Sunsets

14 March 2012 | 6:48 pm | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

Sunsets are rapidly gaining ground in the Australian pop punk scene. Blending the pop punk aesthetic of bands like Hit The Lights and With The Punches with heavier influences from hardcore and metalcore, their sound is mosh-friendly and full of energy. Their debut EP ‘We’re In This Together’ opened up many doors for the band, sending them on tour to assault stages across the East Coast. Drummer Andrew Cooke recently spoke with Kill Your Stereo about the band’s plans for 2012.

Sunsets are rapidly gaining ground in the Australian pop punk scene. Blending the pop punk aesthetic of bands like Hit The Lights and With The Punches with heavier influences from hardcore and metalcore, their sound is mosh-friendly and full of energy. Their debut EP ‘We’re In This Together’ opened up many doors for the band, sending them on tour to assault stages across the East Coast. Drummer Andrew Cooke recently spoke with Kill Your Stereo about the band’s plans for 2012.

Tell me a bit about yourself and your role in the band?

Hey guys! My name’s Andrew and I play in the band Sunsets. We are a pop-punk band based in Brisbane, Australia. I play drums and have a management role in the band booking shows, organizing tours, merch printing, and a heap of other things. I’ve been playing in bands for about 6 years now, and started this band about a year and half ago now.

The band incorporates a wide variety of genres into their music. Do you identify more with hardcore or pop punk?

We incorporate aspects really of both the genres. I would say we are a pop-punk band more than anything. We draw our influences mainly from pop-punk bands like Hit The Lights, With The Punches and Me Vs Hero. In saying that, we all still listen to, and draw influence from a lot of hardcore bands. Everyone we’ve met through pop punk music have been the nicest people we’ve ever met, and we have made so many close friends in the short time we have been together, it’s been really awesome.

What influenced the decision to take the easycore route, rather than a more traditional pop punk style?

We started jamming and straight away had three or so songs for our first EP “We’re In This Together” and they just started coming out sounding the way they did. There’s not many bands in Australia doing the Easycore style and we just really loved writing in that direction. A plus side of this as well is that we get to play with both our favourite pop punk bands, and heavier hardcore bands as well.

What are some of the main stylistic influences behind the band’s sound?

I think for myself coming from playing in hardcore bands for a while, I bring the hardcore writing structure into the band, and being the drummer probably explains why I’m so pedantic when it comes to the structure of a song. The other guys who have been in more pop punk and alternative bands have brought their influence into the writing process as well and we all bounce ideas off of each other really well. I think ultimately we all love the sound of the songs. Every time we hear them it makes us more and more stoked to be playing this style of music which has such a happy vibe to it.

The band recently tripped down to Sydney for the weekend. What were some of the highlights of the trip?

Our recent trip to Sydney was great, this time we played more shows, and had some time off to do a bit more sightseeing then last time we went down. We were lucky enough to play with Confession at Hot Damn, and then played two all ages pop punk shows, which were really fun shows. If anyone’s watched our video from the tour they would see the horse mask we took down with us, which provided a lot of entertainment driving through the city talking to people with it on haha

How does the Sydney scene compare to Brisbane?

Sydney is great because the pop punk scene down there is growing really fast, a lot of new bands are popping up and a heap of shows get put on fairly regularly. In Brisbane, mixed genre bill shows are more popular because pop punk is still growing into its own genre up here. In Sydney from what I’ve seen so far, all pop punk shows still pull just as many kids as hardcore shows.

The band has been making a bit of waves with shows recently. Do you have any notable shows or tours planned for later in the year?

At the moment we have just been buckling down in preparation for recording our next release. This month we are playing two shows with Skyway as part of their single release tour, along with an 18 show with our friends from Melbourne The Playbook. After that we head into studio to record, and then are aiming to put together another East Coast run of shows for around July/August.

Are there any plans to record and release a follow-up to ‘We’re In This Together’?

Yes there is! We are really excited to head into the studio in about a months time to start recording for our new EP. We are going to be recording with Daniel Field at Studio 454 in Brisbane. Dan has recorded some awesome bands such as Skyway and The Amity Affliction. We are really keen to have him on board with us and to begin working with him.

Will the band experiment with their sound at all on the new EP?

Yes we will be, but I think this CD will be more about refining our sound. The new songs we have written are coming out sounding so much better then the first EP and our writing style has definitely progressed, we are aiming to nail our own sound on this next release.

Tell us about the craziest thing the band has ever done?

Show wise, would be when we played with Tonight Alive in Brisbane to 300 kids, it was the craziest show we’ve ever played. Every support band sold about 50 presale tickets each and the show was in this massive concert hall, it was nuts! Non-gig related, would probably be when we went to Byron Bay for the Such Gold show at the youth centre and jumped off the cliff at the quarry there into the creek. It’s probably like a 25 metre drop, it was a long way down haha

What does the future hold for Sunsets?

We love to tour more, and it’s all the kids the come to shows, jump around, buy merch and listen to our tracks that make this all possible, so keep it up guys! We aim to be touring a lot more frequently before the end of this year, getting to towns that we haven’t hit yet. I would love to see us overseas at some point next year, but only time will tell if we can make that dream a reality that quickly ;)

Are there any comments you’d like to finish on?

Just to keep an eye out for new recordings! We are in the process of planning a filmclip for one of the new songs as well, so expect to see that dropped shortly after we are out of the studio, along with the release date for the new cd and tour dates announced. Thanks for taking the time to read this and hope to see you at a show soon!