BY LESLEY HASTINGS
Whilst I respect and admire the musicianship of all the artists I have the pleasure of interviewing, it’s particularly enjoyable when it is someone who flies the flag for the traditional country music I love so much. And that was the case last Friday, when I got the chance to talk once again to Texan country queen Sunny Sweeney. This was a few hours before the news of the devastating floods in her home state hit, I’m sure like me your hearts will go out to all those affected.
In the run up to the release of her next studio album “Rhinestone Requiem” on 1st August via Aunt Daddy Records/Thirty Tigers, Sunny is having a blast out on the road opening for Casey Chambers. It turns out that the Australian has played a really important role in Sunny’s career as I found out when we spoke recently, the morning after the Boston show.
Thanking Sunny for taking time to chat to me on her “day off” (it was 4th July after all!) I asked how she was enjoying being part of Casey’s US tour…..
“It’s fun!! Casey Chambers is so freaking good, man! She’s literally one of the reasons I’m even in this business. I heard her first record and Lucinda Williams’ “Car Wheels On A Gravel Road” around the same time, and was just so inspired and wanted to do what they were doing”.
And is she getting to play any of her new music on this acoustic tour, ahead of her headline full band tour which kicks off mid month?
“Oh yeah! We’re doing a 30 min opening set and I’ve been doing two or three off the new one”
(She told me further on in our chat how much she genuinely loves doing both acoustic and full band shows, by the way! Both make for different shows, and acoustically she gets the chance to tell more stories which she knows we love over here, she called the UK audiences “crazy and cool“. Yeah that probably sums us up well!)
So it’s such a busy time for Sunny, and as some of you may know she had just got a new van/trailer for her travels after a drunk driver wrote her old one off (fortunately it was parked at the time, no human casualties) so has she got a replacement sorted yet? Turns out all is in hand….a tight schedule as you’ll see from her reply but I said if anyone can turn things around then Sunny can!
“I cannot believe that happened! But yes, we have a trailer being delivered to my house tomorrow and have bought a van which is being picked up on Tuesday to get the trailer hitch installed. I’m picking that up on 12th when we get back and then we leave on 16th.”
So on to the new album, the press release mentioned it was the first she’d made without any relationship turmoil going on in her life. Did that make for a different mindset/experience, and influence the song choices/arrangements?
“Honestly, Harley (Husband) and I produced this together and picked all the songs (some older, some newer) but the most important part of it is that we are just so proud that we held our values as far as country music goes. We really put forth what we think country music should sound like. I’m REALLY excited about it”.
I pointed out it’s an odd time for country music as genres seem to be blurring. And I found it interesting when it was recently announced that the Grammy’s have introduced a ” Traditional Country” category ….
“I saw that, yeah! I don’t know what that’s going to look like cos I think so many people don’t even know any more what is in what genre! I’m really interested to see how that’s going to work , but it’s very cool!”
Having had an advance listen to the album, I told Sunny that it strikes me as being full of positivity with themes of defiance and moving on coming through strongly…in fact it takes up where “My Own Lane” (which she included on the reworked “Provoked” album last year) left off….
(That got a big thumbs up from Sunny)
Is that what she was hoping listeners to take away from this project?
“You got that exactly right. Yeah, as a woman both in life but especially in this business it can be really hard. I’ve always told the guys that work for me don’t bring your personal shit to work with you because it can really affect everyone. You can use it to write songs but you cannot let it get in your way.
I went through a divorce and none of my band even knew about it. I’ve been through a couple of rough years getting out of that marriage and moving forward, but now everything is going well, everything feels good, and I’m really happy about having new music that is about different things! There’s some definite same ‘Sunny themes’ going through it but at the same time what I really would love someone to take away from this is that it’s a more mature version of my first album ‘Heartbreakers Hall of Fame’ “.
(Side note both albums were recorded in the same studio, and Tommy Detamore who produced her debut album plays steel on the new one!)
There’s just one single from the new album available so far, “Diamonds and Divorce Decrees“, so I wanted to know what reaction and feedback it’s been receiving?
“It’s one of the songs we are playing out too and people are really, really loving it! People I’ve never met before and haven’t heard of me, Casey’s fans, are coming to me too and I take that as the biggest positive that they are at the merch table buying something. They are saying things like ‘wow, you’re really doing country music justice’ and that’s exactly what I wanted”.
There’s another song on the album that will already be familiar with Sunny’s fans as it’s been a staple of her live set (and featured on merch) for several years, “I Drink Well With Others“, like the lead single another fun honky tonk number. Was that always destined to make it on to an album at some point?
“Yeah, so what happened was we wrote that kind of like a joke ….it’s silly, right? But the theme runs through everyone, you’d rather be partying with other people, right? We did do a live recording of it during Covid, it never really did anything but people kept on asking why we didn’t have T-shirts for it ….and now all these years late it’s the t-shirt that won’t die! We have it in seven or eight different colours and I just called my merch guy to say we need to get another colour! He laughed and said we are running out of colours! But I’m so excited for that to actually be a studio album cut, I really do love that song, it’s silly but fun and people seem to love it!”
