"When we were done touring our second record, we were exhausted being Bad Suns," admits singer/guitarist Christo Bowman. "We just decided to do whatever the fuck we wanted."
It's not surprising that BAD SUNS felt burned out: After forming as teenagers in 2012, a pair of beloved albums (2014's Language & Perspective, which peaked at #24 on the Billboard 200, and 2016's Disappear Here) launched the LA-based quartet onto tours with the likes of the 1975 and Halsey, festivals like Coachella and the homepages of Alternative Press and NYLON -- with the latter hailing Bad Suns as "the sort of rock that we just never get enough of."
By the time their 2019 Epitaph debut, Mystic Truth, rolled around, the band -- Bowman, guitarist Ray Libby, drummer Miles Morris, and bassist Gavin Bennett -- needed a breath, a proverbial gap year after the crash-course education they received going straight from high-school halls into the indie-rock pressure cooker.
As a result, LP3 was a little softer around the edges, more contemplative, introspective, and somber but still resonant enough to introduce Bad Suns to some of the largest audiences of their career, including a slot on Lollapalooza's main stage and on the soundtrack of Jason Reitman's 2020 COVID-confined miniseries remake of The Princess Bride.
"We loved making Mystic Truth," Bowman says. "We did a lot of growing up during that time. It was really important for us to make that record, but we were also really eager to get back to being Bad Suns again."
It's that unmistakable Bad Suns sound -- Apocalypse Whenever features dreamy, pulsing '80s synthesizers, flanked by Stratocasters through cranked Vox amps; and palpable, rhythmic energy -- that endeared listeners to the band in the first place, and their fourth LP, Apocalypse Whenever, uses that musical foundation as the jumping-off point for their next evolution.
Conceived as "the soundtrack to a movie that doesn't yet exist," the 13-track album, helmed by longtime producer Eric Palmquist (MUTEMATH, Thrice) at his Palmquist Studios and the band's North Hollywood rehearsal spot, is more conceptually rigorous than anything they've ever attempted -- but no less compelling or accessible.
"We wanted to make something very poppy and forward-looking while not abandoning the past," Bowman explains. "We also knew we wanted the album to have a through-line, a story from beginning to end."
So the band did what any good directors would: They assembled a mood board, filtering their neo-noir version of Los Angeles through the dreamlike haziness of author Haruki Murakami, the futuristic flair of Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Blade Runner, and the lifted cinematography of Spike Jonze's HER.
These disparate influences don't just offer APOCALYPSE WHENEVER an expanded palette of sonic choices to color Bad Sun's airtight hooks -- they help give the songs an emotional complexity that works on a multitude of levels depending on how listeners choose to receive them.
Read one way, the title track is a jocular kiss-off to pandemic-era anxieties as well as the realization that, at some point, normalcy must start again. But on a much deeper level, it serves as the scene-setter for the cinematic story ahead, as the album's protagonist washes up on the shores of a fictionalized LA after a near-death experience at the hands of the turbulent ocean.
From there, the band dovetail into flashbacks, tracing the totality of the character's life through a soft-glow vignetting: blissful summer romance ("Peachy"), aching nostalgia ("When The World Was Mine"), hurts-so-good Smiths-ian hubris ("Life Was Easier When I Only Cared About Me"), heartbreaking disaffection ("Wishing Fountains"), and unconditional love ("Symphony Of Lights," originally written during the Mystic Truth sessions).
"Throughout the course of the album, the main character is forced to re-evaluate everything that's happened in their life," Bowman explains. "Ultimately, the takeaway they're left with is, 'This could all end at any time, so instead of moaning about things, I'm going to make the most of it.'"
A salient parable for the last year, sure, but ultimately a universal mantra we'd all be wise to adopt long into the future. Bad Suns have been there themselves, brave enough to take a sonic detour when they felt the pull of something more, then confident enough to follow that muse back to the unimpeachable qualities they were founded on nearly a decade ago.
It's this maturity to let the internal compass guide the way that's gotten them to this point, and it's what keeps them pushing toward the most fully realized version of Bad Suns possible on APOCALYPSE WHENEVER -- that, and a little friendly competition.
"There are bands out there that sound like us, but none of them do it as well as we do," the singer says with a laugh. "If that's the case, we might as well keep doing it."
~~~~~~~~
With the release of Disappear Here, Bad Suns' impressively wise and honest sophomore album, it is hard to believe the four-piece began as a chance friendship between Christo Bowman (vocals) and Gavin Bennett (bass) in a 7th grade Los Angeles County classroom. The pair picked up Miles Morris (drums) and Ray Libby (guitar) along the way, and together they spent their teenage years navigating the daunting Los Angeles music scene.
While many would consider the vast history and densely populated musical turf of Los Angeles intimidating, Bad Suns rose to the challenge. As Bowman recalls, "I can recount many instances where we'd play the Whisky a Go Go along with five terrible glam-rock-wanna-be bands. It made us want to do something different and work towards a new era of the Los Angeles sound." While finding their place in LA's scene wasn't easy, Bowman is also thankful for the innumerable opportunities that come with living in one of the nation's musical capitals. "Our band was discovered because we drove to KROQ and dropped off a demo in their mailbox," he says, "At the end of the day, nobody's going to care about your band unless you've got some good songs for them."
