Wallflower Music

I got the incredible opportunity to interview Sundae Best on August 8th after their set at Punkz Productionz’s show at Fret’s Music. Below is the transcribed interview we had. Anything in (parentheses) is added by future editing Nathan. 

Thank you again for Sundae Best for yapping with me and for giving me a glimpse into your world! Anyone who knows me also knows how much I listen to Sundae Best and how much I appreciate their music, so this was genuinely wonderful. 

Nathan: “Okay to start, I would love for everyone to introduce themselves, what instruments you play in the band, a little introduction.”

Julian: My name’s Julian, and I play the drums.

Matthew: I’m Matthew. I play the guitar and sometimes I smack a tambourine around.

Andrew: My name is Andrew. I do guitar and I sing sometimes, maybe.

Donny: My name’s Donny and I play the keys, occasionally the bass and guitar.

Aidan: My name’s Aidan. I play the bass and I sing.

Nathan: Awesome, thank you thank you! My first question, very basic question, but kinda like your superhero origin story, how did Sundae Best come to fruition? What is your origin story?

Aidan: Andrew and I were in a singing group in high school, we were in a barbershop quartet which is like acapella singing and after high school, we were like “We were in this music group stuff, we want to continue with it but in what way? We don’t know.” We tried to bring the other two guys, like all the 4 of us should form a band and it didn’t really work out so we just kinda found other people and started making music. Me personally, I didn’t play any instruments so I was basically learning the instrument while we were like trying to write songs. You wanna add anything from the beginning?

Andrew: Me and Aidan go back forever but then we all got – except for Donny now, Donny’s the only odd one out – but we all also got a job at the same place so all of us were just like “We should make some music! We’re all workers and a couple of our songs are very work-centric and that’s because we all felt similarly but we just slowly built up from there and then-

Aidan: We started meeting up every Wednesday. Every Wednesday, which is actually changing for us very soon but for like the past 4 years, Andrew and I, at the beginning, it was just us for a while, but then obviously we have everybody now but we used to do like 14-hour days in a hot garage, in the house, like every Wednesday without fail. If we didn’t, it was weird and that was our day to grind. At the beginning, our partners were like “what are these guys doing?” Like we’re literally just meeting up in a garage and hanging out, we’re not performing, we’re not putting out music but, we had a dream and we were grinding towards it, which we definitely still are grinding towards that dream, but yeah we just didn’t stop and we met everybody. Actually – everyone except Julien all went to the same high school as well so, it just kinda worked out that way. We could probably talk about that for like 3 hours.

Andrew: We had 2-3 shows in my backyard and then we got a couple of invites and then from there, we started throwing our own at a local spot. Then that place shut down and we’ve just been kinda floating around, playing where we can, having a good time, enjoying the local music scene.

Nathan: Real. Jumping to another question that I had, what I really love in the local scene is when people really represent the area they’re from. I’m obviously here from the I.E. I’m from Corona, I’ve lived here my whole life, but I love supporting bands from the I.E. You guys are from the High Desert, correct? What is the local music scene like in the High Desert? What does it feel like to represent that area?

Matt: So me and Donny, we actually started in high school, separately, but we were learning guitar together and were separately in punk bands. It was very punk-oriented, like that was the entire scene. And then it shifted, I wanna say, to more metal, like thrash metal, and then there was like an indie burst. A big band from our high school blew up, they were an indie band and I feel like that paved a way for all that to mesh together. So there was like indie metal shows and it was really cool! Me and Donny, we were both in the same band, but at separate times. 

Donny: I guess twice now, right?

Matt: Yeah, twice. 

Donny: Well, I’m the most recent member (of Sundae Best). I joined, maybe like a month ago? Is it 2 months now? About 2 months, that’s crazy. I met this band from Matthew, I mean Matthew’s been one of my closest friends for a while. We kinda grew up together in high school and then like he said, we were in a different band for a short period of time and he kinda replaced me actually. I know, awkward!

Matt: And then he replaced me. 

Donny: Haha yeah, then I replaced you.

Matt: Yeah, he replaced me, so we’re even!

