Interview: Sundress

“...growing up and living in Sheffield, as soon as we became musicians we thought “we know we’ll have made it as musicians when we’re playing something to the level of Tramlines main stage”. For it to stop being something we joked about, like it was in an alternate world or a ‘maybe one day’ thing, to opening the main stage on the Sunday? It was really special to us.”

Sundress releases their latest single, "Summertime", a special song that represents their 'reflection on the summer'

Sheffield indie pop four-piece Sundress (@wearesundress) have recently been making waves, in no small part thanks to their dreamy sound and a string of appearances at high-profile UK festivals such as Tramlines. Recently, the band played a lush set in Rough Trade as part of the Keeping Music Live tour, organised by music university institution WaterBear. I caught up with the band afterwards to ask them about the importance of grassroots musical venues, their latest single “Summertime”, the feeling of playing hometown festivals and - of course - Mean Girls.

Sundress are Chelsea (lead vocals & rhythm guitar), Brad (lead guitar), Elliott (bass) and Ollie (drums).

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Josh: Now, can we start out by talking about the Keeping Music Live tour, and how important WaterBear has been to you?

Chelsea: Originally, it was me and Brad that met in our first year at WaterBear, and we started a project where we wrote songs together and really liked it. I think I mentioned something about a band a couple of months later, but it didn’t come together until that summer, I think?

Brad: Well, we’d finished our first year of uni, and because we had loads of free time from April to September where we’d finished all our assignments, we thought we might as well do something with it. So we just started making music in that time.

Chelsea: Yeah, then we brought Elliott in because Brad knew him from childhood. He literally messaged him like “do you wanna play bass in this band we just formed?”, and then we found Ollie as a drummer!

Josh: It sounds like you had a pretty natural formation. That must’ve been like a really important institution to you in terms of coming together, having that central space. Are there any other grassroots venues, or people specifically who helped you when you were first coming about?

Chelsea: Well, we first started gigging in a few local Sheffield places. Dorothy Pax, I think, is still our favourite venue we played, still to this day. Unfortunately, it’s now closed due to not being able to afford to stay open. We also played at The Washington, which is also another really good grassroots venue, and it’s a beloved pub in Sheffield.

Elliott: The Washington is a must stop if you go to Sheffield, to be honest.

Chelsea: It’s like your entrance way to Sheffield, for anyone who’s never been. 

Elliott: It’s a pub with a late licence! What more could you want?

Chelsea: We’ve also played at [Corporation], which is obviously a lot bigger, but it still supports a lot of small artists and puts on great shows for them. We’ve played and we appreciate a lot of grassroots venues, and they’re all really nice as well. They treat you lovely, no matter what!

Josh: Now, speaking of Sheffield, you’ve been doing the festival circuit recently - it has to have been a massive thing to have done Tramlines, Rock N Roll Circus, [and] to have such a big crowd in your hometown. How did that feel to you guys?

Elliott: I mean, for me and Brad especially growing up and living in Sheffield, as soon as we became musicians we thought “we know we’ll have made it as musicians when we’re playing something to the level of Tramlines main stage”. For it to stop being something we joked about, like it was in an alternate world or a ‘maybe one day’ thing, to opening the main stage on the Sunday? It was really special to us.

Chelsea: I think, for me… well, ‘cause I’m not from Sheffield originally, I’m from Derby. Boooooo.

(everyone): Booooo!

Chelsea: Being from a smaller kind of town, then coming to Sheffield - for me I was always wanting to get into music, but I never really imagined playing these festivals. We started out in Brighton with Great Escape, then we came back to Sheffield for Get Together in Kelham Island. To then play main stage Tramlines, it was pretty surreal. It was definitely one of the biggest achievements we’ve had whilst we’ve been a band, especially since we’ve only been a band for about a year and a half.

Josh: And you were brilliant, if you don’t mind me saying. I was there!

Chelsea: Thank you! We had a lot of people coming up to us being like “oh my god, we’ve never heard of you before, you were really good!”. It was surreal and kinda terrifying, but in a good way! (laughs)

Josh: I remember being stood at the front when you guys played your track “Nonexistent”, which obviously you played again tonight. It’s a bit of a heavier tune, with more shoegaze-y vibes to it. Is that a style you’re leaning a bit more into? Your other tracks have a bit more of an indie, dream pop style to them.

Chelsea: Funny story about Nonexistent, actually. We were rehearsing our set for a gig with the bands Humour and Tarmac - they’re both amazing, by the way, you should check them out. We had about 45 minutes left and we thought “we kinda wanna write a song!” and it kinda happened with 10 minutes to spare.

Brad: We wanted to do a cover, actually, but nobody could agree on what cover to do! (laughs)

Elliott: D’you remember what it was between?

Brad: I think it was a Pixies song and something else, I can’t remember.

Elliott: It was “Where Is My Mind?”, I think. It was between that, “Head in the Ceiling Fan” by Title Fight and “Favourite” by Fontaines D.C.

Brad: It got down to the last half hour of the rehearsal and we couldn’t agree on what song to do, so we wrote that song in about half an hour. I did steal the chords from a song - I won’t say which song. I started playing them and we made it, and it sounds fine. But nobody’ll ever know which!

Josh: You’ll have to listen to it to find out!

Brad: Exactly.

Josh: Speaking of listening to you guys, you’ve got your new single coming out tomorrow, “Summertime”. 