The song that caught the ear of KROQ DJ Kat Corbett was "Cardiac Arrest," the band's first and breakthrough single, on her Locals Only radio show. From there, the band earned the attention of Vagrant Records, who signed Bad Suns in 2013 and introduced the band to producer Eric Palmquist (Night Riots, MUTEMATH). Together, Palmquist and Bad Suns polished up the demos to create TRANSPOSE, their debut 4-song EP which was released later that year. On the strength of the EP Bad Suns began to tour throughout the US alongside acts like Geographer, The 1975, and The Vaccines.
Less than a year later, Bad Suns returned with their debut full-length, Language & Perspective (2014/Vagrant). The shimmery alt-rock album, also produced by Palmquist, showed off the young band's wide array of influences, which Bowman often says include The Cure, The Clash and Elvis Costello. "Cardiac Arrest" began to pick up steam at radio nationally and climbed the Alternative chart (#14) and AAA (#11), and earning the band their debut Late Night television performance on Conan. With the success of "Cardiac Arrest" and a heavy touring schedule, Language & Perspective rose to #24 on the Billboard 200 and was included on many critics' best of 2014 year-end lists. "Salt," the band's second single, followed suit and quickly climbed the Alternative chart and earned Bad Suns their first mtvU Woodie nomination for Video of the Year, a performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and their debut at Coachella.
Just a few years into their budding career, Bad Suns had achieved no small amount of success with their debut record, something which can often be daunting for a young band staring down the barrel of a sophomore album. Instead of shying away or playing it safe, Bowman began to refine a set of songs which would become Disappear Here, Bad Suns' 2016 sophomore album (Vagrant/BMG). Disappear Here shows the maturation of a band on the brink of fully realizing their identity and poised for a breakthrough.
"Language and Perspective was four teenagers trying to figure out how to make an album as a way to avoid college and real jobs," Bowman explains, "With this album, it was our real job, and we were not gonna half-ass it. We love the work."
Bowman was reading the Bret Easton Ellis novel Less Than Zero, a book about the distorted lives of young adults in Los Angeles, during the time the band was beginning the recording process for album number two. "Maybe the second or third time the 'Disappear Here' billboard appears in the narrative, it sort of just hit me like a ton of bricks. It encapsulated absolutely everything. What a prompt, 'put on this record, put on these headphones, and just disappear here for a little while,'" Bowman explains.
"It's a roller coaster ride between pessimism and optimism," he says. "I wanted these real moments of darkness to be represented and discussed, because we all go through it, but it's really about hope and saying that you don't have to succumb to that darkness. There is a light."
Recorded over two sessions in the Summer of 2015 and Winter of 2016, the album begins with the title track and first single "Disappear Here," a cut that immediately engages listeners. The first song released in anticipation of the album was the opener, title track, and first single, "Disappear Here," followed by the album's second song, "Heartbreaker," which debuted on Zane Lowe's Beats1 Radio Show. "Off She Goes" holds a strong emotional connection for Bowman. The track came to life as just melodies and chords on the piano before he wrote the lyrics and he remembers, "just being moved to tears the whole way through."
Conversely, "Love Like Revenge" started off as an electronic laptop demo recorded on a plane back to LA from London. Bowman was excited to share the track with his bandmates, "I gave Ray my headphones, looking for his opinion, and I still remember his face of approval as he listened to it in the seat next to me on the plane. That's the best. We're always aiming to impress one another." The unique instrumentation makes it a standout on the record.
"Defeated," a track that Bowman penned when he was only 16 years old, had been cyclically recorded and abandoned over the years. "It was a huge relief to finally get that song where we wanted it," he says, "It's one of the simplest songs on the album, but was the most difficult to work through." "Daft Pretty Boys" is a song the band is particularly proud of, one that they might point new listeners to as an introduction to their sound. Disappear Here closes with "Outskirts of Paradise," a track that feels like a breezy, late summer day in Los Angeles. With the simple refrain of "separate yourself / integrate yourself / when the time comes," Disappear Here fades out, with all the certainty and uncertainty of a coming of age tale.
Crafted for the live show, Bad Suns can't wait to take the album on the road. After serving as main support on massive tours for The Neighbourhood and Halsey in the past year, Bad Suns embark on their biggest headlining tour yet this fall. "Our fans are so warm and loyal. A lot of them will go through some shit in order to make it out to one of our concerts. I'm talking flights, busses, 12-hour car drives, you name it. That will always be very special to me," Bowman says, "We're really grateful to be in this position where we can sell out clubs across the country, and we still feel we have so much to prove."
