Los Angeles based indie rock/twee pop group Sugar World burst onto the Southern California underground scene with the release of their album “Lost & Found” back in 2022.
I caught up with members Katryn and Ryan Stanley to talk about their early musical experiences, how the band got together and the making of their new single “Terra Incognita”.
CMM-What was the first music that really made an impact on you all as kids and what artists or bands did you enjoy the most?
Katryn-The first song that I ever remember listening to was “Help” by the Beatles, which is still my favorite Beatles song. I think loving the Beatles gave me the foundation for loving twee pop. And then I loved NSYNC, but the first CD I ever owned was Let Go by Avril Lavigne. That album changed my life because it made me want to learn how to play guitar. My best friend Susie introduced me to bands like Bright Eyes and Motion City Soundtrack in eighth grade, and then emo music was everything to me in high school. It got me through a lot and it was kind of an entry into confessional songwriting once I got a little older.
Ryan-For me, if I’m thinking as young as I possibly can, I remember my parents having a Jimmy Buffet greatest hits CD and a Dixie Chicks greatest hits CD. The first CD I ever owned for myself was Poodle Hat by Weird Al. When I was a little bit older and actually getting more into music in middle school, the first song I remember really falling in love with was “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day. Oh, and Nirvana was huge for me at that time too. And then after that it was the White Stripes and Radiohead, and then it was the wider world of indie music. By the end of high school my whole identity was like, RateYourMusic, Pitchfork, mp3 blogs, all that stuff.
CMM-How did Sugar World form and start crafting the band’s sound?
Ryan-Well, Katryn and I first started making music together in 2013 in a band called Naps in Tallahassee, Florida. And we were kind of this indie pop band in more of a punk scene. And that was sort of our initial sound, maybe a mix of the punk ethos that was in the local music combined with our twee influences. So Sugar World is still kind of rooted in that at its core.
Katryn-Yeah, and then Sugar World formed as a continuation of Naps when we were living in San Diego. We recorded a few unreleased Naps songs and cleaned up some ancient demos, then pieced them together into an album called Lost & Found. We probably have 50 or so songs in our backlog at any given time, so it felt good to get some of the older ones out into the world before moving to LA. Our sound has gotten more and more digital since then, and we’ve also been playing with a full band, so it’s gotten louder too.
Ryan-Even back in the Naps days, we were always really heavily influenced by hip hop and electronic music, and we’re always exploring different ways of incorporating that into the songs. Even though we have always been an indie rock band, I have a tendency to approach everything from a laptop producer perspective, making music in a DAW. So I have always related a lot to hyperpop artists, independent rap artists, dance producers, etc.
CMM-The group recently released a new single “Terra Incognita”. What was the writing and recording process for that like? Any particular gear or instruments you all used during the recording sessions that helped inspire you?
Ryan-Yes actually, this song did come from a very specific gear setup. I bought a sampler a few years ago called a LoFi-12, which is sort of like a budget sampler that is meant to be sort of old school and limited-by-design. So I was learning how it worked and figuring out how to use it, and I was running my Korg Minilogue into the input. I recorded myself playing this kind of shimmery octave effect into the sampler, then pitched it way down and started playing a rhythmic pattern with it on the keypads. That’s how the initial synth riff came out. I remember I was listening to a lot of late 70s music at the time, like krautrock and dub and post-punk, so I think a lot of the other instrumental elements were inspired by that stuff.
For the vocals and lyrics, what I tend to do a lot lately is just turn on all the vocal effects and just start riffing vocally to come up with ideas. So the first demo of this song was just a bunch of nonsense, and then it was this process of working backwards to write a song that fit the syllables that I wanted. So it was kind of a reverse puzzle where it’s like “Am I able to find the sequence of lyrics that fit these syllables, and then beyond that can I actually arrive at lyrics that have some kind of meaning, even though I started from a place of pure sound?” In the end, I did actually arrive at a song that has a very specific meaning to me, even though the lyrics are basically cryptic and drowned in noise.
CMM-If the band could score any film director’s movie who would it be and what would the film be about?
Katryn-Jean-Luc Godard.
Ryan-Yeah, that would be sick actually.
Katryn-And it would be a music-based movie. Like him doing a French New Wave version of A Hard Day’s Night about a fictional band or something.
Ryan-Or maybe it’s Jean-Luc Godard and it’s this really meta or heady take on 90s and 00s indie movies. Like what if Jean-Luc Godard did a take on Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.
Katryn-Oh yeah, I love that. Like a music-based romantic comedy.
Ryan-Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. Like some kind of late-period Godard avant-garde take on that.
CMM-What do you have coming up next?
Katryn-Yes! We’re playing at Permanent Records Roadhouse on July 25th with Fleur bleu·e and Mirrorball.
Ryan-Fleur bleu·e are our labelmates on Sunday Records, and they were the first band we played with in LA, so we’re really excited to play with them again, they’re great.
Katryn-And we’re putting out an album.
Ryan-Yeah we’re finishing up a new album called Supercassettevision, which we’re hoping will come out in late summer. So we’ll put out a few more singles from that album in the coming months. And then we have a ton of other songs that we wanna dive into right after that basically.
Katryn-Yeah, we have plenty in the backlog and a lot of new stuff that we want to write too.