Chelsea: It comes out at midnight tonight, actually! In about two hours. Summertime was our second song we wrote together, I think. Kind of?

Brad: They were all sort of in this bubble.

Elliott: The second one that felt… special, I think?

Chelsea: Yeah, I think when I wrote a lot of the lyrics and brought it to Brad so we could write it together, we kinda realised we were speaking a lot about things in personal lives, relationships and feeling a bit lost. So it’s definitely a special song we all relate to, which is why we picked it as our second single. It’s a reflection on the summer that we’ve just played, of course, with it being called Summertime as well.

Josh: And, obviously, that must be a pretty huge thing considering how far you’ve come since you started out. I know you said you’ve only been together a year and a half - do any of you have past experience being in bands at this level?

Chelsea: I’ve never been in a band, I’ve always been more of a solo artist. So, for being my first experience in a band, I don’t think I could have asked for anything or anyone better than Sundress. Sundress is definitely my whole heart and soul, I love these guys - even though we all annoy each other, definitely! (laughs) And Summertime definitely brings us all together. I know Elliott was in a band before.

Elliott: Well, I was in bands, but it was more like a teacher putting you all in a room and saying “you’re working together”. That was the extent of it - from a music college I went to before WaterBear. It definitely teaches you a discipline about working with people, that sometimes it’s great and sometimes it’s not. I’m quite lucky now that it’s always quite positive when we come in for a rehearsal or songwriting session.

Josh: Question for Brad now. I’m really nerdy about this sort of thing and was really curious about your setup on stage. It looked like you had a kind of multi-FX unit - could you tell us a bit more about that?

Brad: It’s all digital. I don’t play a real amp or anything like that. It’s by a company called Line 6, they do a unit called the Helix. Please sponsor me! (laughs) It basically helps me simulate running through an amp. It’s really really good. There’s the Quad Cortex too, a lot of people have heard of that, but I don’t like the modulation effects ‘cause they’re not based on real ones. They’re just generic chorus, or whatever effects. The one I use on the Line 6 is called the “Tri-Stereo Chorus”, and there’s also the “Dimension Chorus”. On the records it’s all the dimension chorus, ‘cause I have a real rack unit of a clone of one. But [when] live it’s all the tri-stereo, because it gets that glassy 80s chorus sound that everyone always raves about. Everyone thinks it’s this mysterious tone, but it’s actually really easy to get.

Josh: Not to sound like a stalker, but I’ve seen some Jazz Chorus amps in some of your promo vids. Did you use any of those at any point while recording?

Brad: Yes! And none of it made the record! When we recorded “Meet Me in Montauk” in the studio, the chorus unit on the Jazz Chorus there was broken. I recorded it, but it didn’t have the chorus sound. We went home, and even though we must’ve spent 3 or 4 hours tracking guitars in the studio, I ended up just doing it through my Line 6 at home. It sounded way better.

Elliott: I think in total, in that studio, upwards of 8 hours was spent on tracking instruments.

Brad: But yeah, all that you hear on [Meet Me in] Montauk is recorded by me at home.

Chelsea: Classic Brad! (laughs)

Josh: I’ve got two more questions for you guys. Number one: what’s next for the future of Sundress after this next single? Is there anything you can tell me?

Chelsea: Oooh… I guess we can speak about it, maybe not too intensely, but we are planning some sort of headline show in the future.

Elliott: I’m worried now! (laughs)

Chelsea: Yeah, Elliott’s worried that I’m gonna expose Sundress secrets. We’re planning some sort of headline show - we know where we’re gonna play, but obviously I’m not gonna say. We know what kind of announcement we want to go with it, and definitely on the horizon there’s a few more releases, but I can’t speak too much into it unfortunately. 

Josh: I’ll be clamouring at the bit.

Elliott: I’m so glad you answered that and not me. I was gonna say “we’ll sell out, I’ll get a Lamborghini”. (laughs)

Josh: Final question - obviously “Meet Me In Montauk” is named after the famous line from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. With that being said, what are the favourite films of the Sundress band members?

Elliott: Someone else go first, I need to whip out Letterboxd.

Chelsea: I don’t actually really have a favourite film, I’m not really a film watcher…which is weird, since films give you inspiration for a lot of things.

Elliott: Like songs, apparently!

Chelsea: Brad watched Eternal Sunshine first, and we wrote it based on that, but it’s mostly based on personal experiences. It’s a bit of an amalgamation of those things. Actually… no, I did just think of a favourite! Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse. I love the Tobey Maguire ones, they went a bit downhill after that, but the ones with Miles are brilliant. I cry easily - I could probably cry at a potato - but the emotional strings in that really are great.

Elliott: If I’m with my girlfriend, we’ll always watch Mean Girls. I hate being against watching girly stuff, or whatever, it’s so stupid. Eternal Sunshine also quickly became one of my favourites, even though I didn’t watch it properly until we started writing. 

Ollie: It sorta depends what you’re feeling. Probably something like 21 Jump Street. (laughs) 

Elliott: Is that the one with ‘my name Jeff’ in it? (laughs)

Ollie: It’s easy watching!

Brad: I love a sci-fi. Either Back to the Future or Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.

Sundress’ latest single, “Summertime”, is available to stream on all major platforms now.

Josh Holmes

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Edited by Isabelle Tu

Photos courtesy of Josh Holmes