Tickets for the show at The Catalyst with Kid Bloom & Little Image: https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/5284232/bad-suns-with-kid-bloom-little-image-santa-cruz-the-catalyst
show less
It's not surprising that BAD SUNS felt burned out: After forming as teenagers in 2012, a pair of beloved albums (2014's Language & Perspective, which peaked at #24 on the Billboard 200, and 2016's Disappear Here) launched the LA-based quartet onto tours with the likes of the 1975 and Halsey, festivals like Coachella and the homepages of Alternative Press and NYLON -- with the latter hailing Bad Suns as "the sort of rock that we just never get enough of."
By the time their 2019 Epitaph debut, Mystic Truth, rolled around, the band -- Bowman, guitarist Ray Libby, drummer Miles Morris, and bassist Gavin Bennett -- needed a breath, a proverbial gap year after the crash-course education they received going straight from high-school halls into the indie-rock pressure cooker.
As a result, LP3 was a little softer around the edges, more contemplative, introspective, and somber but still resonant enough to introduce Bad Suns to some of the largest audiences of their career, including a slot on Lollapalooza's main stage and on the soundtrack of Jason Reitman's 2020 COVID-confined miniseries remake of The Princess Bride.
"We loved making Mystic Truth," Bowman says. "We did a lot of growing up during that time. It was really important for us to make that record, but we were also really eager to get back to being Bad Suns again."
It's that unmistakable Bad Suns sound -- Apocalypse Whenever features dreamy, pulsing '80s synthesizers, flanked by Stratocasters through cranked Vox amps; and palpable, rhythmic energy -- that endeared listeners to the band in the first place, and their fourth LP, Apocalypse Whenever, uses that musical foundation as the jumping-off point for their next evolution.
Conceived as "the soundtrack to a movie that doesn't yet exist," the 13-track album, helmed by longtime producer Eric Palmquist (MUTEMATH, Thrice) at his Palmquist Studios and the band's North Hollywood rehearsal spot, is more conceptually rigorous than anything they've ever attempted -- but no less compelling or accessible.
"We wanted to make something very poppy and forward-looking while not abandoning the past," Bowman explains. "We also knew we wanted the album to have a through-line, a story from beginning to end."
So the band did what any good directors would: They assembled a mood board, filtering their neo-noir version of Los Angeles through the dreamlike haziness of author Haruki Murakami, the futuristic flair of Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Blade Runner, and the lifted cinematography of Spike Jonze's HER.
These disparate influences don't just offer APOCALYPSE WHENEVER an expanded palette of sonic choices to color Bad Sun's airtight hooks -- they help give the songs an emotional complexity that works on a multitude of levels depending on how listeners choose to receive them.
Read one way, the title track is a jocular kiss-off to pandemic-era anxieties as well as the realization that, at some point, normalcy must start again. But on a much deeper level, it serves as the scene-setter for the cinematic story ahead, as the album's protagonist washes up on the shores of a fictionalized LA after a near-death experience at the hands of the turbulent ocean.
From there, the band dovetail into flashbacks, tracing the totality of the character's life through a soft-glow vignetting: blissful summer romance ("Peachy"), aching nostalgia ("When The World Was Mine"), hurts-so-good Smiths-ian hubris ("Life Was Easier When I Only Cared About Me"), heartbreaking disaffection ("Wishing Fountains"), and unconditional love ("Symphony Of Lights," originally written during the Mystic Truth sessions).
"Throughout the course of the album, the main character is forced to re-evaluate everything that's happened in their life," Bowman explains. "Ultimately, the takeaway they're left with is, 'This could all end at any time, so instead of moaning about things, I'm going to make the most of it.'"
A salient parable for the last year, sure, but ultimately a universal mantra we'd all be wise to adopt long into the future. Bad Suns have been there themselves, brave enough to take a sonic detour when they felt the pull of something more, then confident enough to follow that muse back to the unimpeachable qualities they were founded on nearly a decade ago.
It's this maturity to let the internal compass guide the way that's gotten them to this point, and it's what keeps them pushing toward the most fully realized version of Bad Suns possible on APOCALYPSE WHENEVER -- that, and a little friendly competition.
"There are bands out there that sound like us, but none of them do it as well as we do," the singer says with a laugh. "If that's the case, we might as well keep doing it."
~~~~~~~~
With the release of Disappear Here, Bad Suns' impressively wise and honest sophomore album, it is hard to believe the four-piece began as a chance friendship between Christo Bowman (vocals) and Gavin Bennett (bass) in a 7th grade Los Angeles County classroom. The pair picked up Miles Morris (drums) and Ray Libby (guitar) along the way, and together they spent their teenage years navigating the daunting Los Angeles music scene.
While many would consider the vast history and densely populated musical turf of Los Angeles intimidating, Bad Suns rose to the challenge. As Bowman recalls, "I can recount many instances where we'd play the Whisky a Go Go along with five terrible glam-rock-wanna-be bands. It made us want to do something different and work towards a new era of the Los Angeles sound." While finding their place in LA's scene wasn't easy, Bowman is also thankful for the innumerable opportunities that come with living in one of the nation's musical capitals. "Our band was discovered because we drove to KROQ and dropped off a demo in their mailbox," he says, "At the end of the day, nobody's going to care about your band unless you've got some good songs for them."