Donny: After that, we kinda took a break and then, we actually tried to make music ourselves. We had a third member and we tried to make music ourselves! It was fun, but I think Sundae Best, they were very live-forward, which was very opposite from my skill-set, I like to produce. I like to be in the studio. It was different for me, so them asking me to join was kinda cool cuz I was like “oh hell yeah!” I had already produced for them, and for them to give me that opportunity was really cool. That’s kinda how I joined the band. At the time, it was just a mish-mash of metal, punk, and I was into all of it. 

Julien: As an extension of a lot of that, the scene is very…heavy. It’s for sure going through a punk thing right now. I feel like there’s always an underlying punk scene in the High Desert. There’s not very many indie groups, at least not consistent, at least not doing, y’know, the month-to-month playing shows, doing the gigs. So it’s kinda cool –

Aidan: We also only have one venue. One venue, across Hesperia, Victorville, Apple Valley. There’s only like one venue doing shows like “Oh, we’re trying to throw shows!” Like we mostly do backyards, uh little spots we can find like he (Andrew) was saying, we started in his backyard ‘cuz there was nowhere to start. We don’t know anybody. Matt and Donny were in bands prior but when we first started doing our shows, it was Andrew, myself, Julien, and then somebody named Mikey, he was with us, and we were doing shows like that. That kind of, ground-up. So, yeah, there really is not much of a scene. We pretty much know everybody now and that’s how you know it’s really small. 

Julien: There’s a strong bar scene too, of bar venues that will take cover bands, mostly cover bands, old dad rock, you know, guys in their 40’s, which is cool, fuck yeah for that! But there isn’t a strong local scene like what we’re trying to do, so it’s really cool. We feel like we’ve kinda spear-headed a new – I don’t want to say a new indie movement – but a new scene in the High Desert where there’s a lot more indie bands now and we do full indie shows. We don’t have to do indie punk shows or fill the bill at all. We feel like we’ve been riding that for a minute, which has been really cool.

Aidan: We were opening for punk bands for a minute.

Julien: For a year. 

Aidan: We were the only indie band on the bill.

Andrew: I hate to keep extending this.

Nathan: No, please do.

Andrew: Shout-out the Living Room. They’re starting with a lot of shows. They’re doing more there. Shout-out the one venue.

Nathan: I figured, yeah (that the one venue previously discussed in the High Desert was the Living Room), hahaha, I almost asked!

Andrew: Shout-out Los Kombi! They have the Us at the Bus Fest, and I think they’re gonna try to do that more, and then I think they’re working with another group. I don’t know if they’re officially going as Garden of Eden, but they’re pretty close there, and then I think they’re going to also start doing more local shows. So, a lot of DIYs, but a lot of cool DIYs. People trying.

Nathan: Absolutely, yeah. 

Andrew: There, you gotta just search for it a little bit harder. I’m definitely very hopeful for the future though. 

Nathan: Speaking as an outsider, following your band on your social media and seeing what Cristian (the mastermind behind pop.punk.photography on Instagram and Punkz Productionz, HUGE shout-out to them from future Nathan editing this) gets up to, I remember when they posted their birthday show that was at the Living Room, and I wanted to go so bad, but I had a commitment so I couldn’t. Seeing that show, and also the Los Kombi show, those were shows my friend and I would send the fliers to each other for. We’d be like “I wanna go to this so bad!” Looking at the bus, I thought it was so cool! Genuinely, you guys are giving a lot of exposure to the DIY venues and the people who are trying to build a scene. I definitely would travel out there and see a show out there so props to you guys!

Okay, transitioning more-so to your music: how would you describe your music in 5-7 words if you can (as you can see, this will be longer than 5-7 words LOL). Little challenge!

Julian: I have a really boring answer. It’s definitely prog rock. Like it’s just indie prog rock. I’m definitely going over the word count, I’m gonna fail the essay! We have always been inspired a lot by jazz, very subtly inspired by jazz. I feel like when I joined I brought a lot of math rock and different time signatures and different groves that shook up a lot of what we do. I would say also a big thing that we’re inspired by is a lot of midwest sounds and – not shoegaze – 

Aidan: Experimental-

Julian: Experimental- 

Matt: Surf-

Julian: I think that experimental, indie prog rock jazz, handsome

Nathan: Oh, that’s a solid word.

