We catch up with the band to celebrate their new 7″ release.
Sunfruits deliver music that befits their name – vibrant psych-pop perfect for summer days. The band has been on the rise ever since they first emerged in 2018, finding their own niche in the Melbourne music scene – one which has produced many bonafide psych-rock outfits but less of those keen to wind back the tempo.
Sunfruits dropped their debut EP Certified Organic earlier in 2020, and have revealed two singles since. Now, the band prepares for the release of a new 7″ vinyl which will bundle together each of the recently-released tracks, ‘Mushroom Kingdom’ and ‘Bonsoy’.
To celebrate the release of the 7″, we caught up with the band to see how they’re travelling during this strange times.
For those who aren’t across Sunfruits, tell us a bit about the band?
Sunfruits is the brainchild of Winnie McQuinn which has now turned into a magical collective of like-minded people that have come together to create psychedelic pop and spread joy. Our members include Evie Vlah, Gene Argiro and Elena Jones. Occasional collaborators and members of the fruit collective include Acacia Coates and Shelby De Fazio. Sunfruits make upbeat, danceable psychedelic pop with lyrical themes exploring environmental collapse, social justice and questioning outdated social structures.
You guys released your debut EP Certified Organic at an unfortunate time with COVID-19 hitting just a month later. How was your year shaping up before the pandemic hit?
We were lucky enough to tour the east coast with our debut EP Certified Organic just before COVID really started getting serious which we’re super grateful to have done. Though 2020 was shaping up to be a really exciting one with touring for us fruits, still being able to record and release stuff under these circumstances has been really healing and rewarding. Everything is on hold for everyone at the moment so it’s been nice to put out music that everyone can dance to amongst the unknown of 2020.
Artists are now faced with an incredibly unique situation and have lost most if not all of their work. How have you been travelling with it all?
It’s such a weird time for everyone and I think it’s super important to remember that we’re all living through it at the moment. With Sunfruits we were fortunate enough to get some recording done when we were allowed to see each other which was super special for us all. We just released our ‘Mushroom Kingdom’/’Bonsoy’ 7” which was mainly recorded and finished over the first and second lockdown.
This record has given us a chance to continue to work on something new together as well as collaborate with some artists we really admire. Collaboration and working with new and different artists has been a great way of coping with the isolation felt during this time.
It’s also been an interesting period for artistic imagination. How has the pandemic affected your creativity when playing or writing music?
The pandemic has definitely changed our writing process quite a lot seeing as we can’t be together in a room to work out songs. Now that we have more time than ever before, we’ve been able to experiment with sounds and ideas and make noise for hours on end until we come up with something worth pursuing. We’ve also been fortunate that everyone is able to record and contribute their own parts remotely from home.
Whilst it’s given us heaps of time to create, lockdown has also been a time of self-reflection and we think it’s important to remember that just because you may have more time on your hands, doesn’t mean you have to fill every waking moment with productivity. Self-care is important at a time like this. After all, we’re in a global pandemic, not a writing retreat.
Tell us a bit more about your just-released 7″.
Super glad to finally have this one out! It’s a four-track 7” with singles ‘Mushroom Kingdom’ and ‘Bonsoy’ as well as two bonus tracks/interludes. We worked with heaps of amazing people on this release. It felt especially important to collaborate and work with as many different creative people in a year so rocky for creatives and the world in general.
The artwork for the 7″ was done by Indonesian visual artist Ardneks Paraiso who’s done covers for Moon Duo, Flamingods and Khruangbin, while we worked on the ‘Mushroom Kingdom’ music video with The Witch Twins from Slovenia, Alen and Robi Predanic. They did a great job at creating a more conceptual video with homemade sets, characters and costumes which took the song to a new, otherworldly place. We’ve got a clip for ‘Bonsoy’ coming out soon where we teamed up with American animator John Mark.
The 7” is available in three different colours from Third Eye Stimuli Records in Australia and Six Tonnes De Chair Records in Europe. It will also be available in a select few stores in Melbourne and Sydney.
What’s next for Sunfruits as we head into the latter part of 2020 and start of 2021?
Fingers crossed we can all be together again and surround ourselves with music and dancing. There’s a few exciting shows that are booked for 2021 that we really hope can happen. Other than that, we’ll start working on our debut album and become hermits for a while.
Sunfruits’ new 7″ vinyl is out now via Third Eye Stimuli Records. Check it out here. For more on Sunfruits, head to their Facebook and Instagram pages.
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