The song that caught the ear of KROQ DJ Kat Corbett was "Cardiac Arrest," the band's first and breakthrough single, on her Locals Only radio show. From there, the band earned the attention of Vagrant Records, who signed Bad Suns in 2013 and introduced the band to producer Eric Palmquist (Night Riots, MUTEMATH). Together, Palmquist and Bad Suns polished up the demos to create TRANSPOSE, their debut 4-song EP which was released later that year. On the strength of the EP Bad Suns began to tour throughout the US alongside acts like Geographer, The 1975, and The Vaccines.
Less than a year later, Bad Suns returned with their debut full-length, Language & Perspective (2014/Vagrant). The shimmery alt-rock album, also produced by Palmquist, showed off the young band's wide array of influences, which Bowman often says include The Cure, The Clash and Elvis Costello. "Cardiac Arrest" began to pick up steam at radio nationally and climbed the Alternative chart (#14) and AAA (#11), and earning the band their debut Late Night television performance on Conan. With the success of "Cardiac Arrest" and a heavy touring schedule, Language & Perspective rose to #24 on the Billboard 200 and was included on many critics' best of 2014 year-end lists. "Salt," the band's second single, followed suit and quickly climbed the Alternative chart and earned Bad Suns their first mtvU Woodie nomination for Video of the Year, a performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and their debut at Coachella.
Just a few years into their budding career, Bad Suns had achieved no small amount of success with their debut record, something which can often be daunting for a young band staring down the barrel of a sophomore album. Instead of shying away or playing it safe, Bowman began to refine a set of songs which would become Disappear Here, Bad Suns' 2016 sophomore album (Vagrant/BMG). Disappear Here shows the maturation of a band on the brink of fully realizing their identity and poised for a breakthrough.
"Language and Perspective was four teenagers trying to figure out how to make an album as a way to avoid college and real jobs," Bowman explains, "With this album, it was our real job, and we were not gonna half-ass it. We love the work."
Bowman was reading the Bret Easton Ellis novel Less Than Zero, a book about the distorted lives of young adults in Los Angeles, during the time the band was beginning the recording process for album number two. "Maybe the second or third time the 'Disappear Here' billboard appears in the narrative, it sort of just hit me like a ton of bricks. It encapsulated absolutely everything. What a prompt, 'put on this record, put on these headphones, and just disappear here for a little while,'" Bowman explains.
"It's a roller coaster ride between pessimism and optimism," he says. "I wanted these real moments of darkness to be represented and discussed, because we all go through it, but it's really about hope and saying that you don't have to succumb to that darkness. There is a light."
Recorded over two sessions in the Summer of 2015 and Winter of 2016, the album begins with the title track and first single "Disappear Here," a cut that immediately engages listeners. The first song released in anticipation of the album was the opener, title track, and first single, "Disappear Here," followed by the album's second song, "Heartbreaker," which debuted on Zane Lowe's Beats1 Radio Show. "Off She Goes" holds a strong emotional connection for Bowman. The track came to life as just melodies and chords on the piano before he wrote the lyrics and he remembers, "just being moved to tears the whole way through."
Conversely, "Love Like Revenge" started off as an electronic laptop demo recorded on a plane back to LA from London. Bowman was excited to share the track with his bandmates, "I gave Ray my headphones, looking for his opinion, and I still remember his face of approval as he listened to it in the seat next to me on the plane. That's the best. We're always aiming to impress one another." The unique instrumentation makes it a standout on the record.
"Defeated," a track that Bowman penned when he was only 16 years old, had been cyclically recorded and abandoned over the years. "It was a huge relief to finally get that song where we wanted it," he says, "It's one of the simplest songs on the album, but was the most difficult to work through." "Daft Pretty Boys" is a song the band is particularly proud of, one that they might point new listeners to as an introduction to their sound. Disappear Here closes with "Outskirts of Paradise," a track that feels like a breezy, late summer day in Los Angeles. With the simple refrain of "separate yourself / integrate yourself / when the time comes," Disappear Here fades out, with all the certainty and uncertainty of a coming of age tale.
Crafted for the live show, Bad Suns can't wait to take the album on the road. After serving as main support on massive tours for The Neighbourhood and Halsey in the past year, Bad Suns embark on their biggest headlining tour yet this fall. "Our fans are so warm and loyal. A lot of them will go through some shit in order to make it out to one of our concerts. I'm talking flights, busses, 12-hour car drives, you name it. That will always be very special to me," Bowman says, "We're really grateful to be in this position where we can sell out clubs across the country, and we still feel we have so much to prove."
Tickets for the show at The Catalyst with Kid Bloom & Little Image: https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/5284232/bad-suns-with-kid-bloom-little-image-santa-cruz-the-catalyst
"When we were done touring our second record, we were exhausted being Bad Suns," admits singer/guitarist Christo Bowman. "We just decided to do whatever the fuck we wanted."