Julian: Someone called us vampire rock.

Aidan: This is kind of random but we were in our local paper, someone from the Victor Valley press came to one of our shows and wrote about us and I wish I could have a name I could say to say thank you because she’s done two articles on us now. She just said what she thought the genre was and she said something like “indie surfer rock pop emo” like it was intense. I feel like we’re not one-dimensional and we try to just experiment and everyone gets to build things. Everyone gets to say “Oh, I wanna make a song like this, I wanna add this into it.” It’s not like Andrew brought a song and he’s like “Matt, play this, Julian play this, Donny play this.” It’s very collaborative. We experiment, we’re like “let’s try this! Oh, I heard this song and really like this! How can we incorporate this into what we already have?” We just try to be ourselves more than anything and I feel like we try to have fun with it. 

We definitely failed the essay, 5-7 words is crazy.

Nathan: Yeah, evil challenge question haha. I definitely appreciate the longer answers! I don’t know why I asked a short-winded question ‘cuz I yap a lot. 

Aidan: We yap a lot too. 

Julian: Yeah, it’s probably good to put a cap on us, haha.

Nathan: So your music covers a wide range of subjects. I kinda touched on it a little bit ago, but you guys have songs about falling in love, about heartbreak, but also more serious issues like hating your boss and wanting to organize your labor. How do you choose what you want to discuss with your music?

Aidan: I think if we were to do a short answer to this, all of the songs we come out with, they have been what’s going on at the time, with anyone’s relationship – it’s not even just partners, it’s just like relationships with people at work, relationships with friends, brothers. It really stems from what we’re really going through at the time.

Andrew: Very personable.

Aidan: Very personable, I would say definitely. Not to say that we won’t do more creative stuff in the future. We’ve talked about doing a project that’s based around something or the idea of something so definitely getting more creative. But as of right now, and even the EP we’re working on, I feel like when the lyrics are written, it is what is going on in our lives or someone says “I feel this way, let’s write about this!” or “I have this lyric.” Like our most recent single, Andrew was like “I really like this coffee shop, Coffee Cove, and it’s on the street where we grew up and he’s using words like the street signs where we grew up and shouting out the Desert. That’s because he’s being appreciative of the local businesses in our area, so he had that feeling. I give Andrew a lot of credit for our music. A lot of the really great lyrics and songs we had, Andrew had experiences where he said “hey guys, I want to write about this!” It definitely becomes a collaborative effort and since we all work in the same kind of areas, we live in the same kind of areas, it’s easy to tap in and we can help write the lyrics to whatever that feeling is because we all get each other.

Andrew: Short answer, current events and things we’re passionate about. Boom!

Nathan: Even though this is on the record (I was recording the interview), this is off-the-record (I’m including this because it’s easier and honestly hilarious to me if I keep it in). 

Personable is so real. This is going to sound like glazing but I found you guys after I went to the Valentine’s show (The Paper Cutouts’ My Indie Valentine show, SHOUTOUT!!!) and I was processing a really, really awful breakup and the end of a very toxic relationship and I remember I listened through the album after. Then I listened to “Spumoni Blues” and was like “Man.” I felt like it was so real. It just describes everything perfectly, and yeah, that got me through, so shoutout! Thank you!

Aidan: Yeah! I wrote that song, going through major heartbreak. I was in a relationship for 8 years, I thought I was in love with this person and it fell apart. I remember when we wrote that song, a lot of it was captured in a short moment in the garage. They [the rest of the band] were just jamming out to something and I was just sitting there with the mic and I was literally getting it out and it worked. 

Julian: There is a 12-minute voice recording somewhere of that song, that is unfiltered.

Nathan: Wow!

Aidan: And I had never screamed before. The singing that we had done is very traditional. We were in choir in high school, we did the barbershop quartet stuff. 

