Sunshine Riot are ‘Too Old For Love Songs’
Boston alt-rock band drops fiery new single just in time for Valentine’s Day
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LISTEN: ‘TOO OLD FOR LOVE SONGS’ ON SPOTIFY
January single ‘Fast Train’ is currently the #1 song on ‘Boston Emissions’ radio
Sunshine Riot set to release Electrical Tape EP in April
BOSTON, Mass. -- Valentine’s Day came and went, whether you like it or not. But the sentiment of the day, no matter how in love you may be, is this year washed out in noisy guitars and grunge fury through Sunshine Riot’s blistering new single, “Too Old For Love Songs.”
Released on all streaming platforms on Friday, February 12 -- in advance of February 13’s National Breakup Day and February 14’s Valentine’s Day -- the latest single from the Boston alt-rock band is the second and latest to be taken from their April’s forthcoming Electrical Tape EP, recorded last summer with engineer Steve Albini at Chicago’s Electrical Audio.
And Albini’s touch is evident in the recording, as “Too Old For Love Songs” is a ripper of a track that finds Sunshine Riot kicking into a higher gear. It follows January single “Fast Train,” which is currently the Song of the Week on long-running New England music radio show Boston Emissions.
“The song is really about failed relationships -- romantic or otherwise,” says Sunshine Riot frontman Jonny Orton. “More specifically, I think the character is reflecting, maybe a bit bitterly, about a failed relationship. The character is also incredibly sterile in his analysis of that relationship, which I find sort of morbidly compelling. I remember being a teenager and reading about the concept of ‘anti-love’ songs in a Dylan article and that idea always struck me. As a songwriter, it's certainly easier to write an anti-love song than a love song -- the latter is pretty tricky to do without the song becoming a caricature. It's also, frankly, a more relatable subject matter as a human than is a traditional love song. At any point in time in the universe, there are more people out of love than in it.”
The track was written by drummer and percussionist Steven Shepherd, who took some music he had previously penned for another band and pitched it to Sunshine Riot. The pieces fit instantly and the song gelled, the byproduct of the quartet’s electric chemistry.
“This was a song I wrote at home years ago with my old band in mind, who laughed me out of the room,” Shepherd admits. “When I finally pitched it to the Riot boys, that magical thing happened where Jonny just blurts out the perfect vocal melody with instant lyrics that seemed to mean nothing, but were perfect. We started playing it live and it was very well-received. We knew it had to be done by Steve Albini to properly capture the rawness. As we were listening to the playback in the studio, maybe 30 seconds in, we knew something cool was happening. Hell, I think it was the first time [guitarist] Mark Tetreault expressed joy in front of us!”
Orton had pieces of the lyrics tucked away in notebooks and folders over the past few years, and once Shepherd brought the music to the band, the whole thing crystallized into one of the most urgent songs in the Sunshine Riot catalog, a torrent of sound filtered through the passion plays of Orton, Shepherd, Tetreault, and bassist Jeff Sullivan.
“Sunshine Riot has always had an Americana kind of sound, with sneaky traces of ‘90s alternative and grunge, mainly due to Jonny’s vocal style and Mark’s total disregard for what one might expect a guitar part to be,” Shepherd adds. “This was hugely attractive to me when they needed a drummer. I like to think I brought some of this new edge we seem to have found in recent years, but the reality is that it was always there, perhaps trapped by an imaginary requirement to stay in the band’s established lane.”
While the song isn’t totally autobiographical, and Orton admits that he’s currently in a healthy relationship, the idea of dreading the Hallmark holiday that’s coming up fast is something of a universal sentiment.
“I've certainly experienced failed relationships,” Orton adds. “I don't consider this one autobiographical, but I guess the line between personal narrative and storytelling always blurs a bit in songwriting.”
Press contact: or booking@sunshineriot.com or michael@publisist.co
Sunshine Riot bio:
Gritty times call for gritty sounds. And Sunshine Riot are answering the bell.
For the past 10 years or so, the veteran Boston rock band ran with a variety of genres, swirling around a cocktail of guitar-rock that boasted dalliances with soul, Americana, punk, blues, and grunge. But as darkness fell upon society at the start of the pandemic age, the quartet hopped on a plane (safely, of course) to record a new EP in Chicago with acclaimed engineer Steve Albini at Electrical Audio.