It's not surprising that BAD SUNS felt burned out: After forming as teenagers in 2012, a pair of beloved albums (2014's Language & Perspective, which peaked at #24 on the Billboard 200, and 2016's Disappear Here) launched the LA-based quartet onto tours with the likes of the 1975 and Halsey, festivals like Coachella and the homepages of Alternative Press and NYLON -- with the latter hailing Bad Suns as "the sort of rock that we just never get enough of."
By the time their 2019 Epitaph debut, Mystic Truth, rolled around, the band -- Bowman, guitarist Ray Libby, drummer Miles Morris, and bassist Gavin Bennett -- needed a breath, a proverbial gap year after the crash-course education they received going straight from high-school halls into the indie-rock pressure cooker.
As a result, LP3 was a little softer around the edges, more contemplative, introspective, and somber but still resonant enough to introduce Bad Suns to some of the largest audiences of their career, including a slot on Lollapalooza's main stage and on the soundtrack of Jason Reitman's 2020 COVID-confined miniseries remake of The Princess Bride.
"We loved making Mystic Truth," Bowman says. "We did a lot of growing up during that time. It was really important for us to make that record, but we were also really eager to get back to being Bad Suns again."
It's that unmistakable Bad Suns sound -- Apocalypse Whenever features dreamy, pulsing '80s synthesizers, flanked by Stratocasters through cranked Vox amps; and palpable, rhythmic energy -- that endeared listeners to the band in the first place, and their fourth LP, Apocalypse Whenever, uses that musical foundation as the jumping-off point for their next evolution.
Conceived as "the soundtrack to a movie that doesn't yet exist," the 13-track album, helmed by longtime producer Eric Palmquist (MUTEMATH, Thrice) at his Palmquist Studios and the band's North Hollywood rehearsal spot, is more conceptually rigorous than anything they've ever attempted -- but no less compelling or accessible.
"We wanted to make something very poppy and forward-looking while not abandoning the past," Bowman explains. "We also knew we wanted the album to have a through-line, a story from beginning to end."
So the band did what any good directors would: They assembled a mood board, filtering their neo-noir version of Los Angeles through the dreamlike haziness of author Haruki Murakami, the futuristic flair of Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Blade Runner, and the lifted cinematography of Spike Jonze's HER.
These disparate influences don't just offer APOCALYPSE WHENEVER an expanded palette of sonic choices to color Bad Sun's airtight hooks -- they help give the songs an emotional complexity that works on a multitude of levels depending on how listeners choose to receive them.
Read one way, the title track is a jocular kiss-off to pandemic-era anxieties as well as the realization that, at some point, normalcy must start again. But on a much deeper level, it serves as the scene-setter for the cinematic story ahead, as the album's protagonist washes up on the shores of a fictionalized LA after a near-death experience at the hands of the turbulent ocean.
From there, the band dovetail into flashbacks, tracing the totality of the character's life through a soft-glow vignetting: blissful summer romance ("Peachy"), aching nostalgia ("When The World Was Mine"), hurts-so-good Smiths-ian hubris ("Life Was Easier When I Only Cared About Me"), heartbreaking disaffection ("Wishing Fountains"), and unconditional love ("Symphony Of Lights," originally written during the Mystic Truth sessions).
"Throughout the course of the album, the main character is forced to re-evaluate everything that's happened in their life," Bowman explains. "Ultimately, the takeaway they're left with is, 'This could all end at any time, so instead of moaning about things, I'm going to make the most of it.'"
A salient parable for the last year, sure, but ultimately a universal mantra we'd all be wise to adopt long into the future. Bad Suns have been there themselves, brave enough to take a sonic detour when they felt the pull of something more, then confident enough to follow that muse back to the unimpeachable qualities they were founded on nearly a decade ago.
It's this maturity to let the internal compass guide the way that's gotten them to this point, and it's what keeps them pushing toward the most fully realized version of Bad Suns possible on APOCALYPSE WHENEVER -- that, and a little friendly competition.
"There are bands out there that sound like us, but none of them do it as well as we do," the singer says with a laugh. "If that's the case, we might as well keep doing it."
~~~~~~~~
With the release of Disappear Here, Bad Suns' impressively wise and honest sophomore album, it is hard to believe the four-piece began as a chance friendship between Christo Bowman (vocals) and Gavin Bennett (bass) in a 7th grade Los Angeles County classroom. The pair picked up Miles Morris (drums) and Ray Libby (guitar) along the way, and together they spent their teenage years navigating the daunting Los Angeles music scene.
While many would consider the vast history and densely populated musical turf of Los Angeles intimidating, Bad Suns rose to the challenge. As Bowman recalls, "I can recount many instances where we'd play the Whisky a Go Go along with five terrible glam-rock-wanna-be bands. It made us want to do something different and work towards a new era of the Los Angeles sound." While finding their place in LA's scene wasn't easy, Bowman is also thankful for the innumerable opportunities that come with living in one of the nation's musical capitals. "Our band was discovered because we drove to KROQ and dropped off a demo in their mailbox," he says, "At the end of the day, nobody's going to care about your band unless you've got some good songs for them."
