Peter Kerlin - Sunwatchers Interview
Are you originally from Brooklyn? What was your childhood like? When did you first begin to fall in love with music, more specifically the bass? Was this something that was relevant around your household growing up?
I’ve been in Brooklyn for 27 years but I grew up about 30 min north of the city in the burbs, spent my high school years in rural PA. I had a very 80’s childhood: lots free ranging. Walking alone in the woods, tearassing helmetless around town on dirt bikes and skateboards, raiding my friends’ older brother’s record collections where I first encountered Slayer and the Butthole Surfers. When I found out the drummer of Def Leppard lost his arm in a car accident I felt physically ill.
What would you and your friends do for fun growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences in your more formative years? When and where did you see your very first concert and when did you realize you wanted to spend your life pursuing and making music?
My first proper punk show was seeing 7 Seconds and Token Entry at the famed City Gardens in Trenton, NJ. Once we hit 16 and had access to cars we were there every weekend. Fugazi, Bad Brains, My Bloody Valentine, GWAR, and Dinosaur Jr. It was around this time that I bought my first bass and amplifier and started screwing around with making recordings with my friend Anawim Avila who I would play with many years later in The Holy Childhood and Source of Yellow. His parents were in a folk rock band so he had access to all this recording equipment and pedals and stuff. He lived with his mom on an ex-turkey farm outside New Hope, PA (Yes, we knew the Ween guys. though they were a few years older) with a few other artsy folks including yippie rabble rouser, Abbie Hoffman. A strange, free, little micro scene. I was in Providence in the mid 90’s which is where I met John Dwyer. The creative explosion that occurred in those years, largely midwifed by the Ft. Thunder gang, really rewired my brain and changed my understanding about what was possible in music and the power of artistic community. There were so many places where cool shows were happening in that little town. This is where music hooked me, where it subsumed my passion for visual art (I attended RISD). Band practice became the most important thing in my life, much to the detriment of my education, sadly. Music was where it was all happening. It was truly a golden age. Lightning Bolt, Les Savy Fav, Olneyville Sound System, Forcefield, Arab on Radar, Six Finger Satellite, Thee Hydrogen Terrors and so many others.
You’ve participated in a number of projects/outfits over the years including: The Sumerians, Source of Yellow, The Holy Childhood and of course, Sunwatchers. Can you tell me about some of these outfits and how they originally came to be?
The Holy Childhood had its genesis in Providence, but it wasn’t until I moved to Brooklyn that I joined that group fronted by Danny Leo. It was there that I internalized what it meant to be a band, to tour, to support a release and what it was to have “feel” as a bass player. It was where I first experienced the alchemy that can occur when the parts of a group communicate as one and the ways my instrument could facilitate that. In the ensuing decade I jumped around a lot playing with many groups (Sumerians, Christy & Emily, Christmas Decorations, Minetta, Source of Yellow and other one offs). Each of which taught me some new essential thing about form, collaboration, commitment, risk taking and trust. My first solo release, “Salamander”, was an outgrowth of this time. The most prolific of these partnerships was with Chris Forsyth who’s sprawling compositions gave me a huge canvas to work with and pretty much carte blanche. We were playing and touring regularly and releasing records at a steady clip with excellent labels like Paradise of Bachelors and No Quarter for the first time. Playing with Chris challenged me to become the player I knew I could be. All this dovetailed with Sunwatchers and ran concurrently for a number of years.
Jumping ahead to Sunwatchers, how did you initially meet your bandmates and where did the name for the group come about? When and where did you guys first get together to jam and what was the overall chemistry like between everyone?
Sunwatchers (named for the Albert Ayler song) was hatched as a mostly improv-drone-freakout project by Jim McHugh, Jeff Tobias and Jason Robira who had all been playing together for years already in Dark Meat and later in Nymph who I had seen on several occasions at their semi-regular gigs at Zebulon in Brooklyn. They were a spectacular live band. The three of them had migrated from Athens, GA to Brooklyn a few years prior. I had asked them to open a show for my Octet. From the jump the common influences were plain to see. They were all such fantastic players, I felt immediately drawn to them. I joined SWs shortly thereafter, replacing Dave Harrington and that lineup stuck for the next decade. The band worked at an exhilarating pace in those first years. In a matter of a few months we had the material for the first LP. Much of the early material is built around the entangled tones of Jeff’s alto sax and the thai phin which was Jim’s main axe at the time. This created the singular sound that you hear on “Ape Phases”, “For Sonny”, “Herd of Creeps” and others. I had long since lost touch with Dwyer by this time, but Jim knew him separately through Dark Meat who gigged with the Coach Whips and the early Thee Oh Sees lineups. So Jim sent the mixes to Dwyer and he got back to us immediately.
