Sonny Smith hides his heavy lyrics in a major key.
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The lead singer of cult West Coast band Sonny and the Sunsets says their latest release, Moods Baby Moods, tries to “name some of the bullshit”
Sonny and the Sunsets will play The Eastern this Friday supported by Melbourne jazz pop musicians Dreamin' Wild, Ballarat’s Skivvy and Lehmann B Smith.
“I've always tended to write heavy or sad lyrics with major key music. That's my thing. Generally speaking, sad words with minor key music is too melodramatic and happy words with happy music is too saccharine.”
“We’re not trying to make straight up chaotic noise or peg ourselves as a political band but just inserting unpredictable turns into pop songs and being somewhat messy about it, questioning things, surprising ourselves.”
Smith said America was in “its most extreme phase of self-destruction ever”.
“It's tough to write about something so profound and large like that but if you write about the smaller details of people, of life on earth, this larger motif kind of reveals itself.”
Title track Moods began as a song about kittens and murder, Smith says.
“I don't even know if music can cut through all that garbage. It's more on the person. I think music is more like a tool.
“People use it for their different needs. You want to exercise you reach for a certain music, you want to party you reach for another. You want to rest and look out the window you reach for another. And when people want to step away from the screens and the noise of the world they find the tool they need.
Sonny and the Sunsets play play The Eastern on Friday, April 21. Tickets are $20 at the door. music starts at 8.30pm. 8:30pm