Sonny And The Sunsets

Sonny And The Sunsets

Longtime Companion

Rocks In Your Head

The first country record of Sonny & the Sunsets, Longtime Companion, has grown into a bit of a cult classic. So much that tours have been made under the fitting moniker Sonny & His Rhinestone Sunsets, with Smith swapping out his doo wop garage ensembles and replacing with full country bands. In the lineage of Gene Clark, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Townes Van Zandt, a little Johnny Cash, even the countrier side of the Kinks. When Sonny Smith's ten-year relationship started to hit the skids, he picked up his guitar and chronicled his eventual breakup with the Sunsets' third record, Longtime Companion. Joined by the Sunsets plus his country band the Fuckaroos, Smith toes the line between contemporary sometimes Country performers like Angel Olson or Shannon Shaw (both of whom he's collaborated with) and honoring his ramshackle pop origins. Whether longing for a place back in his ex's heart on the lilting "Pretend You Love Me," finding "a funny kind of sad joy" in the emptiness of her eyes on the bitter "I See the Void," or recounting an affair with a divorcée on the woeful/wistful "Children of the Beehive," Smith mostly keeps the lyrics simple, which makes Longtime Companion more universally relatable and, by holding the details close to the vest, conjures the feeling of him wandering the world on his own as he rediscovers his identity as a single man. And sure enough, when he's not singing about his relationship, he's self-analyzing, confessing to drinking too much ("Dried...

Sonny And The Sunsets

New Day With New Possibilities

Rocks In Your Head

“It was before Covid, I had this big free empty studio in the hills, I was supposed to be painting, that was my initial plan, and I just began making songs on an old guitar, songs about being alone, songs about failed men, some dark tales of longing. I was reading some old western paperbacks, and I would go on these walks in the hills, come inside and write these kind of lonesome country songs. Then the pandemic began, and everyone was alone now, and it felt like it had been strangely prescient to write about being alone” Smith speaks about the birth of this record.  It sounds like it's part of a genre that should have happened: a sixties teen country music that merged with sixties pop. New Day with New Possibilities, the latest 'country' offering by Sonny And The Sunsets, is clearly a companion piece to the cult loved third Sunsets release Longtime Companion, the laid back country record which marked the beginning of the Sunsets as an explorative project and not just locked into one sound. New Day With New Possibilities joins with a kind of Michael Hurley home grown sound but also leaning into Chelsea Girls baroque strings sound as on Driftin’ and The Lonely Men. Pedal Steel maestro Joe Goldmark lifts the record into Doug Sahm and Buck Owens territory.  As much as the music ushers in a laid-back country feeling, the lyrics are where this album depart. "Lonely Men," a Bill Calahan-ish...

Sonny And The Sunsets

Hairdressers From Heaven

Rocks In Your Head

“Nitro. Astro. Boogeyman from space. My name is Sonny Smith. This is a Sonny And The Sunsets recording. We started a label. Rocks in Your Head Records, named after a record shop I used to spend time in, in Soho New York two decades ago that uplifted me in a way only old record stores can. The first release is this record, Hairdressers From Heaven. We are going to put out some records that would end up in that old store. Some weird bands, some fictional bands, some real bands. San Francisco has taken hits. Clubs have closed. Artists have left.  People have made eulogies—this is something up which we cannot put! There are good bands in this city. There are great artists making bizarre shit. There are underground happenings. There are secret shows. There are artists in the streets duking it out with Nazis. Shit is going down. The corporate bulldozers ran through the city and they are still driving around demolishing the place. These tanks are called Death and they bring a foul stench. I don’t mean maybe the city will drift into a long sleep with a hollow snore. Humbly, this label is our version of throwing nails at the tank tires.”     —Sonny Smith