Sunflower Bean Share New Single; Announce Short Film Premiere

New York trio Sunflower Bean—vocalist and bassist Julia Cumming (she/her), guitarist and vocalist Nick Kivlen (he/him), and drummer Olive Faber (she/her)— recently announced their first fully self-produced and recorded project, Shake. The EP, which will be released on September 27th via Lucky Number, has already been praised for its grungey, return-to-roots sound, following the release of its title track. Now, the band doubles down on this exciting direction with new single “Teach Me To Be Bad.” A song, the band explain, about how “a chance meeting with a special person can change your life forever. It can be exhilarating and frightening to fall madly for someone you barely know.”

The music videos for “Teach Me To Be Bad” and “Shake” are part of a 14-minute performance based video to showcase each track via an interpretation of the natural elements: earth, wind, water, fire, and metal. Today Sunflower Bean announce an exclusive premiere of that short film at Roxy Cinema in NYC on September 25th. The event will include a premiere of the full video, Q&A with the band and director Isaac Roberts, as well as a showing of the cult 1975 Dario Argento film, Deep Red. Tickets are available now HERE. 

Shake features some of Sunflower Bean’s heaviest, most immediate and loudest music to date. Influenced by the doom-laden, heavy metal sound of the likes of Black Sabbath, the EP is an embrace of rock tropes and excess, and recalls the sound of the band’s earlier projects, Show Me Your Seven Secrets and Human Ceremony. “SHAKE was inspired by our first years as a DIY band, the spirit that birthed us and gave us the chance to have this enduring journey together,” Sunflower Bean says of the EP. “We wrote, recorded, engineered, and produced these songs so nothing was filtered through anyone else’s idea of us. We always felt like rock and roll was a feeling, not a sound. But sometimes there is no subverting it or explaining it. We're now offering it exactly as it occurred to us.”

Sunflower Bean will celebrate SHAKE with four US club show underplays in NYC, LA, Chicago and Austin where they will showcase both the EP and further new music. Dates and venues listed below. Tickets here. 

Tracklisting 1. Shake 2. Lucky Number 3. Teach Me to Be Bad 4. Serial Killer 5. Angelica Tour Dates October 2 – Brooklyn, NY – Baby’s All Right October 9 – Los Angeles, CA - Zebulon October 12 – Chicago, IL – The Empty Bottle November 16 – Austin, TX – Empire Control Room

Sunflower Bean have made a name for themselves as one of NYC’s quintessential indie rock bands over the past decade since forming in 2013. What started as a project of three high schoolers soon turned into a band with chart-topping releases, sold-out tour dates, international festival slots, wide-spread critical acclaim, and three remarkable full-length albums under their belt. Further, Cumming recently featured on Yves Tumor's ‘album Heaven To A Tortured Mind, while Nick Kivlen and Olive Faber featured on and recorded Frost Children's “Serpent” from their album Speed Run.   Known for their improvisational live performances, Sunflower Bean has toured the world extensively, as both headliners and as support for artists such as Beck, The Strokes, Cage the Elephant, Interpol, Courtney Barnett, The Pixies, The Kills, DIIV, Courtney Barnett, Wolf Alice and more. They have also performed at major festivals like Glastonbury, Governors Ball, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Reading & Leeds, and opened for Bernie Sanders during his primary campaign rallies.  Photo credit: Yulissa Benitez

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