almost monday On Their Upcoming Single "sunburn"
Just a few days after completing their US tour opening up for Joywave, singer Dawson Daugherty, bassist Luke Fabry, and guitarist Cole Clisby from on the rise indie-pop band, almost monday, hopped on a Zoom call to discuss their newest single “sunburn.” “sunburn” is a sunshiney bop about the sting of short-lived summer love.
[UNPUBLISHED:] I saw you guys perform at the Teragram Ballroom with Joywave recently. You guys were awesome! Especially when you played your upcoming single “sunburn.” What was it like getting to perform and see people’s reactions to “Sunburn” for the first time, firsthand?
[DAWSON:] You know, you write these songs in the studio and you think that hopefully, they’re good. You hope people like them. The cool thing about playing them live is that you get to physically see people respond to the music. So, it’s always cool playing new music for people live. We’ve actually been playing “sunburn” for a while now. I think we’ve been playing it since Lollapalooza last year and it feels like people have always vibed with it. We’re really excited to finally put it out and hopefully, the people who have come to shows will be excited to hear it on the recording now.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Now what was the writing process? Is there any particular inspiration behind the song you’d like to share?
[DAWSON:] Sometimes, the way we write songs is we’ll have a list of song titles and then we pick out a title and make it the goal of the day to write a song with that title. That was the case for “sunburn.” We had that title and we wanted to write a song called “sunburn.” The song ended up becoming a story about a summer fling. And, you know, those don’t last very long. And then you’re back to reality. That was the thought process behind that one.
[UNPUBLISHED:] So, considering the song’s themes of “summer love” and its upbeat, fun sound, what are some other summer songs that you have on your playlist that get you in that sunshiney mood.
[LUKE:] Good question. I’m looking through my Spotify now.
[DAWSON:] I know, I was about to say I wanted to bring up my Spotify. I’ve been listening to a lot of the band “Her’s.” I’m not sure if you know of them. It’s obviously really tragic what happened to them, but their music has been so good. I’ve been listening to that a lot. It feels what I’ll be listing to this summer.
[LUKE:] Yeah, I think we wrote the song probably around summertime. I think it was last June or something. I think we were all vibing with this band called Babe Rainbow. I think they’re from Australia. They give off a lot of Summer vibes with their music, so we were listening to a lot of them at the time.
[UNPUBLISHED:] You guys are from San Diego, right?
[DAWSON:] Yes.
[LUKE:] Yes, very.
[UNPUBLISHED:] As a fellow SoCal local, I’ve noticed that a lot of the bands that come up from around here share a very summery sound. I wanted to know, what was it like coming up in the San Diego scene? Do you think it impacted your sound?
[COLE:] Yeah, I think it impacted us a lot. When we were starting, it was a lot of Beach Rock. So, our beginning songs were songs we wrote just to play live. There were two beach rock songs we had that didn’t have the same form every time - they turned out different every time we played them. As we’ve matured and grown, our sound has also changed. Our perspectives have widened outside of San Diego. I think San Diego is such a happy place. It’s a kind of mini-utopia. That vibe makes its way into our music. It’s happy and summery. It’s windows-down-driving-down-the-101 in one way or another.
[UNPUBLISHED:] I can definitely hear that. Getting back to the tour, I know this was your first major tour across the US?
[DAWSON:] Mm hmm
[UNPUBLISHED:] How was it? Were there any moments where the gravity of being on tour truly hit you?
[LUKE:] I feel like I’ve been gone for five minutes and five years at the same time. It’s just weird how time works. I think one of the moments that stood out was driving to Seattle. We finished the show and then we were looking at the drive for the next day and it was like a 15-hour drive or something crazy. I was like “okay, this is where we’re getting our stripes.” It was just so cool to be in a different city every day. The drives were good but the shows were even better.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Are there any things you guys would do on the drive - music you’d listen to or games you would play - to pass the time during those awful 15-hour drives?
[DAWSON:] We played a lot of Mario Party. It’s like a digital board game. But, yeah, we played too much Mario Party. If you’ve ever played it, it’s kind of random. Like, it takes a bit of skill, but at the end of the day, it’s sort of random. We’d still get really competitive. We’d have intense Mario Games. Many, many of them on those long drives. Have you played it before?
[UNPUBLISHED:] A very, very long time ago. But now I want to play again.
[DAWSON:] It’s a good game.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you guys have a Switch? Is that what you play on?
[DAWSON:] Yep.
[UNPUBLISHED:] I gotta get me a Switch. I still use the Wii I’ve had since I was a kid.
[DAWSON:] Oh my gosh, I forgot about the Wii. Those were great.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Yeah it’s just sitting in my parents’ house. Anyways, is there anything else you’re excited about this year? You guys just finished up your tour this week, right?
[DAWSON:] We are heading to Australia in a few days which is going to be really fun. We’re gonna do some shows out there and shoot a video for a single that’s coming up which is going to be great. And then I think just touring. Touring is just the best. It’s really why we started playing music. Having that experience - that connection with people through music - is priceless. So I think continuing to tour throughout the entire year and playing songs and hopefully creating more memories through music would be the goal.
