FEATURE: Spotlight: Sunday (1994) — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: @bypip

Sunday (1994)

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IT is great that…

the brilliant Sunday (1994) will be playing in the U.K. in May. Their debut tour is one that you will want to be a part of. An acclaimed band that are being tipped as one that will help define the sound of 2025, I am going to get to some interviews with the trio that consists of Paige Turner, Lee Newell, and drummer ‘X’. I am new to their music so it has been interesting learning more about them. The British/American group have a sound I think will take them very far. There are a good range of interviews out there. Some are from 2024. One or two from this year. I am going to head back to last year for the first two. Even if the trio are being tipped as ones to watch this year, they were very much on the rise last year. On the radar of many people. Their debut tour – which starts on 26th April – will bring their music to new people. I want to start off with an interview from DIY. Last year, they spoke with the creative centre of Sunday (1994): Paige Turner and Lee Newell:

“What are your earliest musical memories?

Lee: I remember being carted about in the backseat of my dad’s shabby white Citroën BX. It was back in the early 1700s, so we’d be listening on cassette. He’d play The Prodigy, Skunk Anansie, The Smiths, Nirvana, Pet Shop Boys and everything in-between. I was an only child to teenage parents, so I got a very contemporary musical education. The backseats were right next to the speakers; it sounded tinny and harsh, and I absolutely loved it.

Paige: Being in a Jazz club on a weeknight with my parents and grandparents watching my grandfather play a set. It always seemed to end so late that I never wanted to get up for school the next day. My first songwriting experience was on my grandparents’ couch with my brother and an acoustic guitar. I was so nervous to try and write, but I remember being so proud and then my mom forced us to perform it at a family dinner. It was awful.

You come from Slough and California - two backgrounds that seem on the surface to be very different. What were these places like to grow up? What would you say is the common thread that creatively ties you two together?

Lee: I found it extremely difficult. It was a very violent place to grow up, and as exciting as exposed brick. As soon as I stepped outside the haven of home, I was a nervous wreck. It felt like I was stolen from another world and left to decay on a planet that did not breathe the same air as me. When I found other people that felt the same I would cling on to them, and they’re still my best friends to this day. It was the same when I first met Paige - I couldn’t spend a minute away from her. It was like we were part of the same cosmos.

Paige: The suburbs of California were quiet and mundane; smoking weed in the Costco parking lot wasn’t exactly Camden Town. I was trying to escape to gigs and festivals every chance I had, dreaming that I could be the singer of one of those bands I was seeing. When I met Lee my whole world opened up; I haven’t been bored since.

There’s a real sense of nostalgia to your output; does this stem from a yearning for a particular time/place, or from a more general escapist desire?

Lee: We get that a lot! Although I have to say, it isn’t intentional. Lyrically, the songs are about significant moments of our lives, so perhaps the nostalgia stems from there. Sonically, we just write from a place of instinct - I just throw my guitar around the room until it makes a noise we like. Then we record it”.

I would urge anyone new to Sunday (1994) to read other interviews and listen to all of their music. This is a group that very much have their own sound. One that is being taken to heart by people around the world. Let’s move to another 2024 interview. This one is from The Line of Best Fit. I am so excited about Sunday (1994). Even if they are quite fresh to me, I can instantly tell they are here for the long-run:

“Creatively, Paige Turner and Lee Newell are two sides of the same coin; one complimenting the other and finding space for each others’ ideas at any given moment; listening to their music there’s a kindred chemistry. So it would be hard to believe that they grew up on opposite sides of the world, one in LA, the other in Slough.

Newell, hailing from England – and previously the vocalist in reviled indie band Viva Brother – was raised on “whatever my dad was listening to," he tells me. "He was very young, so I had quite a contemporary sort of musical upbringing in terms of a parent's point of view. So I was listening to Prodigy, The Clash, REM, and then, like, Britpop stuff, Oasis and Blur and all that Suede.”

Turner however leant on the likes of jazz through her grandfather. “I don't listen to too much jazz, but some of that influence definitely I would take into my vocal approach. My dad loved classic rock, Led Zeppelin, and Steely Dan. I mean, The Beatles, obviously.”

Locations and upbringings aside, their pursuit of music and willingness to share it is what enabled them to find common ground and expand as artists. The pair met backstage while Newell was touring as part Brooklyn synth group Love Life and supporting The Neighbourhood. It was the ultimate meet-cute for musicians. Becoming friends first, he tells me they “haven't really left each other's side since, truthfully.”

Since forming as a group – along with an enigmatic drummer known simply as "X" – they’ve released a self-titled debut EP and are now gearing up for the deluxe edition, with the first single being “TV Car Chase”. Given that introductions only happen once (and they say first impressions count) they tell me just why the deluxe EP is so important, for both the fans and for themselves. “So we'd released six songs before, and the first one we put out was ‘Tired Boy’, which is a similar pacing to ‘TV Car Chase’. So it felt like a reintroduction,” Newell tells me.

Turner agrees on the sentiment: “The other two songs that are on the deluxe that are coming out, are maybe like, a different side to us. So we didn't want to scare people and make people think, ‘oh shit, they've already changed.’ I mean it doesn't sound too different from what we put out. We just wanted to ease back into the release.”

What reaffirms the pair's confidence in their music is that they aren’t ready to stray away from it to shock listeners, with Newell explaining, “We tend to sort of go for more mid paced, slower songs, because I feel like you can get the message across easier lyrically, at least.”