But it’s not all up tempo songs, there’s some really lovely ballads in the mix too. I told Sunny that one of these is probably my favourite track on the album, and one of several co-writes with Brennen Leigh who I love, and that’s “Houston Belongs To Me”
“Oh really? … Thank you!!”
Yes my favourite at the moment I continued. It strikes me as one of the most personal, could she tell me a bit about that write please?
“Honestly, Brennen is one of my very best friends on earth, and we’ve written a lot of songs together. This one particularly is fictional, not specifically about either of us, but there some pieces of it which are fact. It’s basically about a relationship where you break up with someone and they’ve already come to your town, but when you split it’s time for them to go, they don’t get to stay here. We just wrote it from that angle, and I really love that song”.
Sunny is a prolific songwriter so I was interested to see two covers on the tracklisting. What led her to include her version of “Last Hard Bible” by the aforementioned Casey Chambers?
“It was on her first album and I used to do it at the start of my career but it just faded out for whatever reason. In the last couple of years I’ve reconnected with her family, I’m friendly with her brother and dad, her brother, Nash, is a producer in Nashville and I reached out to her father saying I really wanted to record it but only if Nash and Casey will sing harmonies on it. So he said I needed to call Nash and put it to him, he finally got back to me and said yes, we’re going to do it and Casey is recording it today! They put their harmonies on it, then Casey sent me a message saying my version is so f***ing cool! So that’s why I chose to record that!”
Then there’s the album opener “Find It Where I Can” which is the other cover but such a Sunny song in my opinion….
“I love the song! One night a few years ago Harley and I were in our own rooms on our computers and I randomly came across the version by Jerry Lee Lewis and his cousin Mickey Gilley on duelling pianos and I was ‘OMG, why have I never heard this song, I’m such a huge Jerry Lee fan’. So I texted Harley to say you have got to listen to this! Harley agreed it would be so cool for us to do so we start playing it at our shows and people were freaking out so we knew it had to go on the record. And I immediately knew I wanted it to start the record, Harley was really, but you didn’t write it but I was like I don’t care, it’s a really badass song! We have Henry Herbert, an English man living in Nashville who is a friend of ours , playing on it and he’s like the second coming of Jerry Lee Lewis, he’s incredible! He’s playing on the whole record but kills that song! And we have Mickey Raphael playing harmonica on it, Willie Nelson’s guy….it turned out so good, I’m so excited about it!”
Sunny had already mentioned that she and Harley have co-produced this album, and I’m aware she has also produced the upcoming album for her friend/writing partner Erin Enderlin, so is that part of the creative process she’d like to get more involved with for other artists?
“Yes, Harley and I produced that one together too but didn’t plan to! We first worked together as producers a few years back when I recorded ‘Red Dirt Girl ‘ with Jamie Lin Wilson, so thought why are we paying someone when we can do it ourselves? So when Erin heard mine she was like ‘can y’all do mine too?’. I hope we can do some for other artist, it ended up being a blast. Definitely something I’d find interesting to move forward with as a different avenue of my career”.
Any part of the creative process she’s not so keen on?
“Going through the mixes and deciding things like if we want levels changing or parts adding. It’s a lot of weight cos that’s going to be on you”.
Which tracks is Sunny most exciting to get feedback about when the album is out next month?
“ ‘Find It Where I Can’ and ‘Half-Lit in 3/4 Time’ ”
(The opener and closer btw…..that last track is so clever, wait til you hear it!)
And which song does she look forward to rocking out with her full band on the tour?
“Oh man, they are all so fun to play, we’ve been having so much fun at rehearsals. It’s always fun learning new songs. I really am excited about all of them to be honest!”
And it’s pretty cool to see that Sunny is playing the Opry on release day! What are her thoughts about that and has she decided her set list yet?
“Yes it’s going to be my 77th time of playing there! I can’t believe it, I keep waiting for them to say ‘ok, that’s it, it’s been fun!’. But they are so sweet to me and there’s no other stage I’d rather debut a country record than at the Grand Ole Opry. I’m working on my set list today actually, after I get off this call!”
So I obviously had to ask when she’s planning to come back to play for her “cool and crazy” UK fans….
“You know I love you so much and would live there if my mom wasn’t living here! Y’all are just so welcoming to people who aren’t from there, you’re all so tragically kind. I love how you listen to the words of songs and tell me why they mean so much to you, come to the merch table, that’s why we come over there so much. We’ll probably be back in the Spring or Summer next year I think, not soon enough but we are booked all the way through this year.
There’s this place Thai place in Nottingham we found (and yes, she did pronounce the “ham” at the end) …. we are so basic, but it was so good and had an egg on top of this rice and I ate it literally for lunch and dinner and then again the next day”
Well that’s another reason to come back, Sunny!
I finished by wishing her all the best with the album and tour, and said I’d definitely see her next year to find out what new t-shirt colour her merch guy had come up with!
Pre – Order/Save ” Rhinestone Requiem” here https://orcd.co/ss-rr
To learn more about Sunny Sweeney, visit sunnysweeney.com, and follow Sweeney on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.