Getting to Know… SUNKIN | Interview 🎤

On our 180^th interview, Joe Ferdinand answers our burning questions about SUNKIN, a band comprised of best friends and creative partners.

“Most of my songs are about past relationships, my experience with mental health conditions, sometimes social or political issues but always with an emotionally provocative stance.”  Incredibly alluring and intriguing by all means, 🎙 SUNKIN. The three-member English band serve as the interviewees on our 180^th interview on The Musical Hype – onward toward 200 we go! Who are the three members, you ask? Well, that would be 🎙 Joe Ferdinand, 🎙 Hector Cottam, and 🎙 Declan Brown.  Joe represents the collective, answering our burning questions, providing awesome insight, background, and laying out the present and future endeavors (“Our general career goals are to record albums, tour, and meet/work with lots of fucking amazing people”). HELL YEAH! With all that said, let’s jump right into 🎤 Getting to Know… SUNKIN: Interview No. 180, shall we!

Starting things off, for those who may not be familiar with SUNKIN, what would you say makes your band distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off? 

🎤 We’re a relatively new band, and due to Covid-19, we had a false start, only being able to play three shows. However, we have a seven-year history of friendship and playing in bands together. Friendships form the core of our band. I’d like to think I write our songs as honestly and as openly as I can. I would describe my lyrics as melancholic stories with flickers of hope. But it’s the hope in them that I want the listener to take away. Most of my songs are about past relationships, my experience with mental health conditions, sometimes social or political issues but always with an emotionally provocative stance.

Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did SUNKIN form and what were some of the goals or the visions you had as a band early on? 

🎤 Hector and I met at the University of Westminster when I was 18, then we met Declan through mutual friends later that year. We started our first band ‘Gutshot For Broadway’ while in our first year of university. It’s through this band we learned the ropes of the London music scene. This project gathered a London cult following, was played on Radio X, and became championed by Libertine, Gary Powell. After three years I decided to leave the band and London. Over the next couple of years, I worked full-time as a porter and health care assistant before feeling the urge to move back to London and starting a new band. Fully armed with life experience and new material I moved back. The first thing we did was busk our way across Europe, honing our craft and testing our material to countless audiences in eleven different countries. At the beginning of last year, we played our first London shows including ‘Omeara’ before the pandemic brought live music to an abrupt halt. In the past year, we’ve tried to make the most of the situation by releasing two singles, playing live-streamed shows, and continuing to develop.

Let’s talk more about goals. Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now? 

🎤 Maybe as you progress through your twenties your goals slightly adapt and become more realistic but honestly, it’s pretty simple. To earn a modest living doing what we love, which is playing live music, writing, recording, and everything that goes with it; to live and breathe music. Our general career goals are to record albums, tour, and meet/work with lots of fucking amazing people. Also, to defy the current ways of the industry by monetizing our music. HOPEFULLY, one day, being able to put a deposit down on a house.

Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Who would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

🎤 Man, this is such a hard question. After giving this a lot of thought, I’m going to go with Jeff Buckley. Buckley had a rare ability to take many different genres of music and incorporating them into one piece of music. Yet still making each song sound so distinctively Jeff Buckley. On top of this, his lyrics were thought-provoking and beautiful. Nothing has ever inspired me as much as Buckley’s songs have. Other than Buckley we have a plethora of musical influences that span right through the genres, from rock to classical. Hector’s heroes and biggest influences are John Bonham and Mitch Mitchell, while Declan is heavily influenced by rock and grunge from the early 90s, like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. At age thirteen, I was inspired to pick up a guitar after seeing Slash play a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s

“Hey Jo” at The Rock Hall of Fame. A couple of years later after listening to Oasis’ Morning Glory album, I was inspired to start singing and writing. Over the years, I’ve indulged in love affairs with many different artists. But I would say, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Jeff Buckley have been the biggest and most consistent influences on my songwriting.

Ah, the fun stuff. What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance? Feel free to be creative. 

🎤 During a small UK tour, we played a show in Glasgow. The next night a show in Edinburgh was spontaneously added on. When we arrived we realised it was a rockabilly night. The band before us was a more than proficient rockabilly band, while the room was full with people wearing lucky-stripped, Cuban collared shirts with rolled-up jeans and slicked-back hair. As we took the stage the room proceeded to empty, leaving one very drunk old Scotsman. Throughout the entire show, he shouted, “You’s gommy’s are fucking shit, go home.” What made the situation even more cringe was that we had a small documentary team filming the whole thing. I’ve never seen or want to see that footage. Other than that, we’ve had many over the years, crashing a hire car in the highlands, nights in casinos, and 15 nights sleeping in a Peugeot 206.

Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special? 

I would say our new single 🎵 “Short and Sweet”. This is a very personal song, originally written as a therapeutic love letter and not intended to be a song, let alone a single. Once I realised the vulnerability in the song resonated with people and the theme was universally relatable, the decision was made to release it.

Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits? 

Since our first lockdown, I’ve become low-key obsessed with film photography. From photo walks to working in the darkroom and making prints. I’ve found this new creative outlet incredibly cathartic and beneficial to my productivity as a musician. Being in the darkroom (my bedroom DIY darkroom) making prints, is a very meditative place. A big part of being a musician is reflecting upon your past work and conceptualizing your future work. Long photo walks and the darkroom offer me mental clarity and replenish my love to write. Hector is in the process of converting a van into his new home, accumulating many skills in the process. Declan works with natural nootropic capsules, powders, and supplements, making and disputing them across the world.

Closing things out, what is SUNKIN currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure.  

We have just released our second single, “Short and Sweet” which tells a heartfelt story of a past relationship. In keeping with the transatlantic theme of our first single 🎵 “The Pond,” “Short and Sweet” retrospectively describes the emotional trials and tribulations of attempting to hold the relationship together. We’re always working on new material and cannot wait to get back in the studio.

Thank you so much for sharing taking the time to answer these questions, and best of luck moving forward. 

Getting to Know… SUNKIN: Interview No. 180 🎤 [📷: SUNKIN, Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype]