UpClose with Only Sun

A lovely chat with High Wycombe indie pop heroes Only Sun ahead of the release of their 2021 debut full lengh.

Our good friends at CloseUp have carefully assembled a roster of some of the most exciting and dynamic emerging acts in the UK right now. From raucous indie rock acts to subversive and cutting edge dark pop, there is a tonne of scope and range among the roster, which can lead to some of the nations most electric and memorable events and performances. We’ve teamed up with CloseUp to provide you with a more in-depth look at some of the most exciting and must-hear acts that they have to offer, many of who are championed by CLOUT in their own right.

The honour of being the first to get such treatment are High Wycombe’s Only Sun, an outfit that have been building steam and acclaim with their carefree and jovial brand of upbeat indie pop. Having released a long line of singles over the past few years, birthing iconic tunes such as ‘Youth’, ‘NHS70’ and the impossibly optimistic ‘Happiness (All My Friends)’, time has rolled around for album number one. Tangled Mind is the name of the album and new single ‘Extraordinary’ is the first taste that we’ve had of the bands upcoming work, hinting at a more mature and grounded direction in the future.

Only Sun! It’s great to have a chat! We love your music as you well know. We’re so happy to hear the news of your debut album and live dates across the UK & even Paris! Tell us, what does a Only Sun live show usually bring?

Sweat, sweat & more sweat; at least in Ed’s case. It’s always high energy and a lot of fun, it’s how we are as people anyway so we really like to project that when playing live. Plus it’s more fun for the audience, we want to encourage chaos.

What part of the musical process do you enjoy most, and why? is it performing live, creating your tracks, or..?

This changes depending on what we have been doing more of at the time. If we’re coming off tour then we’ll be itching to create and get back into the studio, but if we’ve just finished recording then we’ll be chomping at the bit to go and play the new tracks live. Currently, I think we all miss playing live because of the coronavirus situation. We’re in a constant state of wanting to do what we are not doing.

So your debut album, ‘Tangled Mind’, drops next year. Did such a globally just crazy 2020 influence much of it?

We’d already been planning to record and release the album in 2020 anyway so we were planning on playing fewer shows at the start of 2020 to focus on getting the album done, but when everything was pushed back it allowed us to rethink and replace a couple of the tracks. Some of our favourite tracks from ‘Tangled Mind’ were written whilst we were waiting to head into the studio to record so the album would have been completely different without the delays. In a lot of ways, we’ve benefitted from being able to reflect on what we were creating and head in directions we hadn’t previously considered.

If you created a Only Sun festival, and could pick 3 headliners, who would you go for?

So you’ve asked for three, but seeing as there are four of us, it’d be rude not to give you a Thursday headliner:
Thursday – Hot Chip (Euan)
Friday – Bruno Mars (Taylor)
Saturday – Rage Against The Machine (Aabid)
Sunday – Talking Heads (Ed)That’s actually the line up for Glasto 2022. You heard it here first.

Your new single ‘Extraordinary’ just dropped, we absolutely love it. We’ve seen a maturity in sound with this one, how does tie into the album? Is this something we should expect with your new material?

When we approached writing the album, we had a big discussion about exactly what we wanted to create and the big thing that we agreed on was that we wanted the shackles to be off creatively. We just created an album that didn’t follow a certain style of writing and had influences that we hadn’t previously explored. This coupled with Euan lyrical ideas exploring the theme of mental health and how emotions and thoughts get tangled up in each other has portrayed the creative maturity that’s always been present. We’ve always had ideas that are bigger than can explored in a couple of singles so working on an album has allowed us the chance to explore that. ‘Tangled Mind’ is by far the most mature thing that we’ve done both as artists and as people; make of that what you will.

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UpClose 4th August 2022

UpClose with Only Sun

A lovely chat with High Wycombe indie pop heroes Only Sun ahead of the release of their 2021 debut full lengh.

Only Sun! It’s great to have a chat! We love your music as you well know. We’re so happy to hear the news of your debut album and live dates across the UK & even Paris! Tell us, what does a Only Sun live show usually bring?

What part of the musical process do you enjoy most, and why? is it performing live, creating your tracks, or..?

So your debut album, ‘Tangled Mind’, drops next year. Did such a globally just crazy 2020 influence much of it?

If you created a Only Sun festival, and could pick 3 headliners, who would you go for?

Your new single ‘Extraordinary’ just dropped, we absolutely love it. We’ve seen a maturity in sound with this one, how does tie into the album? Is this something we should expect with your new material?

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