A Train No Pandemic Can Stop
We are now on day 180 of quarantine. Some restaurants have closed permanently, your local clothing store is struggling, and millions of music artists have no platform to tour on. At its core, music scenes are abysmal, and please do not bring up live streams and social distancing concerts, you’re just bastardizing the experience. Yet still, there are beacons of hope, masters of marketing, and downright adaptable icons in this age of quarantine. The band that may or may not intentionally fulfill these quotas is Sunami; an unlikely and often divisive hardcore band. Sunami has not only managed to stay relevant during a literal pandemic but has somehow managed to thrive in other unworldly situations while some of their counterparts fade into irrelevance. Now allow me to drop a story on some Real Bay Shit.
Sunami is headed up by barista (shout out to his cup pours), California native, and local hardcore kid Josef Alfonso. While not from the Bay myself I have no business commentating on most of this but as an onlooker, the Bay Area hardcore scene is being carried by about 20 of the most talented human beings in hardcore. Taking inspiration from genres such as Thrash, Nu-Metal, Punk, and classic hardcore; bands such as Gulch, Drain, and Hands of God have cemented themselves as certified hood classics in the hardcore world. Often, it’s funny to see the drummer of Gulch put his shirt back on and do vocals for Drain. All while each band has interchangeable parts yet unique sounds of their own. Each one of these bands targets a different sound yet they all excel at the task at hand. Enter Sunami.
Let me paint you a picture. It’s October 2019, Halloween time and you roll up to a small venue played by the same 15 people in the Bay Area. It’s popping, you're excited and everyone is in their Halloween costumes. Your band has 3 songs totaling about 8 minutes long and it’s your first time playing live. What do you expect? Well, if you’re Sunami you expect a guy in a tracksuit to jump into the pit and start spinning kicking a guy with boxing gloves. Along with people packed back to back in a small venue just to see you play the most brutal 8 minutes imaginable. They’re getting the same amount of attention as the other bands who have years under their belt. At this time Sunami was San Jose’s little secret. One singular video was uploaded as a timestamp for this band, garnering 40,000 views, for 8 minutes of absolute brain dead riffs. When one of my friends told me about this band I simply didn’t get it. I had loved Gulch, Hands of God, and Drain. It pissed me off that I didn’t get it. The music was okay to me but I much preferred the latter bands to them. Enter their Twitter.
Sunami’s Twitter, run by Josef, is the one-stop-shop for mood. It can be found saying ignorant shit in all caps, merch plugs, supporting local artists, and more importantly playing its role as the band itself. Suddenly it all made sense. Sunami itself WAS the meme, it unintentionally became the brainchild the members wanted it to be. See, Sunami played a style of hardcore called “beatdown.” This sub-genre was often riddled with “mouth breather” types of ignorant, simple-minded idiots. Beatdown music is undoubtedly hard, but it has it’s struggles that in turn are funny to poke at. Their guitarist Mike Durt thought it would be funny to create a band titled Sunami without the T as a joke. The idea stuck and continued into the lyrics. By association, the Twitter itself became a bit. All cap lettering, internet screaming, hilarious subtweets, giving the impression to the readers that the person running the account was someone pounding on a keyboard entering their stream of consciousness. The Twitter embodied the very thing it sought out to mock, which makes the concept so successful. It’s timeless. It’s just four guys having fun by roasting the people their music caters too. In turn, they garnered more fans simply because of the irony of the band.
Sunami gained a more loyal following as COVID began to grip the world. It could not have been a shittier situation for ANY budding band/artist around this time. Yet they kept chugging like the train they are. See, at the time, Sunami merch was hard to come by. And Sunami had made a joke that around a certain time they were supposed to be playing with Gulch on tour however COVID shut that down. The ironic part is that the tour was never planned. So they went ahead and marketed fake tour shirts to sell. If my memory serves me correctly, about 400 sold out in 3 minutes on a Saturday night. The merch machine never stopped as they announced 4 new songs as part of their self-titled EP which sold out of 4 separate physical releases. This EP included lyrics such as “I’m ‘bout to turn off your nightlight bitch” and “what do you want, attention all you seek.” Real thought-provoking stuff.
Pivoting to something more serious, during the George Floyd protests, Sunami played its role in calling out police injustice and spreading the word of the truths happening during the riots. They went as far as to use their merch machine as a drive for good. Sunami put up a shirt to raise funds for The Bail Project and The Okra Project supporting black lives in California. This shirt did NUMBERS as not only were people able to finally support Sunami but they were able to donate to a worthy cause. It was a shining beacon for otherwise outlandish Twitter activity to take a moment to pay respects to the movement at hand.
Sunami has proceeded to make even more merch, participate in even more podcasts, and create some of the best Twitter banter hardcore has to offer. All of this hustle and effort during a pandemic culminated on July 27th when Sunami officially signed to massive Hardcore label Triple B. At this point allow me to digress. In less than a year, Sunami has managed to sell out of merch in minutes, produce two banger EPs, stay relevant under the looming fear of an international pandemic, AND sign to one of the biggest hardcore record labels. All while under the credit of a singular live show. Sunami’s sentient beatdown banter on Twitter, absolutely hard as nails riffs, and an understanding of their loyal fanbase makes them the gift that keeps on giving and the train that keeps on chugging. Pandemic or not, they’re going to push it to the top.