What were those early days of playing and touring like before the band’s 2018 release of “Sunwatchers 2”? Tell me about writing and recording tunes such as “The Works”, “Nose Beers”, and “The Hot Eye”.
Our second album was recorded at the amazing Seaside Lounge studio (RIP) by the awesome Charles Burst. This album was for the most part pretty well rehearsed as we’d been playing most of the tunes on the road for many months by this point. I was having more creative input and was beginning to bring more ideas to the band. “The Works” was one of those, which we privately referred to as “Assworks” because of its exhaustive arpeggiation (Glassworks? Get it?). Trouble in Mind were super supportive and enthusiastic from day one. Bill and Lisa have since become good friends. This partnership has been so important to us. They’ve given us so much support and let us do our thing no matter how “out”. The best illustration of this may be when Jim, in a moment of inspiration, came up with the concept for the record cover of “Illegal Moves” and described it to them, “So check it out: Picture the Kool Aid man, but dressed as Braveheart welding a mace with a cue of notable fascists and racists lined up to get their heads stoved in, starting with Uncle Sam…” One could tell from the tone of the reply that there was some trepidation there. As the design began to develop and it became clear that this needed to be a gatefold design they were like, “Ooooooh kaaaay… we trust you… I guess...” and agreed to that. Of course, when we all finally laid eyes on the art by Scott Lenhardt everyone was beyond stoked.
Jumping ahead to 2023’s release of “Music is Victory Over Time” on Trouble In Mind, what was most important to you guys to achieve and express with this record having gone through the last three years of chaos to say the least? Tell me about writing and recording this record and what the overall process and approach was.
“Music Is Victory Over Time”. The title speaks to the feelings we had emerging from the psychically oppressive COVID years. This music was important for us to make so as to say for ourselves and to the universe, “Fuck you, pandemic! We won’t be squashed by you! Fuck you, late capitalism! Fuck you, decrepit and corrupt US healthcare system!” We wanted to have the last word. After getting laid out by the pandemic - our record release for “Oh Yeah?” was April 2020(doh!) - and the last minute cancellation of a West Coast tour, we didn’t really see much of each other for a year and a half. Sunwatchers was reduced to a text thread where we’d send each other stupid shit to keep our spirits up. In Summer 2021 we decided to reconvene and began regular practices. At first we did a lot of improvising but eventually made the leap into writing again. “World People” was the first tune to emerge. I remember Jim prompting Jeff - “play something Ayler-like. Major and roudy!”. That’s so in Jeff’s wheel house that he just spit that head out first go. I remember feeling a bit queasy about playing “the old stuff” when we reconnected post pandemic. We’d all changed in some deep way during that time. Jeff had lost his father. Jim and Jason had lost close friends. I had gotten sober. Life for me had become entirely about my wife and my son, supporting him and each-other through this scary time while trying to be creative and continue my musical practice in a solitary way as best I could. We weren’t sure how it would be to play with each other again. As soon as we started in improvising it sounded great which for me was really gratifying. Another thing about these guys is that they’re fucking hilarious. Being back together made me appreciate how important laughter is to musical practice for me. I had so lacked that when shit was locked down. We recorded the album at John Dwyer and Eric Bauer’s new studio, Discount Mirrors, in Eagle Rock. We played all in one room with very little isolation. The vibe was on point. I’m very pleased with all the performances on that record. We were all very present, eating and sleeping in the band barracks they have set up. I think we did some of our best work together there.
What’s the rest of your 2023 look like and any plans both in music as well as outside of music for 2024? Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
As for 2024 and beyond? At the moment I’m finishing up recording on my next solo project, "Animal, Surrender!", with drummer Rob Smith (Rhyton, Pigeons). We’re looking at doing some touring this spring. “A Sublime Madness”, a collaboration between me and keyboardist Brent Cordero (and including a whole bunch of other amazing musicians) came out last spring on Astral Spirits Records. We just played a few shows around SoCal with Ryan Sawyer on drums and Jeff from Sunwatchers on sax. We're hoping to continue getting that music out there as well. Onward and onward.
