INTERVIEW: Sure Sure

On April 17, WTBU DJ Monica Sucic sat down with LA’s Sure Sure before their sold-out show at the Middle East Upstairs. Coming off of a successful winter tour with Hippo Campus, vocalist and “keysman” Chris Beachy, vocalist and guitarist Charlie Glick, producer and bassist Mike Coleman, and drummer Kevin Farzad are currently on their very first headlining tour across North America. The Californian quartet talked about their unique recording studio, their first tour, and Baja Fresh.

Monica Sucic: How did it feel to finally release your self-titled album this past January?

Charlie Glick: It felt nice.

Kevin Farzad: It felt good. We weren’t sure if there was a market for it really. We were like “Will people care? In this economy?” 

CG: “In this singles economy?”

KF: “Do people care about an album?” The answer: I don’t know. I think so. It did feel good because it did seem like people cared. 

MS: How do you feel like your fanbase has changed since the release of the album?

CG: The only fanbase we really knew we had was a small fanbase in Los Angeles, since we hadn’t even gone on a tour yet. Winter was our first tour, with Hippo Campus. This is our first headline tour we’re on right now, second tour ever. So we’re only now getting to know our fanbase.

KF: Doing that Hippo tour helped a lot. They were playing big rooms; those guys are a hot ticket around town. 

CG: They’re a hot ticket, they’re a hot band. They’re hot guys, they’re hot boys. 

Mike Coleman: They’re very attractive. 

KF: Leave that in, “they’re hot.” 

MC: The Hippo Campus guys are hot. Take that Zach Sutton over there.

KF: They’re spicy. 

CG: So a big part of the fanbase did come from the Hippo tour, but there’s also older people or parents.

KF: Parents of people that came to the Hippo tour. 

MS: What’s your favorite song on the self-titled album?

MC: I really like “Lowlife.”

KF: I’m a “Foreign Room” boy. 

Chris Beachy: I like “Giants,” and I like Mike.

MC: Hey!

CG: I also like “Giants” and I like “Information Machine” and “Hands Up Head Down.” 

MC: I like the whole album. 

KF: If we didn’t like any of them, we wouldn’t put them on the album.

CG: [after a long pause] But we should’ve put “Caveman” on the album. 

MS: Why’d you release Song from 2014 in 2016?

[the room erupts in a mix of laughter and sarcastic anger]

KF: Look Monica, this interview is OVER. 

MC: SECURITY!

KF: Can you write in brackets that I’m throwing chairs right now?

MC: Technically they did come out in 2014. They didn’t get put on Spotify until 2016.

KF: [sarcastically, in a nasally voice] It’s a really sore subject.

CG: We grouped them together to put on Spotify. We just made a little EP and called them Songs from 2014.

KF: We were not releasing stuff on Spotify for a really long time. We only put stuff on SoundCloud for a year and a half. And then one day we were like, “Hang on…”

MC: Let me run through this quickly. “What if…we put it on Spotify?” That was the conversation. 

CG: It was a very interesting conversation, the Spotify conversation.

MS: Can you tell us a bit about your recording studio?

KF: It’s sick. It’s home.

CG: The control room is in Mike’s bedroom.

CB: There’s a lot of knobs and lights.

KF: There’s cables running through the house. Lots of things called snakes. A bunch of microphones.

MC: It’s 16 channels in one place that spits out 16 channels in another place through the cables. 

KF: It’s like a bunch of tubes all over the house. Mike built these things called baffles. We can move them around. Say, “Let’s do drums in Charlie’s room!” and we all carry the baffles up and make a little drum fort. 

CG: And then I have to jump over the drums to get to my bed. 

KF: We leave it there for a couple of weeks and Charlie sleeps with it. 

MC: The whole house is a studio. That’s how we like to record. It allows us to record on our own schedule and allows it to be cheap. It’s very consuming, because we really do record in every place in the house.

MS: Would you prefer the house over a studio?

MC: Studios are awesome, especially really, really nice ones that have a history. You walk into those studios and you kinda feel it. You can kinda tell that really great records have been made there and there’s some “juju,” if you will.

KF: The rooms just sound good.

CG: You have crazy gear that no one else has because it costs hundreds of dollars.

MC: But it’s just nice to, especially at this level, make music on our own time. As opposed to saying “We’ve got two weeks to make a record…”

CB: And for free. 

MC: We definitely would [use a professional studio], but we don’t need to and we probably won’t ever need to. We’ll just do it eventually, because it’ll be fun. It would be cool to rent a really nice house and just bring all your gear in. It’s still going to be so much cheaper than renting out a really nice studio for 2 months.

KF: And it’s a nice little vacation. 

MC: Any acoustic space can sound good if you treat it well and know where to put the microphones. And studios can sound really sterile, too. Sometimes a room can just sound dead. 

MS: Going back to touring, what was it like touring with Hippo Campus earlier this year?

MC: It was insanely fun, incredibly eye-opening. We learned a lot. It was hard; it was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but also the most fun thing I’ve ever done.

KF: Touring’s weird, dude. Someone said this the other day, but it’s “an augmented way of living.”

CB: It’s like being in a traveling circus. You go to a new place, and all the same people are in that place. But it’s a different place.

KF: It’s really weird, but it’s great. Couldn’t have had a better first experience. They were playing such cool shows, and we just got to be a part of that. They’re also very nice and kind of guided us a bit.

MS: What’s been your favorite stop on either this tour or the Hippo Campus tour?

KF: Mine has been Chicago.

MC: Chicago was insane.

CB: Mine’s Evanston, the last show we played.

KF: Last tour, I had a great time in Phoenix.

CG: Phoenix was my favorite too.

KF: It was a cool new venue. It was a magical 24 hours.

MS: Will you ever go back to Baja Fresh?

CG: It’s not that good.

KF: Baja Fresh retire. Unless they hook us up. And even then… 

CG: You gotta hook it up, Baja. Give us free Baja Fresh and then maybe I would go once a year. Maybe. I just feel like it’s not a very healthy choice.

KF: It’s just not that good–we live in Southern California.

CB: Honestly, Taco Bell might be better than Baja Fresh. 

MS: If you could get a tattoo for any album/song/band/etc. what would you get?

KF: None of us have tattoos so this is a fun hypothetical. What I wanted on the last tour–I felt like “this is such a crazy physical and psychological experience going on tour” that I wanted a tattoo to remember it by. Maybe I would get a tour tattoo.

MC: “All About that Bass.” 

KF: [laughs] Meghan Trainor, final answer. Meghan Trainor face tattoo, Mike?

MC: Yeah baby. 

KF: Meghan Trainor knuckle tats. 

CB: I would get “I have perfect pitch” in quotes and then “Charlie Puth” on my chest.

KF: I’m adjusting my answer now. I would get “Vitas.”

CG: [starts singing “7, the Element” by Vitas, everyone joins in] 

MS: Can you put this on your pre-show set?

All: It is! 

Sure Sure is currently on tour. Their self-titled album and Songs from 2014, featuring “The Caller,” are available on Spotify and iTunes.

[This interview was edited for length and clarity.]