The end result, this spring’s Electrical Tape EP, became something as startling as it is authentic: A raw, damn near primal alternative rock record that packs the introspection and dedication one must possess to survive in this day in age. Leading the charge is the EP’s opening track and lead single, the fiery “Fast Train,” which hit digital streams on January 15 and quickly became a Boston local radio favorite, gaining airplay on several independent stations and shows and landing the #1 spot in the Boston Emissions Song of the Week poll.
“‘Fast Train’ is kind of a funky song lyrically -- it probably gives The Stone Roses a pretty good run for their money in terms of sparseness,” says singer/guitarist Jonny Orton. “What is there, though, is a collection of images that I find compelling, something like photographs of youth. The lyrical phrase ‘do not take the fast train’ roughly translates into an anti-suicide euphemism; I think it was a line that popped into my head after hearing about Anthony Bourdain's passing and I'd been trying to park it in a song for a few years. Elsewhere, ‘Maybe we're all just waiting out a storm’ seemed fitting to me in that context and perhaps doubly so in the age of covid… and other associated apocalyptic mania.”
Electrical Tape may come off like an evolution in sound for Sunshine Riot, but after more than a decade in the game, what emits from the speakers is a band finally comfortable in their own skin, playing this damned game of rock and roll on their own terms, propped up by their own merits and fueled by their own creativity. In the end, despite what dressing coats the core of whatever genre label someone on the outside may apply, the foundation remains a rock and roll ethos as timeless as the music itself.
“Sometimes we joke that giving up was the best thing that ever happened to this band, and I think that's true,” Orton says. “When Sunshine Riot started, 10-plus years ago, we were all 20 years old, and not only believed we would be a massive commercial success, but were young and dumb enough to think it not only possible but inevitable. After a few years, the hard realities of the music business, and guitar music in particular, set in. For a lot of bands and artists, that lack of commercial success is heartbreaking and they stop making art. I'm not sure what other folks' experience is, but for us, giving up on commercial success and just focusing on making the best music we can, touring for the sake of touring, and recording without expectation, has been incredibly liberating.”
Like most bands, the arrival of COVID-19 wreaked havoc on Sunshine Riot’s 2020 plans. A national tour was canned, ambitions dashed, and venues here in Boston and across the country closed up shop. The year was looking like a lost cause, so the band sucked it up and went to work: “We wrote some songs, and hopped a plane to Chicago and recorded with Steve Albini… We approached Electrical Tape the same way we approach every session -- we showed up prepared, didn't overthink it once they hit ‘record’, and tried to put out the best songs we had in us at that particular moment in time.”
Sunshine Riot are:
Jonny Orton - Guitars, Vocals
Jeff Sullivan - Bass
Mark Tetreault - Guitar
Steven Shepherd - Drums, Percussion
Radio play for Sunshine Riot:
Hear new music from Sunshine Riot on the following shows and stations: Boston Emissions with Anngelle Wood; BumbleBee Radio with Kristen Eck; Bay State Rock; WZBC’s Virtual Detention; Salem State Radio’s Everything You Know Is Wrong; WMFO’s On The Town With Mikey Dee and Rising with Skybar; Christian’s Cosmic Corner on Mark Skin Radio, and more.
Sunshine Riot 2021 press photo:
Recent praise for Sunshine Riot:
The Observer (Nashville, TN)
"One of the most remarkable live acts Boston has produced in a long, long time."
Neufutur Magazine
"With resounding drum lines and a set of vocals that are Cobain-tinged, Sunshine Riot keep the tempo quick and inviting to listeners."
Skope Magazine
"They’ve been described as Johnny Cash meets Kurt Cobain and their relentless touring across the country is garnering them an ever growing fan base of college students and fans of original music that doesn’t suck.”
Nanobotrock.com
"Sunshine Riot encapsulate all that can be great with rock and roll if you don't overthink it."
Feedback Fury
"This band has it all."
‘Too Old For Love Songs’ artwork:
Press contact: or booking@sunshineriot.com or michael@publisist.co