A trio of respected veterans has been making some noise recently as Sunshine Boys. Freda Love Smith (Blake Babies and Antenna) Jackie Schimmel (Big Hello) and Dag Juhlin (Poi Dog Pondering and The Slugs) came together a few years back and brought all their experience to the table to produce their auspicious debut Blue Music. Now the three are back with their second effort Work and Love, a bright spot of fresh rock in our current societal darkness. We spoke with fronter Dag Juhlin about the new record, his hope for the future, and the positive response to Sunshine Boy’s vibes. 

Buy Work and Love on Digital or CD from Pravda Records or Vinyl through Cheap Kiss Records

DJ: Dag Juhlin

What drove the three of you together? Collectively, you have decades of experience in rock music. Do you see Sunshine Boys as a fresh start or just a way to express yourselves at this time?

DJ: Our coming together as a group was a mixture of happenstance (we were hired guns helping our friends Brett Neveu and Rich Sparks who have now hung out their shingle as The Last Afternoons), and the gentle nudging along of a suspicion that I had: that the three of us would not only sound great together, but that our personalities would blend and make for an easy and supportive work environment. I called that one correctly.

Your new record Work and Love continues the power pop aesthetic established in debut full length Blue Music, bringing elements of your former classic groups like The Slugs, Blake Babies, and Big Hello all to one place. Is there something to be said about reliving your past through a collective musical experience?

DJ: I think I know what people mean by the term Power Pop, and I think I can see a few examples of it in a couple of our songs, but it's never a term any of us have used to describe our music. Our previous groups all shared that big, ringing sound of guitars and drums and melody. Blake Babies were dynamic and interesting, rooted in punk and a shade darker; Big Hello were big and brightly colored and radio ready; The Slugs were bar band heroes who masked their melancholy and inner-band tension with humor and brandy. "Reliving (y)our past," though? That's another phrase that none of us have ever considered. This is fresh, this is us as we are now. All that experience is in there: all the things we love about writing and playing music, and perhaps all the things about inner band strife that we wish to avoid.

Is there a main songwriter or do you write collectively? It seems like a song like "Every Step" could only be born from a group of individuals needing a release for their passion.

DJ: I write and submit demos to Freda and Jackie, and then together we edit and arrange. What they come up with: the parts, the feels, the edits, the changes, it has always worked out for the better. That sense of cohesion you're hearing is not only the sound of all the years we've been doing this, but the fact that we have found a musical partnership that brings each of our individual strengths together in a way that genuinely excites us. It was apparent the very first moment we made a sound together.

Do you find the Chicago music scene easy to navigate for veterans like yourselves or is it more difficult with such an emphasis on youth that the scene seems to have developed lately?

DJ: It's not easy for us to navigate, no, and so we don't! We probably live somewhat outside of what is known as the current music scene, to some extent. As a result, our shows tend to be in somewhat unconventional places (wine shops, barns, houses) more than club shows, though we've done our fair share of those. We've played, in our former lives, every single situation you could possibly imagine. Rather than hustling for gigs every weekend, we try to choose interesting situations, venues we like, and pair ourselves on bills with our peer group of musician friends, if possible. The youth are free to have our slot in a four-band bill on a Thursday night, by all means!

How has the current societal situation affected your views of how music should and can be consumed? With the possibility of a summer without any shows grows into a probability, how can Sunshine Boys grow their audience without the most accessible portal, live shows?

DJ: I think we might all be suffering from a bit of Zoom concert/tip jar/guy with guitar overload, and so we'll step out of the way of that. We actually tried playing together on Zoom the other night, and it was a disaster. So we won't be doing that, most likely. The timing of all this was very unfortunate for us, as our new record is just out and our April 30 release show at SPACE has been postponed until early fall, fingers massively crossed. We'll talk to whomever asks, we'll appear as guests, we'll be interviewed, we'll send notes and videos to our fans and supporters, and when (I'm very "when" here, not "if") we can play again, we will. The people who have liked our previous record have been, thankfully, very vocal about it, and that's helped quite a lot.

Work and Love would be right at home in the late 90's, with its bright melodies set off by dark lyrical tones. Do you think this sound has a forward momentum in the diverse musical landscape of the 20's?

DJ: Based on the feedback we've gotten, there's plenty of room for the musical world we've created within the far-flung variety that's out there now. We're encouraged by the fact that people of all ages have connected with our songs.

If you could choose one band to see, and one to play with, at the first show after we are allowed to all come together again at shows, who would it be?

DJ: We began this year with a couple of short Midwestern runs opening for Freda's former band mate Juliana Hatfield, and those shows were fantastic. It was a perfect pairing and we were on fire nightly. I'd put the combo of us and her incredible band out on the road for the foreseeable future. The first thing I'll probably do is go to the Sidebar at Fitzgerald's and watch Cannonball play and catch up with friends.