There are some great traditions with the Newport Folk Festival. There’s surprise guests jumping in for a song or two, pop-up performances all over Fort Adams and the conclusion that usually has everyone singing together in harmony. Another tradition is how the festival is an excellent showcase for up and coming musicians. One of the up and comers in this year’s two part edition of Newport Folk is Sunny War from Los Angeles. She’ll be bringing her blend of folk, blues, soul and punk to the festival on July 26.
We recently had a talk about her musical inspirations, her activism that she did last year, putting out a new album a few months ago and feeling a mix of nervousness and excitement.
Rob Duguay: Who do you consider your main inspirations for becoming a musician? Did a relative or a friend get you into the craft?
Sunny War: I would say my stepdad and my uncle, just because they were the only musicians that I really saw in real life as a kid. I think they made me curious about playing.
RD: During the COVID-19 pandemic last year you founded the Los Angeles branch of the non-profit Food Not Bombs, put together a network of volunteers to distribute food to the homeless and you marched in local Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality. Have you been involved in activism for the past few years or did the events of 2020 inspire you to get involved and make these things happen?
SW: I started getting into activism when I was 13 and it was from going to punk shows and getting more involved in the punk scene. I was listening to political crust punk and hanging out with people who would go to shows in L.A. but also go to protests, which I started going to when I was a teenager. When I was homeless, Food Not Bombs had a setup in Berkeley and they would feed me. There were punks that would volunteer at that Food Not Bombs and to me it was always a part of punk culture.
RD: There’s a Food Not Bombs chapter in Providence that a lot of punks volunteer at in Burnside Park during the summer every weekend and it’s pretty awesome. This past March you released a new album titled “Simple Syrup.” The album cover is an intriguing one with a blue and red figure dancing with each other, so who drew up the art for that and is there any symbolism behind it?
SW: The guy who painted those figures is Henry Lipkis and he’s from Venice Beach but he now lives in New Orleans. He’s a great painter and I was just looking at his Instagram and he had these little dancing figures. I was like “Oh, I wanna get those,” I saw them online and I loved the art. I knew him while living in Venice Beach but the reason they’re red and blue is because originally I wanted the album to be a double album and I wanted it to be called “Red Pill, Blue Pill. During COVID-19, I ended up taking part of the double album and putting out an EP which was called “Can I Sit With You?” Everything got changed because of the pandemic so now it’s “Simple Syrup” but it was initially going to be a double album.
RD: It stinks that COVID-19 affected it that way but I do enjoy the album, I think it’s really great. One thing that I think is unique about it is how each track on the album has a different group of musicians playing with you on it, including Angelo Moore from Fishbone. What was the recording process like? Did you have to do a lot of planning out and scheduling?
SW: It was kind of random. Originally, I just wanted it to be me with Aroyn Davis on bass and Paul Allen on drums because we were going to do a lot of touring as a trio and I wanted it to represent us as a band. I met the cello player, Niall Taro Ferguson, at a radio show and we just talked. He was a classical musician, for some reason I thought that we should jam and we ended up playing with this friend who was coming in from out of town. We had this random jam session and he ended up living really close to the recording studio so he played on a couple things.
I knew that I wanted saxophone for some reason and Matt DeMerritt is friends with Harlan Steinberger who produced the album and he was the closest saxophone player. He’s really good, but the hardest thing was getting Angelo Moore involved because he’s hard to connect to and plan stuff out with. He agreed to sing and everything but it took him a year to lay down his recording on the album. Also, the entire time during COVID-19 he never wore a mask and he was playing gigs the entire time so Harlan and his wife didn’t want him coming to the studio because they thought he had the virus. He was not wearing a mask at all and going out every night, so my boyfriend and I had to record him at our house. He was the hardest person to collaborate with.
RD: I can totally see why, especially since he’s not abiding by the guidelines and you don’t want people feeling uncomfortable in a recording session.
SW: Yeah.
RD: What are your thoughts on being part of this year’s Newport Folk Festival? It’s a little bit different this time around with it having six days instead of three and it’s going to be more spread out than normal.
SW: I’m nervous, I guess. I’m also excited, I feel more comfortable about playing now because I’ve had few gigs so far this year. After going a whole year without really playing live except for virtual stuff it feels a bit weird playing an in-person gig. I’ve gotten really anxious about playing but I feel more comfortable now. I’m really more excited to see other people that are playing there than I am to be a part of it, but I think that’s because I’m bored of my own music. I’ll do my best though.
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July 22, 2021 at 11:00AM
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Up and coming artist Sunny War set to take RI by storm - The Independent
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