It’s just really raw and genuine emotion. I wasn’t sitting there, thinking “hmmm, how would it feel if I was heartbroken…let me write a song about this.” I was genuinely in a place of anger and hurt and confusion and I think that’s where it came from. I think now, it’s a little hard, especially live, to tap into the emotion, like I really have to find something to make me feel that, because if I want it to feel real live, it’s different. Even when we recorded that song and it happened, I recorded the vocals a year and a half after we wrote it. Like Julian was saying, there is a recording of us, jamming out to it, I’m sure it’s just – I haven’t heard it honestly. I’m sure it’s just terrible. But it’s raw and got emotion. It’s just heavy and up to that point, we hadn’t really done anything like that. In the album, Spumoni Blues is the last song of the album and it really changes the tone of the album. What’s crazy is that the EP is going to feel more like Spumoni Blues, which I don’t even think we meant to do, but it’s definitely heavier and a different tone. “Assorted Flavors” (the band’s debut album) is happy – for the most part, maybe not all the lyrics, but it’s poppy and upbeat. The colors are vibrant on the album, you think bright. The EP is a different direction from that. 

Which, #1, it’s great for us to try something new but it’s just a nice switch of vibe. 

Nathan: Yeah, it definitely speaks to how versatile you guys are. I remember hearing you live but also listening to the album, being like “Oh, Praline Queen, this is so upbeat, this is so fun!” Then switching to Spumoni Blues! It’s a shock but it’s impressive you guys can do both really well.

Julian: That was one of the things that we sort of prided ourselves with, very early on when we were writing that album. A lot of it was writing songs and figuring out song-writing and getting our own groove. Once we kinda did that, then we started writing “Praline” and “Spumoni” and putting it altogether in a record. We had tried to really tap in and emphasize that it really is just an amalgamation of all the music we had written in that one year. 

Aidan: Which, fun fact, that album is the first 10 songs we had ever written as a group. There are no other songs. 

Nathan: That’s crazy!

Aidan: We wrote 10 songs. 10 songs the band had to its name and we were like “We’re making an album out of this!!” It’s called “Assorted Flavors” ‘cuz it’s just all over the place! It’s different flavors of music, it’s different emotions. I think that’s so cool, because I know a lot of bands, they’re sitting on like 50 songs and they say “We’re gonna handpick our favorite 10, how can we make this perfect?” Like no, we wrote music and we want to put a project out. 

Everyone’s doing singles and EPs now. Everyone’s just “Put singles out, put singles out, put singles out!” EPs are big and we were like “We want an album. Let’s just put our music out in an album!”

Julian: And we questioned it, it was hard!

Aidan: I questioned it a lot! I was living in Arizona for a short period and I would call and be like “guys, why are we doing an album?” But it does make sense and now I’m really happy that we did.

Nathan: I gotta ask also, where did the name come from…and the ice-cream theming? I find it very fun, I like it. I don’t know if y’all are gonna keep doing that, hahah!

Aidan: I think we are. We just have shirts that came in today that we sold a couple of where we went into the ice cream theme again, it’s like you can’t get away from it. It’s in our name.

Julian: It’s becoming really funny to go to a show and look the way that we do and go “Yeah, this one is about ICE. We’re called Sundae Best.” It’s getting a little bit funny to do that. 

Nathan: Yeah, at the Valentine’s show, I think you guys started playing Praline Queen. Someone was standing in front of me and they turned around and said “Ohh, like ice cream, like the name!” Like..yeah?

Julian: So many people don’t know that spumoni is an ice cream. So they would be like “Oh, why’d you pick that name? That’s so funny, like that’s kinda dorky.” I picked the name because I’m not a huge fan of spumoni ice cream. So I was just like “Spumoni Blues” ‘cuz it sucks! It sucks to go through by the way.

Matt: That’s crazy by the way.

Julian: My opinion has since changed! My flavors have matured, but at the time I didn’t like it.

But yeah, people would say “Spumoni, who is that?” It’s ice cream! 

Nathan: Yeah, Mr. Spumoni.