The song that caught the ear of KROQ DJ Kat Corbett was "Cardiac Arrest," the band's first and breakthrough single, on her Locals Only radio show. From there, the band earned the attention of Vagrant Records, who signed Bad Suns in 2013 and introduced the band to producer Eric Palmquist (Night Riots, MUTEMATH). Together, Palmquist and Bad Suns polished up the demos to create TRANSPOSE, their debut 4-song EP which was released later that year. On the strength of the EP Bad Suns began to tour throughout the US alongside acts like Geographer, The 1975, and The Vaccines.
Less than a year later, Bad Suns returned with their debut full-length, Language & Perspective (2014/Vagrant). The shimmery alt-rock album, also produced by Palmquist, showed off the young band's wide array of influences, which Bowman often says include The Cure, The Clash and Elvis Costello. "Cardiac Arrest" began to pick up steam at radio nationally and climbed the Alternative chart (#14) and AAA (#11), and earning the band their debut Late Night television performance on Conan. With the success of "Cardiac Arrest" and a heavy touring schedule, Language & Perspective rose to #24 on the Billboard 200 and was included on many critics' best of 2014 year-end lists. "Salt," the band's second single, followed suit and quickly climbed the Alternative chart and earned Bad Suns their first mtvU Woodie nomination for Video of the Year, a performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and their debut at Coachella.
Just a few years into their budding career, Bad Suns had achieved no small amount of success with their debut record, something which can often be daunting for a young band staring down the barrel of a sophomore album. Instead of shying away or playing it safe, Bowman began to refine a set of songs which would become Disappear Here, Bad Suns' 2016 sophomore album (Vagrant/BMG). Disappear Here shows the maturation of a band on the brink of fully realizing their identity and poised for a breakthrough.
"Language and Perspective was four teenagers trying to figure out how to make an album as a way to avoid college and real jobs," Bowman explains, "With this album, it was our real job, and we were not gonna half-ass it. We love the work."
Bowman was reading the Bret Easton Ellis novel Less Than Zero, a book about the distorted lives of young adults in Los Angeles, during the time the band was beginning the recording process for album number two. "Maybe the second or third time the 'Disappear Here' billboard appears in the narrative, it sort of just hit me like a ton of bricks. It encapsulated absolutely everything. What a prompt, 'put on this record, put on these headphones, and just disappear here for a little while,'" Bowman explains.
"It's a roller coaster ride between pessimism and optimism," he says. "I wanted these real moments of darkness to be represented and discussed, because we all go through it, but it's really about hope and saying that you don't have to succumb to that darkness. There is a light."
Recorded over two sessions in the Summer of 2015 and Winter of 2016, the album begins with the title track and first single "Disappear Here," a cut that immediately engages listeners. The first song released in anticipation of the album was the opener, title track, and first single, "Disappear Here," followed by the album's second song, "Heartbreaker," which debuted on Zane Lowe's Beats1 Radio Show. "Off She Goes" holds a strong emotional connection for Bowman. The track came to life as just melodies and chords on the piano before he wrote the lyrics and he remembers, "just being moved to tears the whole way through."
Conversely, "Love Like Revenge" started off as an electronic laptop demo recorded on a plane back to LA from London. Bowman was excited to share the track with his bandmates, "I gave Ray my headphones, looking for his opinion, and I still remember his face of approval as he listened to it in the seat next to me on the plane. That's the best. We're always aiming to impress one another." The unique instrumentation makes it a standout on the record.
"Defeated," a track that Bowman penned when he was only 16 years old, had been cyclically recorded and abandoned over the years. "It was a huge relief to finally get that song where we wanted it," he says, "It's one of the simplest songs on the album, but was the most difficult to work through." "Daft Pretty Boys" is a song the band is particularly proud of, one that they might point new listeners to as an introduction to their sound. Disappear Here closes with "Outskirts of Paradise," a track that feels like a breezy, late summer day in Los Angeles. With the simple refrain of "separate yourself / integrate yourself / when the time comes," Disappear Here fades out, with all the certainty and uncertainty of a coming of age tale.
Crafted for the live show, Bad Suns can't wait to take the album on the road. After serving as main support on massive tours for The Neighbourhood and Halsey in the past year, Bad Suns embark on their biggest headlining tour yet this fall. "Our fans are so warm and loyal. A lot of them will go through some shit in order to make it out to one of our concerts. I'm talking flights, busses, 12-hour car drives, you name it. That will always be very special to me," Bowman says, "We're really grateful to be in this position where we can sell out clubs across the country, and we still feel we have so much to prove."
Tickets for the show at The Catalyst with Kid Bloom & Little Image: https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/5284232/bad-suns-with-kid-bloom-little-image-santa-cruz-the-catalyst
read more
It's not surprising that BAD SUNS felt burned out: After forming as teenagers in 2012, a pair of beloved albums (2014's Language & Perspective, which peaked at #24 on the Billboard 200, and 2016's Disappear Here) launched the LA-based quartet onto tours with the likes of the 1975 and Halsey, festivals like Coachella and the homepages of Alternative Press and NYLON -- with the latter hailing Bad Suns as "the sort of rock that we just never get enough of."
