Matt from lovely Leeds dronesters Sunwølf took the time to take on our Echoes of the Future challenge...
(((o))): So, first and foremost, who are Sunwølf and what are your musical backgrounds?
We’re a band from Leeds playing dark instrumental music. Dom is from the ambient scene and I’d always been in hardcore bands before.
(((o))): How did the band come together?
Dom and I had been playing together in his ambient band TEN, we both wanted to experiment with a harsher, darker sound so we booked some studio time with our friend Ross and recorded a bunch of songs…which soon became the Sunwølf debut ‘Beyond the Sun’.
(((o))): Please describe your sound in the form of either a haiku, a rhyming couplet or, if you are feeling massively ambitious, an acrostic...
I’m terrible at these, here goes…
The lost Mountain
Standing tall over the mist
Winter is coming
(Ed: We’re willing to really stretch the final syllable on the first line)
(((o))): Has your local music scene had any impact on you as a band?
Leeds is a great city for underground music and it’s the reason I moved up here years ago. I wouldn’t say it’s impacted or influenced us as such, but Leeds is where Sunwolf was born, so for that reason it’s pretty special to us.
(((o))): Your new record is about to come out. Tell us a little bit about it...
The new record is called Midnight Moon; it’s basically an amalgamation of a few ideas captured over a weekend in the studio, which is essentially what every record is right!? Anyway, I called Dom up a few months back and said I wanted to do a western record, Dom was on board immediately, so we wrote the first two songs ‘Breach’ and ‘In Earnest’ with this in mind. Now, these two songs wouldn’t sound out of place in a Sergio Leone film at all, but I don’t think that can be said for the first side of the record…as it’s heavy as shit! Conflicting concepts aside, we’re both really proud of the new record and have had nothing but positive feedback from everyone who’s heard it so far.
(((o))): What do you think is the most difficult challenge facing new bands starting out in the music industry today?
I think one of the biggest challenges for new bands is just getting noticed. You could be the most amazing band with a killer record but if no one knows who you are…it means nothing! There are so many outlets, channels and networks to upload your music on that it just becomes overwhelming and exhausting knowing where to begin. The obvious ones like facebook can be great but there’s only so many times your Mum is going to share your posts eh? I’ve always been an advocate for doing things DIY and just plain hard work!
(((o))): Every band has different aims. What would have to happen for Sunwølf to make you feel that you’d “made it”, so to speak?
I have no idea how to answer that question, as it’s not something that has ever entered my thought process. Though I guess if someone like Steve Albini came out to a SW show I’d be flying pretty high!
(((o))): Googling “Sunwolf” gets some interesting results. It’s a whitewater rafting resort near Whistler, a German Shepherd kennel in Leicestershire and there’s even a Dr. SunWolf who is an attorney in Colorado. Which one of these is the best match for you guys? Is there another one I’ve missed out?
German Shepherds are badass! We’ll take that one, thanks!
(((o))): We have another column called Echoes of the Past in which we get people to write about albums that have particularly influenced them. What would you guys choose to write about in that column?
I’d have to choose a very special record called ‘Inlé’ by the sadly defunct band Fall of Efrafa. It captures everything that I want from a record; riffs, tension and emotion. They put out a cyclical trilogy of records called ‘The Warren of Snares’ with ‘Inlé’ being the final record in the trilogy…it’s essentially a reimagining of the mythology from the novel Watership Down. The band had a staunchly atheist, vegan message which is what these records encompassed and, although I’m not an advocate for these beliefs myself, I was certainly captivated by what it meant to them and the records they created.
(((o))): This is ostensibly a column for introducing new bands. Any suggestions as to who we ought to include in the near future?
We played a festival in Belgium recently with a great German band called Aleph Null, they’re playing a really cool style of psychedelic stoner and they’re top dudes also! Definitely worthy of investigation (https://www.facebook.com/AlephNull.sludge)
(((o))): What are Sunwølf’s plans for the near future?
We’re off on tour again at the end of May, we’re heading to some places we’ve never been before in Denmark and Sweden so we’re really excited for that! We’ll have the LPs back from production in a few weeks so that will be cool also. We might even put out another record before the year is out…but don’t hold me to that…