Aidan: So we used to have a different name. It was a terrible name. Absolutely horrible name. Honestly for weeks, we were wondering what we were changing our name to. Andrew was sending 50 options in the group chat like “Garage State of Mind, G-some.” 

Julian: We spent 2 hours in the living room deliberating. 2 hours! Just shooting names back and forth.

Aidan: Word generators, just putting random words together. How did we even get Sundae Best?

Julian: We were going between Sundae something-

Andrew: Like Sundae Mourning, like sad. 

Julian: Yes! We were going between Sundae Mourning like the ice cream and we were like “Yeah, that’s it! That’s the one!” because it was 2 hours of being exhausted, it was a long day. I want to go home.

And then one of us went “Wait a minute, Sundae Best.” And then everyone’s light bulb went off!

Aidan: I remember that but I have no clue who it was. It was someone!

Julian: I don’t know.

Matt: It was Donny.

Nathan: Hahah, he time-travelled back. 

Aidan: So after all that, we stumbled across Sundae Best I guess, and we were going with it and stuck to it. We’ve branded around it, our merch, songs. 

We were just talking about how we need to shy away from the ice cream, it’s corny but like-

Andrew: It’s us!

Nathan: God forbid!

Aidan: Even when we first started, a little bigger on the business side of things, I was like, “We gotta have our own ice cream brand!” Sundae Best ice cream bars!

Andrew: Ben and Jerry’s is the goal for us. 

Aidan: Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavor! I feel like there’s a future where we’re working with the ice cream branding. I just want to find a happy medium ‘cuz like, we do want to be taken seriously for the serious songs but like Julian said, it’s really hard to say “We don’t like ICE, we’re Sundae Best!”

Nathan: Thank you! That was super fun, I love band lore.

Julian: We got a lot of it!

Nathan: My next question kinda goes back to something we were talking about (before). The first song that pops into my mind is “Act Your Wage.” Very directly handles like…just hating your workplace and wanting to do something about it. What advice would you give to other musicians who want to use their voice for change or want to talk about something important that’s going on right now?

Julian: Be honest and be sincere.

Aidan: Speak from the heart!

Julian: Speak from the heart. I think there’s an inclination, especially for musicians to feel like they have to say something and they have to have a voice and they have to have an opinion on something or be on the right side of an issue or whatever. I think that leads to a lot of poor decision-making. I think the best thing you can do is, first of all, always write sincerely and always write about things that you care about, but also, if you’re going to take an issue or talk about something that’s a little bit contentious, be honest about it. Say how you feel about it. Don’t worry about the backlash, don’t worry about the shit that people might say or whatever. Who cares? It does not matter. The thing that matters is the creative process that leads you to speaking about that. 

Nathan: Yeah, perfectly said.

Andrew: Don’t be afraid of saying the wrong thing or afraid that no one’s gonna feel the same way. Humans are built on struggle. We all share the same struggle of life. So, just mentioning that, getting into how you feel. There’s like a thousand other people, probably more, that feel the exact same way you do. Find those people that understand it and say “Hey, yeah, this is kinda fucked up! Why do we only get these many sick days? What’s going on? Why are they cutting hours? Why are they doing this? Why isn’t minimum wage going up?”

Everyone’s going through it! Just, don’t be afraid to say it!

Matt: Yeah, I think a big thing that I stressed on joining the band is writing for yourself first because you are the first listener of whatever you make and not trying to cast a net to everybody. Make it about you because at the end of the day, it’s your song, it’s your art. I think if you say what’s on your mind about something, you are bound to catch someone else that feels the same exact way like “Spumoni (Blues)” with you. You know? I think that just being true to yourself when you’re writing. 

Nathan: Yeah, perfectly said, wow. I’m speechless. 

What has been your favorite project or experience related to Sundae Best so far that you guys have gotten (to have) or work on?

