Following a string of successful releases, High Wycombe-based Only Sun have continued to develop their quirky sound and are back with a brand new single. Lives is out now.
A tongue-in-cheek response to modern society’s tendency to gossip, Lives is an instantly infectious slice of vibrant indie-pop. Filled with jangly hooks and a buoyant energy, Lives plays out like the bastard child of Hot Hot Heat playing Night Crawlers with Dananananaykroyd. The single showcases Only Sun’s vibrant charm and ability to create colourful, contagiously catchy creations that’ll have you up and dancing from first infectious listen.
In this interview spotlight, I chat with Only Sun about the latest release, challenges, motivations and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
Let’s dive a little deeper into You, the artist and your music. What attracted you to this genre(s) or style(s)?
The ability to at one moment be listening to something really fast and heavy which makes you wanna headbang and mosh but then next jumping around and dancing to a twangy riff but not feeling like there’s a real difference, it’s just all one sound that works.
Also going to shows and watching everyone, including the band, all having a great time and enjoying every moment of what they are playing/listening to.
What led you into this journey with music? And further, what drives you to push it out to the public?
Guitar Hero mainly. We all grew up discussing and appreciating music, this led to us playing around and doing covers before venturing out into writing and releasing. We think it’s important to release tracks because we enjoy writing songs and we want other people to enjoy them in the same way.
Who or what influences your creativity? Have your tastes in music changed over time?
We’ve got a huge range of influences; we all listen to varied genres. At the moment we are really into Marsicans, Superorganism and Kendrick Lamar. I think as a whole our music taste has matured and we’ve all become more open to new styles which feeds back into our music
Were you trying to accomplish anything specific on this new project? Creatively or otherwise?
We’ve always written a wide selection of genres so doing this year long campaign is allowing us to explore a whole variety of new ideas.
What was the last song you listened to?
I went to a Marsicans and Vistas gig last week so I’ve been listening to the two of them a lot recently.
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
I prefer vinyl for the whole experience but it’s so much easier to listen to mp3s so that’s what I listen to on a regular basis.
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
Spotify because they have featured us from our early releases. They also make it a lot easier to find new music and they champion a huge amount of great underground bands.
Other than the digital era overwhelming us with access to an abundance of music, what is the biggest challenge you face when trying to connect with or find new fans?
The biggest problem that we face as a band is that there is no scene in our hometown. We’re from just outside London so bands mostly gig there. Having a strong hometown scene gives a strong identity to those bands and helps to build important relationships with other acts.
Where is the best place to connect with you online? Discover more music?
You can find more tracks on our Spotify page or Soundcloud, just search Only Sun. We also have videos for all of our tracks on Youtube and that’s a great way to connect with the tracks.
Anything else you’d like to add before signing off?
We’ll be dropping a single on the first day of every month this year. Check out the video to our latest single ‘Lives’, it features a host of clips from Peep Show and we’re really proud of it.
