Lucky Number Music

Beloved rock band Sunflower Bean return reinvigorated with the most hard-fought and vulnerable album of their career: Mortal Primetime. In the three years since their last LP Headful of Sugar, the members of Sunflower Bean drifted from one another as they pursued new projects and confronted personal challenges, tragedies and transformations. But Mortal Primetime – the band’s fourth album, but first self-produced – finds Sunflower Bean with a renewed sense of purpose after nearly losing everything they built together. “You get to decide what your prime is, and you fight for it,” bassist and vocalist Julia Cumming says. “This is ours, and that can’t be taken away by circumstance. We can’t take it away from each other. This moment, where we are now, is what we’ve always fought for.” With mixing by Caesar Edmunds (The Killers, Wet Leg) and engineering by Sarah Tudzin (Illuminati Hotties, Boygenius), Sunflower Bean were inspired by alternative rock, dreamy psychedelia, and arena-sized ambition to create a sound that’s undeniably theirs on Mortal Primetime; a record that celebrates their history while hurtling toward the future.

The first single off of Mortal Primetime is “Champagne Taste”, a fuzzed-out anthem of reckless determination. A nod to Sunflower Bean’s long-time alias when performing secret shows to test out new material, “Champagne Taste” features feral guitar riffs, soaring power chords and vocals that find Cumming channeling Iggy Pop circa The Idiot. The band explains, “This song came after a period that felt like rock bottom for the band. It is about feeling beaten down but still driving forward, to keep faith, to grow and to continue to create on our own terms, our Mortal Primetime.” Listen to “Champagne Taste” now, and watch the Isaac Roberts-directed music video below:

Sunflower Bean are known for their blistering live show, which has graced the stages of countless festivals like Glastonbury and Lollapalooza, to tours with Beck, Interpol, and The Pixies, and sold-out international headline shows. So the band is wasting no time in celebrating Mortal Primetime on the road, and have announced a massive North American tour. This follows on from next month’s UK/EU tour supporting Cage The Elephant, as well as a special intimate headline show at The George Tavern in London on February 27th. Head to their website to find a show near you and get your tickets when general on-sale starts Friday 31st January at 10am locally.

Our New York trio Sunflower Bean, vocalist and bassist Julia Cumming (she/her), guitarist and vocalist Nick Kivlen (he/him), and drummer Olive Faber (she/her), have released their first fully self-produced and recorded project, SHAKE, today. The EP features some of Sunflower Bean’s heaviest, most immediate and loudest music to date. Influenced by the doom-laden, heavy metal sound of the likes of Black Sabbath, the EP is an embrace of rock tropes and excess, and recalls the sound of the band’s earlier projects, Show Me Your Seven Secrets and Human Ceremony.

Out alongside the release of the EP, is a 14-minute performance based video to showcase each track via an interpretation of the natural elements: earth, wind, water, fire, and metal. The short film debuted at a special event at NYC’s Roxy Cinema earlier this week, which featured a Q&A with the band and the film’s director Isaac Roberts, as well as a viewing of the cult 1975 Dario Argento film, Deep Red. Watch the SHAKE short film in its entirety above now, and read more about it via Rolling Stone.

New York trio Sunflower Bean have shared the second slice of their first fully self-produced and recorded project, Shake. The EP, which will be released on September 27th, has already been praised for its grungy, return-to-roots sound, following the release of its title track. Today, the band doubles down on this exciting direction with new single “Teach Me To Be Bad”. A song, the band explain, about how “a chance meeting with a special person can change your life forever. It can be exhilarating and frightening to fall madly for someone you barely know.”

The music videos for “Teach Me To Be Bad” and “Shake” are part of a 14-minute performance based video to showcase each track via an interpretation of the natural elements: earth, wind, water, fire, and metal. Sunflower Bean have also announced an exclusive premiere of that short film at Roxy Cinema in NYC on September 25th. The event will include a premiere of the full video, Q&A with the band and director Isaac Roberts, as well as a screening of the cult 1975 Dario Argento film, Deep Red. Tickets are available now.

New York trio Sunflower Bean — vocalist and bassist Julia Cumming (she/her), guitarist and vocalist Nick Kivlen (he/him), and drummer Olive Faber (she/her) — will release their new EP, SHAKE, on September 27th. The band’s first fully self-produced and recorded project, SHAKE features some of Sunflower Bean’s heaviest, most immediate, and loudest music to date. Influenced by the doom-laden, heavy metal sound of Black Sabbath the EP is an embrace of rock tropes and excess, and recalls the sonic of the band’s earliest work, Show Me Your Seven Secrets and Human Ceremony.

“SHAKE was inspired by our first years as a DIY band, the spirit that birthed us and gave us the chance to have this enduring journey together,” Sunflower Bean explain of the EP. “We wrote, recorded, engineered, and produced these songs so nothing was filtered through anyone else’s idea of us. We always felt like rock and roll was a feeling, not a sound. But sometimes there is no subverting it or explaining it. We’re now offering it exactly as it occurred to us.”

SHAKE is Sunflower Bean raw and unfiltered, in the band’s most natural state. To further that theme, the band will release a 14-minute performance based video to showcase each track via an interpretation of the natural elements: earth, wind, water, fire, and metal. To achieve this, Sunflower Bean worked with Isaac Roberts, a young, rising director from Toronto. The band shares the first chapter ‘earth’ today with the video for title track and lead single “Shake” – watch the video below.

Sunflower Bean will also celebrate SHAKE with four US club show underplays in NYC, LA, Chicago and Austin where they will showcase both the EP and further new music. All dates and tickets on their website.

New York trio Sunflower Bean release their long-awaited new album, Headful of Sugar, today! A psychedelic headrush designed to be played loud with the windows down, it follows the band navigating the agony and ecstasy of contemporary American life. “Tomorrow is not promised, no tour is promised, no popularity is promised, no health or money is promised,” bassist/vocalist Julia Cumming says. “Why not make what you want to make on your own terms? Why not make a record that makes you want to dance? Why not make a record that makes you want to scream?” Headful of Sugar was produced and mixed by UMO’s Jacob Portrait, and co-engineered by the band’s own drummer Olive Faber and Portrait.

Buy the album now, including the vinyl variants pictured below, HERE.

To celebrate the release, the band also share new single “In Flight”. On the track and video vocalist / guitarist Nick Kivlen says, “This song is a romantic vision of meeting a lover, running away together, and entering a dangerous new world. It’s less safe but also less suffocating. The video follows me through a series of twilight zone-style mishaps as I search to be seen or understood. Things only improve when I finally find like-minded people. Is it a dream? Is it the multiverse? It’s for the viewer to decide.”