Aidan: I have one ready. The first show we ever threw was in Andrew’s backyard and I’ll be honest, in the moment, I was hating every bit of it. We worked so hard to get it going, it was stressful and then I had the great idea that “Oh, I’m gonna sell food! Let me get my barbeque out here and I’m gonna make hamburgers and hot dogs and I’m gonna sell to these people!” We hadn’t even played yet, like the other bands we brought were playing. So many people ordered hot dogs, which was a blessing. It got us a little bit of a kickstart to do our first project and everything, which is why it’s so important but I was getting smoke in my eyes, I was so uncomfortable. But it’s such a beautiful thing to look at now because it was the start of something. We just felt like we wanted to just take this (opportunity). There is no opportunity, we need to create the opportunity and I think that’s just a good representation of where we’re headed and our mindset with things. Even though sometimes I feel like we can get complacent, it’s easy in life and things get crazy but just trying to push through that! That’s just a representation of the mindset of a band that’s like out in the mud, grinding it out. Make it happen for yourself because no one’s gonna hand it to you. That was my best experience.

Andrew: There’s been a lot of times where we sit on lyrics and sometimes it feels like it’s not sounding right. But shoutout Damian from Rollover Beethoven in Hesperia! He was like “I have this $500 pedal and I don’t need it anymore. Do you want it for $100?” And I said “Sure!” Then I went home and played a little something. I called the guys up and said “We should do a song out of this! No lyrics and it’s going to be on the next EP and it’s just a favorite song for us to play. It’s just pure music and it’s pure feel on how we’re doing. Matt has this crazy solo on it. Anyways, it’s just the spontaneity of it. We struggle so hard to try to find the right words sometimes but just- let the music go. That’s what some of this is about too. Just feeling it and sending it and not worrying too much about it. Just doing it. 

Matt: I have a personal favorite. I think playing the House of Blues was like genuinely a dream come true, because that was just something before I even learned guitar I knew about this place. I looked up to Jim Morrison and being able to walk into the same building- I don’t know. I think playing there was just a giant step of knowing this is what I want to do. It was a totally different experience from a house show obviously but having the PAs play back to us and we get to hear everything, it was just great. That was my favorite venue we’ve played by far. That was a moment – personally, I don’t know if you all guys had this moment – in my family. My parents are very supportive and my whole family has been very supportive, but that was like “Oh, you guys are playing the House of Blues?!” You know? Not hating on it, but not like a bar gig or anything like that. It was almost like a new line got drawn, that also just helped all of us realize this is what we want to do. 

Julian: Honestly, mine is very vague. I don’t have a specific moment. I think just with every song that we write, we do something a little bit different or we improve on a thing we’d been working on or we expand an idea we had months ago. There’s a moment that I keep coming back to recently when we’re playing and we just hit a flow state and the 5 of us just completely sync what we’re doing and it just feels like 1 mind, 1 thought. It kinda helps me sleep at night to think about that. There’s nothing else like it, that connection with people. So getting to play House of Blues and the house shows we do and Fret’s Music and all those different venues, big or small, I look forward to every one. I would play in the garage forever just to capture that feeling.

Nathan: Thank you for sharing! That was awesome. Well, tonight we got to hear a lot of cool, new music from you guys! What projects am I allowed to find out about that are coming up? Well, you’ve been talking about an EP that’s coming out soon?

Andrew: Soonish! A single! We’re going to drop a single soon called “The Cove.” We’ve been sitting on the EP a little bit and I had this realization that I just want to spend more time with it and we’ve been having really busy parts of our life so we’ve thought to just get a single out before the EP because we aren’t doing much right now. I don’t want to rush the EP. This is like our new child, so we’re working on that song, “The Cove.” It’s cool, local, and…personable. Hahah, yeah very personable!

Aidan: We would love to get the EP out by the end of the year. That’s definitely a goal of ours. “The Cove,” we’re working on it right now. As soon as it’s done, we’re putting it out. 

Also fun fact, shoutout Donny! He produces and records and mixes AND masters all of our projects, so everything you hear!

Nathan: Damn! (Seriously though, shout-out Donny. Whenever I talk about Sundae Best with my friends, I literally always mention how put-together and clean their mix is. Genuinely impressive.)

