Sure Boy: What You Do When You're Alright

Sure Boy are notoriously cool. Wellington’s self-proclaimed ‘Baddest girl band’ have established themselves as prolific performers, bringing an energy and electric sound to the country’s capital. In anticipation of the release of “What You Do When You’re Alright” on May 12, Flynn jumped online to join Beth, Simone, Freyja and Lily for a chat about their latest single.

Photography by Charlotte Bruin

I first heard of you guys when my friend was looking for an opener for his tour and Tasha from Radioactive FM recommended you guys. You had a reputation as a live band, and may have only released Lemon Lady. So how did you all come together? And how have you been on the scene and doing your stuff?

Beth: I guess we met through uni. Me, Simone and Freyja studied commercial music at Massey in Wellington, and Lily and Simone went to high school together. So when we started doing musical things Simone was like “oh i've got this friend, a guitarist who could come and play in the band” and we were like “could she play bass?” Thank god that she did otherwise we’d be kinda screwed. That was in 2020, right before the pandemic, and then we really had to just truck through for a bit there. And now here we are!

So had you played shows before the pandemic, or were you about to make it in the music scene right before that happened? What was the occurrence?

Simone: We had literally just started, we hadn’t even done anything and then it was lockdown and we were like “ah.. Cool.” We’d written some songs but when it came to actually practicing as a band I don't think that came till after the lockdown. Honestly that whole year is a blur so I have no recollection of the timeline. But yeah our first gig wasn't till the end of 2020 so it took basically the whole year to get up to scratch.

Do you think it helped or hindered? How did you feel forming over the pandemic era? 

Beth: I think it made sure that we wanted it, because it was really annoying. I mean we were all perfectly happy to just lockdown and write music and keep chatting and do all that kind of stuff, we were just waiting. No one was out there like “we have to play shows, that’s the most important thing right now that we go and play music!” We were like “the time will come” and then low and behold it did, and it was lovely. So it wasn't the end of the world, we were alright. 

Well I guess that leads on to talking about shows. I had heard about your good reputation as a live band. How do you feel about translating something that sounds like a very energetic, jump-around, expressionist tune to a digital recording? Do you think it's a really good reflection of the energy you bring on stage? 

Beth: It's hard to make it accurate and capture how it feels and what it's like to play in front of other people when you're just alone in a little booth trying to hype yourself up.

Lily: We definitely had a lot of conversations before we went in to record the EP about how best to capture that because there's this certain (lily does a pumping clicking action) [rhythm] that is quite… We discussed recording it all together live or tracking it separately and how that would affect that live sound we’re trying to translate.

Beth: I think we did alright!

Simone: Also once you're in the studio it's so easy to want to add a million more things to the song, which me and Beth love doing - suckers for harmonies! But then we need to think “will we actually be able to play this live?” It’s nice to flesh it out a little bit more when you record but if you add all these crazy things and then someone goes to see it live and it sounds totally different…

Beth: They’re like “what the hell this is not who I thought you were!” 

Simone: We try to keep it as accurate as possible to how we play it live.

That’s really cool the way you describe it as a live sound. I know that some people may say that you have a DIY sound, slightly low-fi input and guitar riffs, but it definitely doesn't sound like that on this recording. I know that you recorded with Ben Lemi who is a superstar. The production is slick but the sound is a live sound, it sounds like you're in the room. I like how you mentioned that before Simone, that that's what you’re looking for, to be replicable during a performance. 

Beth: Well there's nothing worse than when you listen to a song then go see them live and you’re like “oh that's kind of average”. I don't want anyone to experience that coming to our shows.

Simone: It would be cool in the future when we have the means to be able to do all these cool things live but at the moment it's just us four.

Lily: It's kind of a good challenge for us right? Wanting to record the songs and being like “oh cool how are we going to do that live now? Can we do that?”

I’ve listened to ‘What You Do When You’re Alright’ and it feels not like a breakup song, not like a “fuck you” song, it feels like a break free song. Not break free like High School Musical breaking free, that's a different kind of break free song. Like break free from the shit that's happened in the past. How did you feel about writing the lyrics, because I feel like you touched on a not-fun subject matter, but in a really fun and enjoyable way?

Beth: That's such a good way to describe it. Love! Well you've really hit the nail on the head, like that is the song. I think we've talked about it before, it's about the relief when you have left any situation; say a job or a partner or whatever and you're just like “thank god im out.” Like I feel so much better now, the weight has lifted and all that kind of stuff. Writing it, I won't speak for everyone, but I think we did quite well in making the music sound and feel the same way that kind of emotion is. Which can be hard to do when it's quite a weird one like relief.

I guess the other thing is that it's part of your upcoming release which is your first EP. Do you guys feel like that, plus your four-stop North Island tour, is a new stage of the musical project?

Simone: I feel like the songs themselves, we've had them for so long so the EP is more like “finally please have these songs” because we want to then reach that next stage of writing new music. Although recording them has given them a new life. They’re new to everyone else so it is the next step I guess. But for us it's like “omg finally they're out!”

Lily: It's been a long time coming.