Such mid-paced tracks are becoming a signature for the group, making it clear that lyrical content is as important as all the other elements that make up the DNA of Sunday (1994). Their process is usually organic and much like many musicians, it’s a coping mechanism, a time of reflection and in this case, survival as Turner tells me. “I went on antidepressants, and I was still very in a very dark place while we were writing the song," she says. "And if anything, these three songs on the deluxe were kind of the thing that got me through that period. I was feeling so terrible. But I would be like, ‘no, let's just sit down and write a song’, because it was the only thing that distracted me from what was going on in my mind”.

Sunday (1994)’s eponymous debut album came out last year. It is a remarkable and affecting listen I think. I will end with a review of that album. Before getting there, the final interview I want to source from is DORK. Published in January, their feature charts the progress of the band. One that has had this long gestation and evolution process. Countless demos and a decade before they were really fully in bloom:

“In a world where artists are expected to have it all figured out as teenagers and know not only their creative identity, but how to cope with the pressures of presenting it, it’s more refreshing to see people who have taken their time in figuring it out. It then becomes more fulfilling for them, of course, but also richer for the listener – the artists know more about who they are and what they can do.

“After going through a lot of heartbreak within any field, if at the end of it you still want to keep going, that says a lot,” Lee affirms. “I don’t think suffering for your art is a pre-requisite, but I don’t think it hurts. You find out who you really are when you struggle. We’re figuring out who we are now.”

That journey of exploration and discovery is documented on the EP, and emotions run high, but not always in the way you’d expect. Take ‘Blonde’, a tale about watching your man leave you for a younger, prettier model – rather than being angry at her ex or bitter towards the new woman, feelings are internalised and self-directed as Paige fulfils a fantasy in her mind.

She recounts, “When you’re young and experiencing something like that, you can’t help but think: what’s wrong with me? Why do they want someone else? There must be something wrong with me. That’s a trait we both have in common; we both constantly think everybody hates us.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Nick Espinal

‘The Loneliness Of The Flight Home’ puts Paige in Lee’s mind as he pens his sorrows during a particularly dreary journey to the UK, and this magical fusion of minds shows off the band’s transatlantic appeal. It also highlights the main draw of Sunday (1994): the infatuated, complex couple at the centre of it all.

“Paige is so much better at articulating how I feel than I am,” Lee praises. “We’ve unlocked another level to our relationship, and I feel like I learn more about Paige through our music. It’s been fascinating and I feel super lucky to be able to do this together.”

There are some complexities to this, as Paige recognises. “I feel bad for other people who come into working with us because we have to try hard to make it not be just us two against everybody else. It’s an interesting dynamic.”

It’s good that the duo are used to spending time together because there’s plenty more of that to come – after selling out their debut live shows in the UK and the US, they are lined up to hit the big stages in support of girl in red. On top of all that, and recently expanding their EP with a deluxe rerelease, they are now formulating new music to expand their world.

While they try to ignore overthinking any outside opinions and stick to the fundamentals (“if we both like it, then that’s it”), Paige and Lee are both bolstered by the support they have been shown. “The main way our new music has been coloured is that we feel more confident,” Lee says. “Everything feels a little more technicolour, just more of what it already is.” Meanwhile, Paige is ready to let loose: “I’m not as nervous to say anything that’s out of left field; the fans have shown us that they get it. Time to say some weird shit”.

I am going to end with this review for Sunday (1994). A wonderful album. I am not sure whether the group have plans for an E.P. this year or another album. It will be interesting to see what comes next. The recent single, Doomsday, is one of the best of the year so far I feel. Go and check out this remarkable trio:

“Forgive me while I wallow in the melancholic wonderland that is Sunday (1994)’s debut EP, a melodic treatise that conjures such cool 1990s-era bands as Curve, Garbage and the Sundays. In fact, I’d argue that the six songs—which include their debut single “Tired Boy” and its addictive followup, “Stained Glass Window”—are tuneful portals to another time. When I close my eyes, it feels like I’m back in the living room of our first apartment, where Diane and I spent many nights enjoying the random mixes created by our Sony 5-CD player. (We each picked two discs and agreed on one.) The EP would have fit in with whatever we paired it with, from the bands mentioned above to Shawn Colvin to the alt.country gems we enjoyed at the time.

Yet, as much as a throwback as these songs are, they simultaneously sound fresh and new. The latest single, “Blonde,” is a good example. Paige Turner’s pouty vocals wrap around wistful lyrics that find her longing to be like her old beau’s imagined new girlfriend, while Lee Newell’s emotive guitar wrings slo-mo reverberations from minor notes. There’s more going on than just that, however, from (Racer) X’s steady drums to the handclaps to the profane shout-out that follows the mention of Chatsworth.

The other new songs—“Mascara,” “Our Troubles” and “The Loneliness of the Long Flight Home”—fall into the same mood-inducing mode. Theirs is an analogue sound in a digital age, if that makes sense. Newell and Turner are self-professed cinephiles and, now that I’ve heard the EP in full several times, it’s safe to say that though Sunday (1994) create 35mm-lensed music, wide in scope, they approach their songs with a noir-ish sensibility, filling them with many shadows and just a little light”.

I will finish off now. There are a lot of artists coming through at the moment you need to connect with. Among the most interesting and worthy are Sunday (1994). I would be intrigued to hear what they sound like live. I can imagine that they are a pretty popular and arresting proposition. That might be something I can find our for myself when they come to the U.K. in May. In the meantime, listen to the incredible music…