Big choruses and bowling jackets - Sunset Sons interview

It might be a cliché to say it, but things have come a long way for the band formally known as the Cheerleaders.

For me it started with a horrid, wet winter evening. Sleet hammered Perranporth’s much loved beach bar, The Watering Hole and shoes sat in pairs under a heater drying off, but the soggy and steaming crowd revelled in the heavy riffs and thumping bass of the Sunset Sons. Five months later, and with a place on the BBC’s Most Influential Sound of 2015 list, the Sons are lounging on the couch of their rehearsal room and the audience no longer needs to brave the Cornish weather to see them.

Ahead of their European tour Rory, Pete, Jed and Rob have just released their third EP and I caught up with them to discuss the new hype, dishwashing and something called the Mustard Tiger shirt.

Your SoundCloud and social media pages are basing you in three different places; The UK, Hossegor and Australia. What is it about these places that are so significant to you?

Rory- Well Pete’s from Australia and the rest of us are all from the UK. But when we’re not playing shows or doing band stuff, we hang out in Hossegor. That’s where we all met.

Whose idea was it to start Sunset Son’s, or the Cheerleaders, as you were known before?

Rory- It was kind of a drunk conversation between Jed and me. These three had been playing music and I did my first gig in this bar called Le Surfing in Hossegor, where Jed happened to see me whilst having a few beers. I don’t know if he was impressed, but he said he was “intrigued”!

Jed- Yeah, I was travelling around France, bumming about and teaching surfing a bit when I saw Rory play. He was pretty good and I thought that if I played with him, we could make a band and then I wouldn’t have to work much! So we basically had a few drinks and hatched a plan.

Pete- My cousin owns that bar. I was just there randomly surfing and visiting him so I thought I’d tag along on their drunken night out and it ended up here!

Rory- We found Rob through a mutual friend because we needed someone to play Guitar and we called him up and told him a bunch of lies. We promised him loads of money.

Out of those places, do you have a favourite one to play in? Do you feel most at home in one in particular?

Rory- We haven’t played Australia yet. We’re looking forward to that because obviously Pete’s from there. But we just like playing anywhere! Gig’s a gig!

Jed- We like the beach a lot though…

So The Fall Line is your new EP, what has the reaction been like to your new single Medicine?

Rory- Amazing! I’m blown away by the reaction we’ve had. Especially on the last tour we did in March. We’d start playing the new song and from even the first note, everyone would start singing along. The radio really pushed it for us.