The foursome brought about on the South West of France are now about to to embark on their biggest Summer in history. We caught up with band member Jed, whilst the lads were en route around Europe.

Hi guys! We are huge fans of yours here at SPG, how are things going for the four of you? Hiya! Yeah, it’s all going good! We just did our first show of our European tour in Brussels and we are now on the way to Amsterdam, so it’s all good, yeah.

Have you ever been to Amsterdam before?
Yeah I have been once years ago and I managed to go on a day where everything was closed! Because I’m from Newcastle, you can pick up a cheap day ferry, so I did that and when we arrived we got told it was Queens day, so everything was on lock-down. They had loads of people dressed in orange dancing to techno music, hopefully this time it’ll be a bit more fun.

Fantastic! For people who don’t know your music, tell us a bit about yourselves and your style.
People ask all the time and I’d say it’s really hard to pigeon hole it and define it, but we’re a rock band essentially. We have a few melodies and a few choruses, so I wouldn’t say we were any particular style, but if we like an idea that one of us comes up with then we’ll run with that.

You were recently on the list for BBC music sound of 2015! This must have been brilliant, how did that feel?
That was amazing! It was a really nice stamp of approval. After we researched it, we saw that the band’s that were on it we are really into and band’s that have been on it previously, it’s enhanced their careers. It’s just nice to know that people are supporting you.

Awesome, you’ve just released your new EP at the beginning of March too, have you got any albums in the pipeline?
Yeah, we’ve just been in Nashville finishing off the record. It was actually in Blackbird Studio’s, which is one of the best in the world. With the album, we’re aiming to get it out by the end of the year, but we’ve got a single coming out next. We just want to keep putting music out basically.

Some people are comparing you to likes of Kings of Leon, were they a musical inspiration at all? If not do you have any?
We all like different stuff; we’ve heard the ‘Kings of Leon’ reference quite a lot. Rory’s vocal is very original sounding but we all like a variety of sounds. It’s not like we sat down and said, ‘Should we have a style’, we just write music that we like and it comes from many different things.

Your name is obviously quite unique too, where did that originate?
That one came from me actually, so I can answer that one. I really feel like all the best band names sound like gangs, it’s like ‘The Rolling Stones’, it’s one of the best names ever. Not only that, but I wanted it to represent where we are from and how we met. One day I just wrote sunset, then sons came to me and I just put it together and took it to the lads. They weren’t all that into it at the start but now they all like it. With your name, it’s like a starting point and then you build yourself around it.

Cool, we noticed you’re soon starting a UK tour!?
Yeah, we’re touring in May! This tour we are on at the moment goes for two weeks then we roll straight over to England.

You’re coming to Norwich too! That’s where we live, have you ever been to East Anglia before?
Yeah we are playing Norwich! We’re going to The Waterfront, are you going to come down? I feel like I might have been to Norwich before on a family holiday with my dad but it would have been when I was younger. I look forward to it though, that’s the thing about doing what we do – you get to visit all these new places.

We’ll be there, look out for us in the crowd! Do you travel around in a tour bus? I imagine it would get a bit messy if you did.
We’ve got like a splitter van, all the gear in the back, us in the front and a little TV. There are six of us travelling around at the moment.

Who takes charge of the domestic activities, like cooking, cleaning, etc?
We are normally quite lucky because we can get in a Hotel where we can get some breakfast. We then find somewhere in the town we’re in to grab a cider and a sandwich or something like that.

Every location has such a unique vibe, what has been the best venue music has taken you too?
Ahhh, that’s a difficult one, but I’d have to say it was when we played in Koko in Camden, London. It was on Halloween last year and it was an NME club night, from that our tour manager warned us the kid’s might just be out to get pissed, but we went on and they knew all the words to our songs. There was 1600 of them, all dressed up and I think that has been my favourite gig so far, it was amazing!

Aside from the music, in your opinion who spends most time in the dressing room?
Haha! Rob does his hair a lot. But no, I’m not really sure, we’re all pretty quick to be honest, Rory might sing a few scales, but that’s it.

And if it wasn’t for music where do you think the four of you would be now?
We’d probably all be in Hossegor where we met, just doing various little jobs. Rory was washing dishes, so he’d probably go back to doing that, I think he quite liked it. Pete is still a qualified electrician, so when people ask him what he does, he doesn’t say he plays bass in a band, he say’s electrician. I’m not sure what Rob would be doing, he’s quite a good landscape gardener.

Superb, we hope to see you smashing the charts in the months to come, where do you think you’ll be in ten years time?
I don’t know mate actually, we’d all just like to be writing music and playing shows. We have managed to get to a point now where this is just a way of life for us, so it’s all about playing and making records. It’s a lot of fun and I like it, so if we can keep that going for as long as possible, we’ll all be happy. If not, I might end up going to work in a shoe shop. We’ve just got to enjoy it while we are doing it.

Brilliant, well best of luck for the future and thanks for chatting with us.
Yeah man, thanks, come see us at the Waterfront and say Hi, see you soon.

If you’re yet to catch when the Sunset Sons are going to be touring the UK, check out the dates below…

  • 1st May – Thekla, Bristol
  • 2nd May – Live at Leeds Festival, Leeds
  • 5th May – Waterfront, Norwich
  • 6th May – O2 Academy 2, Oxford
  • 7th May – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
  • 8th May – 02 Academy 2, Liverpool
  • 9th May – Whelan’s, Dublin
  • 12th May – Scala, London
  • 14th May – The Great Escape, London