?” and on our answer, Craig (lead singer) jumps in saying: “Oh! We played York Uni the other month” and Matt (drummer) adds: “Yeah, it was Freshers’ Week”. We pressed on, asking what they remembered from the week. “There was a massive firework display that looked like it cost a million pounds!” Craig commented, whilst Matt looked nonplussed and shrugged in agreement. After our initial knock down, our confidence was at full throttle.
We pressed them about their latest album, Nobody’s Coming To Save You, and how it differs from their debut, Raise The Alarm. Craig has obviously prepared for this and launches off straight away.
“It’s the first time we felt we were making an album, it’s like a project. We wanted a heavier guitar sound with this one; we thought our album didn’t sound as good as we did live”. Nobody’s Coming To Save You does indeed fit the bill with much more vibrant guitar tracks and less stereotypically indie sounds. We causally ask why the band left a four year gap between the albums and the answer came back clear and simple. “Pure laziness!” says Craig, who’s now getting into his stride.“We lost Matt to heroin addiction for three years,” nudging the drummer who hasn’t been able to get a word in edge-ways. “Our actual excuse: we toured for two and a half years and when we came to the end of the tour we felt we didn’t have enough to make another album.” Matt justifies the wait with: “a lot of bands rush their second album”.
On the issue of touring, the guys tell us: “we’ve got quite a history of playing this venue [Fibbers] and never once did it look like this; it looks like a real venue instead of a pub. It’s easier to feel more comfortable with a small crowd; it’s more intimate and I like that”. Craig talks about the festival experience being so unusual: “You never know what’s going to happen, whether it’s going to be your crowd or not, if it will be any good, snow or rain, you never know till you’re up there playing.” All in all it becomes clear that the band’s bread and butter is in venues like Fibbers, and although the odd festival is always welcome, they’d much rather play to 50 hardcore fans than thousands of people who are only waiting for crowd-pleaser ‘Borders’.
With the boys softened up by questions over tours and albums, we go in for the really hard questions – about Christmas! Excitement springs into Craig’s eyes as soon as presents are mentioned. “We should definitely get each other presents!” he exclaims, which incurs a grunt of disapproval from Matt. We feel that may have inadvertently caused a potential band rift that could have seen them spilt over this decisive issue before our very eyes. Thankfully this highly awkward hypothetical situation never occurred. “I’ll buy you a drink” is how Matt dodges around this issue and Craig, seemingly satisfied with this, goes onto to describe a detailed Christmas party with everyone part of the band which would involve a lot of dressing up.
We don’t let up with the hard questions and push to what we really want to know and ask what the New Year holds for the band. For Matt this involves “renting a mobile home and touring the south of England”, while Craig is a bit more elusive. “I might be DJing or getting really smashed, but you can’t really think about it too much because there’s all that pressure that you got to have a really good night and you shouldn’t really think about it”
And for New Year’s resolutions? We got a unanimous answer. An album every year, so that there’s something to fill your annual Christmas stocking.