By the time their 2019 Epitaph debut, Mystic Truth, rolled around, the band -- Bowman, guitarist Ray Libby, drummer Miles Morris, and bassist Gavin Bennett -- needed a breath, a proverbial gap year after the crash-course education they received going straight from high-school halls into the indie-rock pressure cooker.
As a result, LP3 was a little softer around the edges, more contemplative, introspective, and somber but still resonant enough to introduce Bad Suns to some of the largest audiences of their career, including a slot on Lollapalooza's main stage and on the soundtrack of Jason Reitman's 2020 COVID-confined miniseries remake of The Princess Bride.
"We loved making Mystic Truth," Bowman says. "We did a lot of growing up during that time. It was really important for us to make that record, but we were also really eager to get back to being Bad Suns again."
It's that unmistakable Bad Suns sound -- Apocalypse Whenever features dreamy, pulsing '80s synthesizers, flanked by Stratocasters through cranked Vox amps; and palpable, rhythmic energy -- that endeared listeners to the band in the first place, and their fourth LP, Apocalypse Whenever, uses that musical foundation as the jumping-off point for their next evolution.
Conceived as "the soundtrack to a movie that doesn't yet exist," the 13-track album, helmed by longtime producer Eric Palmquist (MUTEMATH, Thrice) at his Palmquist Studios and the band's North Hollywood rehearsal spot, is more conceptually rigorous than anything they've ever attempted -- but no less compelling or accessible.
"We wanted to make something very poppy and forward-looking while not abandoning the past," Bowman explains. "We also knew we wanted the album to have a through-line, a story from beginning to end."
So the band did what any good directors would: They assembled a mood board, filtering their neo-noir version of Los Angeles through the dreamlike haziness of author Haruki Murakami, the futuristic flair of Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Blade Runner, and the lifted cinematography of Spike Jonze's HER.
These disparate influences don't just offer APOCALYPSE WHENEVER an expanded palette of sonic choices to color Bad Sun's airtight hooks -- they help give the songs an emotional complexity that works on a multitude of levels depending on how listeners choose to receive them.
Read one way, the title track is a jocular kiss-off to pandemic-era anxieties as well as the realization that, at some point, normalcy must start again. But on a much deeper level, it serves as the scene-setter for the cinematic story ahead, as the album's protagonist washes up on the shores of a fictionalized LA after a near-death experience at the hands of the turbulent ocean.
From there, the band dovetail into flashbacks, tracing the totality of the character's life through a soft-glow vignetting: blissful summer romance ("Peachy"), aching nostalgia ("When The World Was Mine"), hurts-so-good Smiths-ian hubris ("Life Was Easier When I Only Cared About Me"), heartbreaking disaffection ("Wishing Fountains"), and unconditional love ("Symphony Of Lights," originally written during the Mystic Truth sessions).
"Throughout the course of the album, the main character is forced to re-evaluate everything that's happened in their life," Bowman explains. "Ultimately, the takeaway they're left with is, 'This could all end at any time, so instead of moaning about things, I'm going to make the most of it.'"
A salient parable for the last year, sure, but ultimately a universal mantra we'd all be wise to adopt long into the future. Bad Suns have been there themselves, brave enough to take a sonic detour when they felt the pull of something more, then confident enough to follow that muse back to the unimpeachable qualities they were founded on nearly a decade ago.
It's this maturity to let the internal compass guide the way that's gotten them to this point, and it's what keeps them pushing toward the most fully realized version of Bad Suns possible on APOCALYPSE WHENEVER -- that, and a little friendly competition.
"There are bands out there that sound like us, but none of them do it as well as we do," the singer says with a laugh. "If that's the case, we might as well keep doing it."
~~~~~~~~
With the release of Disappear Here, Bad Suns' impressively wise and honest sophomore album, it is hard to believe the four-piece began as a chance friendship between Christo Bowman (vocals) and Gavin Bennett (bass) in a 7th grade Los Angeles County classroom. The pair picked up Miles Morris (drums) and Ray Libby (guitar) along the way, and together they spent their teenage years navigating the daunting Los Angeles music scene.
While many would consider the vast history and densely populated musical turf of Los Angeles intimidating, Bad Suns rose to the challenge. As Bowman recalls, "I can recount many instances where we'd play the Whisky a Go Go along with five terrible glam-rock-wanna-be bands. It made us want to do something different and work towards a new era of the Los Angeles sound." While finding their place in LA's scene wasn't easy, Bowman is also thankful for the innumerable opportunities that come with living in one of the nation's musical capitals. "Our band was discovered because we drove to KROQ and dropped off a demo in their mailbox," he says, "At the end of the day, nobody's going to care about your band unless you've got some good songs for them."
