BIO
Sundae Crush is a band that radiates like a vibrant rainbow over a dusky, strange Western plain. Their debut album A Real Sensation was appropriately released on Black Friday, November 27, 2020. That’s a day in the music biz to celebrate frivolous consuming, while its moniker evokes something a little more fatalistic. Sundae Crush sounds sweet but not without focused passion.
Released through the forward thinking and fresh-tasting Donut Sounds Record Co., also in Seattle, it’s no surprise that the full-length is chock full of songs smashing “the modern ideas of romance which can be toxic and unhealthy,” as Jena Pyle (guitar / flute / lead vocals / tambourine) describes. Igniting the flame for Pyle’s frenetic, incandescent anthems are Emily Harris (guitar, vocals), Daniel Shapiro (drums, vocals), and Izaac Mellow (bass, vocals).
Although deliciously entertaining, A Real Sensation proves its dedication to realness as the record is dedicated to Pyle’s therapist, with the band donating 50% of the sales from first 100 vinyl copies and 25% of sales of everything else coming into the WA Therapy Fund to support Black healing.
“A lot of these feelings are things I was working through in therapy,” Pyle explains. “I feel like I was finally able to be who I wanted to be after therapy and that’s why I like talking about it. Being around rock and roll and punk after a while showed me how misogynistic the scene is pretty consistently and how folks don’t take care of themselves. So after being in the scene a bit, I realized I should go to therapy to not take on the typical struggling, sad artist type who does nothing to change their behavior. I was often talked into writing songs in the beginning because I got into bad situations where talking to the other person seemed pointless — so I would just write a song about it instead.”
She adds, “It’s basically my Aries rising album. I think that’s an appropriate descriptor because Aries is kind of known for being an angry baby.”
This delectable confection of an album is a combination of Pyle’s songwriting (“Long Way Back,” the first part of “What Do I Need?,” “Babyface,” “Sensation”) with tracks that came out through jams together, such as the second half of “What Do I Need?,” “Good Boy,” the end of “Babyface” — whereas “Don’t Give Up!” came from a live score for Sailor Moon R when the band first worked with Mellow.
It was recorded with exclusively women and nonbinary musicians and mixed by Nicholas Wilbur at the critically lauded and mysterious Anacortes Unknown Studio, known for pure elegiac pop ambience, and crisply mastered by Adam Gonsalves at Telegraph Audio.
As KEXP explained it in their premiere for first single “Sensation,” A Real Sensationaddresses ”mental health issues like not being able to get out of bed with summer depression ("Green Lake"), refusing to be the mom in a relationship ("Babyface"), and asking yourself "What Do I Need?" in the moment. ‘Even with these deep themes, we’re all living on a rainbow-colored planet of fun stoner pop,’ says Pyle.”
Pyle is from Texarkana, TX, went to college in Denton, TX, then moved to Seattle in 2015. Her original music project was titled Layer Cake, and she wished to keep up the food theme with her new crew, rebelling against advice to not do a cute name for a “girl band” - as she is well aware of the magic and power in the aesthetics of cute. The band boldly pairs thoughtful experimentation with groovy, heartfelt pop, as she aptly describes, “to tint your vision to a rosy hue.”
Harris is originally from Cincinnati, OH, “both downtown areas and extremely rural Ohio,” she says, before moving to Nashville, TN after college where she cut her teeth in the Americana/Country scene. In 2015, “I moved to Seattle, WA and haven’t looked back since.”
This flavor unit of Sundae Crush came together when Harris was convinced to audition for the band by Tiffiny Costello (known professionally as Housekeys). “I didn’t know anything about the band and had only met Jena once at a country music gig that Tiffiny and I had played together,” Harris explains. ”I think I was the actual last audition and had spent the week before in Nashville for Summer NAMM and for a recording/video session with Michelle Sullivan and the All Night Boys and had maybe a day to learn the Sundae Crush songs before auditioning. But I auditioned and got home ten minutes later and was talking to my husband about how it went and checked my phone and I think Jena and Izaac had emailed me like the moment I left that I’d gotten the gig. It felt pretty enormous for me.”
Mellow is from Everett, WA and moved to Seattle proper a couple of years ago. They had been doing sound at Cafe Racer when the band did the live Sailor Moon R (“Romance, Return, Rose”) score but the previous bassist had split. “I approached Jena and told her that her band was the best band I’d heard in Seattle. I really got what they were going for and was excited to see it in my local scene. For years I’d wanted to play in a psychedelic band as a bass player, and a month after running sound for them, they had a spot open for a new bass player.”
Boston -> Seattle drummer Daniel Shapiro became a part of the band after “I randomly saw SC live for the first time when I went on a Tinder date to a house show. I didn’t know who they were, and when I saw them all come out dressed to the nines I was intrigued. The live show blew me away. I had never seen someone so professionally and movingly play a house venue like that before. I dragged my friends to shows and saw four or five before they posted on Instagram that they needed a drummer. I auditioned and got it.”
Pyle and her partners are proud of the debut, which “pops” in more ways than one. “This release has a lot more care put into it than ever before,” she says. “I took the recording seriously and wanted to do it in a special place and not just work with whoever was around. Nich was patient when we were figuring bits of the song out and helpful in recommending different instruments and ways of recording that would be a good mix with our sound. It was fun to sleep over in a giant church, it felt spooky.” Pyle felt less reserved on previous releases of hers, and that on this one she felt like she could be her true self and be accepted. Previous fans or new listeners should find these songs challenging but the vibe extremely welcoming as well.