Aidan: We actually started working with Donny as our producer first. Now, he’s in the band. Everyone that is here is who is working on the project. 

Andrew: Shout-out Brian, he’s not here but he’s also a part of the team. We love you Brian!

Nathan: Shout-out!

Awesome! I’m looking forward to new music! I remember when y’all dropped “Silver Lining,” I went to work and I told my friend “You need to listen to Silver Lining!!!” and later on, they had a similar reaction and said it was really good!

Yeah, I’m trying not to be weird about it but I’m a really big fan. 

Julian: Yeah, that’s cool! It’s nice to know that what we do connects with anyone else. That’s part of why we do it. We do it for us, first and foremost, but a big other part of it is hoping that you meet other people like yourself that you connect with and you share ideas with and you bond over it with. It’s nice to be reminded of a big reason why we keep doing it, why we keep writing and collecting. 

Nathan: Yeah! Okay, last question: What are your hopes for Sundae Best in the future? Either big or small.

Aidan: Headline a world tour. I am so deadass serious. I want to travel, personally. I want this to be my life, I want it to be my job, I want it to be my everything. I want it to be a living breathing organism. I want us to have clothing lines. I want us to have things surrounded around our band, but I also just want to share our music and I want to share it with people to their face. I love performing live and I want to perform in new places, in new cities, in new countries. Personally, I would love to do that. 

Andrew: A little smaller: We meet up once a week and sometimes our schedules are busy and it just doesn’t happen as full as I want it to. I want to make enough money for us to take a couple more days off and be more hands-on with the band and start playing more places. That’s my biggest goal. Not like I’m in it for the money, but I’m in it for us to get enough of a footing in this horrible economy, haha, for us to start being able to take the music a lot more seriously and spending more time with each other. Spending more time on the music and sending it out to the ether.

Donny: My goal, personally, I guess I just want to make something that is really well-respected by peers in music that I respect as well, to be acknowledged on a level like – obviously there’s like the Grammy’s and stuff like that but that’s a little big. We don’t need to get a Grammy to prove that we did something great, y’know? I just want maybe some recognition on any level, that would be great. It’s small but something we’re striving for.

Matt: Play the House of Blues again, naw I’m just kidding. I agree with Aidan. I think making this my life would be the end goal. It’s to be able to live and not have the weight of “Okay guys, I have to go work at 6 in the morning tomorrow,” y’know? But yeah, I think making a liveable wage is also a small thing. I think we could do that pretty soon.

Nathan: I see it in your future.

Matt: And yeah, maybe playing more legendary venues that I never thought I would even visit. That’s mine at least.

Julian: I think in the same tone, I just want to play all the time, everywhere. I want to tour, I want to be able to do this to a capacity that I know there’s going to be people that are looking forward to hearing our music. That’s something of a dream that many people never experience, so we’ve already gotten a little bit of that here in some of the local scenes, which has been such a blessing. I just want to keep doing that, doing that more, doing it bigger.

Nathan: That was beautiful, I loved it.

Okay, actual last question! How can people support Sundae Best? 

Aidan: Follow our Instagram (@sundaebestband – the username is linked to their username if you click on it!). Share your thoughts!

Donny: Listen to the music!

Andrew: Come meet us! Come find us at a show! 

Donny: Merch is only in-person right now – for now, maybe we’ll get a website later on but for now, you can support us in person!

Andrew: We’re way behind on this, but eventually we want to have a Bandcamp and you can pay however much you want for our music, kind of deal. We’re just not there yet, but that would be a really awesome way to send us 50 cents for the album, we would very much appreciate it and you get to keep it. 

Donny: And it’s yours.

Andrew: Fuck the streaming services. 

(In addition to this, the coolest merch item Sundae Best has available in my opinion are vinyls of “Assorted Flavors!” Having physical versions of our favorite music is so important in a digital age where we are just renting media from corporations that only care about their personal bottom line. If you get a chance to make it out to a Sundae Best show, TRUST ME, it is so worth it! Thank you again to the band for this insane opportunity. I had a blast and highly recommend anyone reading this to go check out their music once you’re done.)