Dublin 4-piece Sunburn have released their new single ‘Thunder’ and play a headline show at the city’s Bello Bar on Friday 17 November.
Could you introduce the band members and share how you came together to form Sunburn?
We’ve got Zak Coghlan on Vocals, Conor McLoughlin on guitar, Charlie Webster on bass and Colm ‘Bongo Starr’ Geraghty on drums! We’ve not got much of a Hollywood story about our origin. Conor and I (Zak) met when we first started college and played together with many different variations of band members until we poached Colm and Charlie from the Sunburn youth academy of excellence as soon as they joined the college the following year. Things moved very quickly at the start going from our formation to releasing our debut single within three or your months and we’ve never looked back!
Congratulations on your new single ‘Thunder‘. Can you share a little on the theme of the song?
‘Thunder‘ is a real song of ours that we’ve had on the back burner for a few years that we hadn’t really felt was ready to be recorded. We had been playing it for years with a long spooky intro which kind of sapped the energy from it, but we finally got some time to sit down with the song and try out some new structures that worked a lot better. The song is about that weird twilight zone that everyone goes through at the end of a relationship, trying to keep each other at arms length but inevitably stumbling back to each other and explores the seesaw of love, regret and revenge.
Am I right in saying this is your first release since ‘Rainy Day‘ in January 2022? How does it feel to have new music out in the world?
It feels damn good! These past 10 weeks or so have been absolute torture since we’ve had the final master of ‘Thunder‘ ready and it was very hard to not just upload it to Spotify immediately. We’ve always felt like there is no point in just releasing for the sake of it. We’ve spent this last 18 months or so working on mastering our craft in live shows and building a back catalogue of songs so that we can keep consistently releasing without having to take a long hiatus from the headphones!
Have you played gigs in 2023? Are you looking forward to the gig at Bello Bar (Dublin) on 17 November?
We’ve been keeping ourselves as busy as possible in 2023 with shows up and down the country from Whelan’s in Dublin as far as Mike the Pies in Listowel on the west coast of Kerry. We’re absolutely buzzing for the gig in Bello Bar, it’s our first hometown headliner for nearly 2 years and will feel like a real culmination of the work we’ve been putting in over the past 18 months! We’ve got a good few surprises up our sleeve and it’s sure to be a night to remember!
With lockdown regulations particularly tough in Ireland, could you tell us how that impacted Sunburn?
It was pretty grim to be honest. We actually released our debut single ‘Jump the Gun’ about two weeks after the first lockdown had been imposed and then released ‘All I’m Missin’’ and ‘Rainy Day’ while 8pm curfews and closures were still in place. It was nice for a change, to be able to go out on release night for ‘Thunder‘ with our friends and actually celebrate the release of a new song! Everyone always says lockdown was a disaster for bands, but I feel like it actually did us a lot of good and taught us to be patient. I feel like we also realised we were not at the level we had maybe thought we were, so it encouraged us to get back into the rehearsal room!
Any plans for 2024 you can share?
As I touched on earlier, we have been building the back catalogue of songs to be able to start releasing more consistently. Unfortunately as none of them are Christmas songs, we are done releasing for 2023, but are hoping to get our next single out in January, then have a couple more out before Summer. As for the live shows, one that’s really been on our list for a long time has been to get over to the UK. We’ve had plans for shows previously that never materialised due to Covid so it feels long overdue for us! We’re also aiming to be hitting a few big ones on the festival circuit this year so keep the eyes peeled!
If I looked in your fridge right now what would I find?
All of the ingredients for our next single because we’re ready to cook!!
For more information on Sunburn please check out their facebook and instagram.