The song that caught the ear of KROQ DJ Kat Corbett was "Cardiac Arrest," the band's first and breakthrough single, on her Locals Only radio show. From there, the band earned the attention of Vagrant Records, who signed Bad Suns in 2013 and introduced the band to producer Eric Palmquist (Night Riots, MUTEMATH). Together, Palmquist and Bad Suns polished up the demos to create TRANSPOSE, their debut 4-song EP which was released later that year. On the strength of the EP Bad Suns began to tour throughout the US alongside acts like Geographer, The 1975, and The Vaccines.
Less than a year later, Bad Suns returned with their debut full-length, Language & Perspective (2014/Vagrant). The shimmery alt-rock album, also produced by Palmquist, showed off the young band's wide array of influences, which Bowman often says include The Cure, The Clash and Elvis Costello. "Cardiac Arrest" began to pick up steam at radio nationally and climbed the Alternative chart (#14) and AAA (#11), and earning the band their debut Late Night television performance on Conan. With the success of "Cardiac Arrest" and a heavy touring schedule, Language & Perspective rose to #24 on the Billboard 200 and was included on many critics' best of 2014 year-end lists. "Salt," the band's second single, followed suit and quickly climbed the Alternative chart and earned Bad Suns their first mtvU Woodie nomination for Video of the Year, a performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and their debut at Coachella.
Just a few years into their budding career, Bad Suns had achieved no small amount of success with their debut record, something which can often be daunting for a young band staring down the barrel of a sophomore album. Instead of shying away or playing it safe, Bowman began to refine a set of songs which would become Disappear Here, Bad Suns' 2016 sophomore album (Vagrant/BMG). Disappear Here shows the maturation of a band on the brink of fully realizing their identity and poised for a breakthrough.
"Language and Perspective was four teenagers trying to figure out how to make an album as a way to avoid college and real jobs," Bowman explains, "With this album, it was our real job, and we were not gonna half-ass it. We love the work."
Bowman was reading the Bret Easton Ellis novel Less Than Zero, a book about the distorted lives of young adults in Los Angeles, during the time the band was beginning the recording process for album number two. "Maybe the second or third time the 'Disappear Here' billboard appears in the narrative, it sort of just hit me like a ton of bricks. It encapsulated absolutely everything. What a prompt, 'put on this record, put on these headphones, and just disappear here for a little while,'" Bowman explains.
"It's a roller coaster ride between pessimism and optimism," he says. "I wanted these real moments of darkness to be represented and discussed, because we all go through it, but it's really about hope and saying that you don't have to succumb to that darkness. There is a light."
Recorded over two sessions in the Summer of 2015 and Winter of 2016, the album begins with the title track and first single "Disappear Here," a cut that immediately engages listeners. The first song released in anticipation of the album was the opener, title track, and first single, "Disappear Here," followed by the album's second song, "Heartbreaker," which debuted on Zane Lowe's Beats1 Radio Show. "Off She Goes" holds a strong emotional connection for Bowman. The track came to life as just melodies and chords on the piano before he wrote the lyrics and he remembers, "just being moved to tears the whole way through."
Conversely, "Love Like Revenge" started off as an electronic laptop demo recorded on a plane back to LA from London. Bowman was excited to share the track with his bandmates, "I gave Ray my headphones, looking for his opinion, and I still remember his face of approval as he listened to it in the seat next to me on the plane. That's the best. We're always aiming to impress one another." The unique instrumentation makes it a standout on the record.
"Defeated," a track that Bowman penned when he was only 16 years old, had been cyclically recorded and abandoned over the years. "It was a huge relief to finally get that song where we wanted it," he says, "It's one of the simplest songs on the album, but was the most difficult to work through." "Daft Pretty Boys" is a song the band is particularly proud of, one that they might point new listeners to as an introduction to their sound. Disappear Here closes with "Outskirts of Paradise," a track that feels like a breezy, late summer day in Los Angeles. With the simple refrain of "separate yourself / integrate yourself / when the time comes," Disappear Here fades out, with all the certainty and uncertainty of a coming of age tale.
Crafted for the live show, Bad Suns can't wait to take the album on the road. After serving as main support on massive tours for The Neighbourhood and Halsey in the past year, Bad Suns embark on their biggest headlining tour yet this fall. "Our fans are so warm and loyal. A lot of them will go through some shit in order to make it out to one of our concerts. I'm talking flights, busses, 12-hour car drives, you name it. That will always be very special to me," Bowman says, "We're really grateful to be in this position where we can sell out clubs across the country, and we still feel we have so much to prove."
Tickets for the show at The Catalyst with Kid Bloom & Little Image: https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/5284232/bad-suns-with-kid-bloom-little-image-santa-cruz-the-catalyst
show less
Date/Times:
The Independent
77 Upcoming Events
628 Divisadero Street, San Francisco, CA 94117
The Best Events
Every Week in Your Inbox
From Our Sponsors
UPCOMING EVENTS
Great suggestion! We'll be in touch.
Event reviewed successfully.