Sonny and the Sunsets

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Sonny and the Sunsets – “Too Young to Burn”

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Sonny Smith is a native of San Francisco, but it wasn’t until he moved to Gunnison, Colorado that he got started with music. While there he worked as a professional musician, playing blues piano in various bars. He moved to Denver and made a name for himself there, but before long headed to Costa Rica to work on an Organic Farm. While there, Smith began writing songs, plays and short stories in earnest.

In 1996 Sonny Smith returned to San Francisco, where he once again found work as a blues pianist. Before long Smith abandoned the piano and began performing his own unique long-form story songs. He continued to write short stories and plays, and even wrote & directed a film. He released a steady string of solo records throughout the early 2000s, and even toured in support of Neko Case. With the help of friends Shayde Sartin, Tim Cohen and Kelley Stoltz, started the band Sonny and the Sunsets in 2007.

Since then, The Sunsets have seen a cast of players pass through the ranks, but Smith’s voice, snakey guitar and one-of-a-kind songs remain at the fore. The band recorded their debut LP, Tomorrow is Alright, in various apartments in the Mission District in 2007 and 2008. In early 2009, shortly after the release of the band’s debut 7″ single Love & Death, Sonny Smith completed a songwriting residency at Marin Headlands. Tomorrow is Alright will be released on Soft Abuse in autumn 2009.

“This songs on this record have essentially blindsided me as I had no prior knowledge of Sonny before hearing this record, and I can’t speak for anyone else but this record might just be coming out at the perfect time. Sonny & the Sunsets play stimulating and practically theatrical piano-driven tunes that would feel at home both modern-day at a cluttered house-show in North California or in the early 60s playing alongside Robert Zimmerman in a Greenwich Village bar. I implore you to pre-order this record (I did)…and since this initial pressing is limited to only 500 you will be the coolest kid on the block with one of the coolest records this year.” (Weekly Tape Deck)

“The real reward of Tomorrow Is Alright is that this isn’t just a batch of half-baked slacker madrigals. Smith is a storyteller, best displayed on ‘Stranded’ or the shadowed doo-wop of ‘Chapters,’ and his tale (though there’s no arching concept) feels like what might have occurred had the Manson family made good and pulled through the harsh reality to believe in the religion of surf. The Sunsets do their best to shake the ‘Bad Vibes and Evil Thoughts’ constantly following them, and Sonny, with a confidence in his voice that has aided the best tribe leaders, knows how to steer the ship towards optimism, even when the commune senses darkness. In the end, though, it’s a love of leisurely campfire jams that wins out, because regardless of a underbelly of soft bomb doom, the casual ‘yeahs’ and handclaps on finale ‘Lovin’ an Older Gal define Tomorrow Is Alright and Sonny Smith’s ragged and sand-crusted folk.” (The Agit Reader)