A Chat with Sunset Salore (09.12.24)
With a big grin and amazing eyes, Sunset Salore can hypnotise with her looks alone; however, she is not just a pretty face. With a reputation for enchanting melodies, the enigmatic musician shares intimate tales with moving melodies. We speak with the Australia-based songstress about her critically acclaimed single ‘Call It’, music videos, Melbourne and much more.
OSR: ‘Call It’ explores micro-moments in a relationship that lead to a breaking point. Could you share what inspired you to write this deeply assertive and empowering track?
Sunset Salore: Certainly! I had actually had a bad day at work, and come home quite frustrated with everything. I channelled that feeling and was exploring when else I’d felt that way. It had commonalities with relationships ending, and other things, so really I focussed the feeling on the songwriting rather than one specific person or incident. It is designed to be personal, but also everyone’s narrative too. Funnily enough I managed to land the riff, most of the lyrics and melody in about 15 minutes. The rest I workshopped and refined, but mostly it landed in that single moment of frustration – which is super helpful if you can turn it into something useful!
OSR: The music video for ‘Call It’ features Madison Sewell alongside you. What was the collaborative process like working with AR Productions’ Adi Ringma and Rebecca Marshall to bring this narrative to life?
Sunset Salore: What a dream team! Madison had been on board from the beginning. I’d had this concept in my head from not long after recording the track, and she was the first person I reached out to who I wanted involved in the project. Thankfully she said yes without any hesitation! We decided to go away on a girls weekend to take the pressure off the single day of filming, so along with a bit of a road trip, some dinners, some wine, and some farm visits on the way back, we were able to spend a whole day focusing on filming.
Adi and Bec were amazing to work with. They listened to the goal that I had in mind and really helped to bring that to life in the narrative and in the filming process. It can be a pretty awkward process making videos if that’s not what you’re used to, but they both made it very comfortable! I wanted to trust their creativity in the process of bringing it to life too – why would I micro-manage the experts! Once they had my vision, it was a pretty seamless process to land the edits with very few tweaks. We had so much fun we made a blooper reel too, so that says a lot!
OSR: What was the most challenging part of creating and releasing the music video for ‘Call It’? Were there any memorable moments during the shoot?
Sunset Salore: Once I’d nailed the concept and worked out logistics, it was actually quite smooth sailing, and really fun. I loved hanging out with Madison, and she made it feel like we were just enjoying the time, not working. Adi and Bec were happy to laugh alongside us, and still get the job done, so it went really smoothly. The outtakes (available to view here) is testament to the amount of fun we were having – that’s my biggest takeaway, looking back, it was productive, creative and just plain fun.
OSR: Your sound blends influences from Florence & The Machine, Meg Mac, and Baker Boy, creating a unique style. How do you approach incorporating such diverse inspirations into your music?
Sunset Salore: It’s interesting because I love the lyricism, storytelling and melodic flow of Florence and Meg, but I have a real soft spot for Denzel’s (Baker Boy) work. I love how he incorporates beautiful bass lines across his music, and weaves them in quite naturally to his storytelling. I absolutely love his warm, soft flow too, but I’m definitely never going to be a rapper! Who knows, maybe we could collaborate one day – I’d be game if he is!
For me I make music I like to listen to, so that can be challenging to pin the music into one specific genre. I like to enjoy a diverse range of styles and music, so it’s often a fun journey because I’m never quite sure where I’ll end up when I start a lot of the time, it’s just about what I’m vibing at the time and where my head is at. But ultimately, it needs to be something I’d want to listen to myself.
OSR: ‘Call It’ has seen incredible success, charting on both the World Indie Music Chart and the European Indie Music Chart. What do you think resonates most with listeners about this track?
Sunset Salore: Both ‘Call It’ and ‘Mystery and Magic’ have funnily done similarly well but in different ways. ‘Call It’ has done better on the streaming platforms, and ‘Mystery and Magic’ managed to tick a couple of #1 positions on the World Indie Music Chart, European Indie Music Chart, Top Sound Chart, and #2 BWRN in Central USA. ‘Call It’ has also done really well from a video perspective, being screened at the Folkestone Film Festival in Kent, UK, the British Film Festival this month also shortlisted the video and are screening it this week. It also got to be finalist in the Munich Music Video Awards, and won a special category award in the European Indie Music Video Awards – so I’m pretty stoked with that response to be honest!
‘Call It’ is such a relatable track, or so I’ve been told, that I think it just sticks with people. I’ve also been given the feedback that the hook is super catchy. It certainly stuck with me and I had to make it into something, but it seems to be resonating musically as well as lyrically with others, which is always great to hear.
OSR: Your debut EP, Love Kills the Monsters, features seven tracks. How does “Call It” set the tone for the rest of the album?
Sunset Salore: That’s right, 7 tracks centered around bringing love into your life, and being kinder to yourself. ‘Call It’ is empowering, and I believe that being kinder to yourself generally is something that is also very empowering. The themes certainly spanned out from that, but have different takes on themes. Some are love songs, some are empowering tracks, some are reflective, but all along the same vein.
OSR: The title of your EP, Love Kills the Monsters, is intriguing. What’s the story or message behind the title, and how does it tie into the themes of your music?
Sunset Salore: I wrote a track called ‘Love Kills the Monsters’ as one of the first tracks that actually made the EP and everything else just fell in place after that. It all centered around the concept of the ability of love of someone else or self-love, to quash or kill our inner demons, or monsters. The idea that if perhaps we were kinder to itself that we can make that transition easier. Each track is a part of that journey. It’s my journey, but it’s everyone’s journey in some way or another. I’m hoping it’s quite relatable in a lot of ways.
OSR: You’ve mentioned that ‘Call It’ is about reclaiming power in a relationship. How important is it for you to address themes of empowerment in your music?
Sunset Salore: Really important. I think in a landscape of ‘me too’, of striving for equality of all kinds, of wanting respect, of wanting to give respect, that it’s a really important thing to talk about. I’m glad it’s becoming more acceptable to do so in everyday life too. I also didn’t feel like I had a story to tell until now, but now that I’m older, I’ve lived more, I’ve experienced more, and I’ve witnessed more. I feel much more confident in my own self, in what I want, and what I don’t. I would love someone to take that from the music, and not wait until they are older to make use of it!
OSR: Melbourne is known for its vibrant music scene. How has the city’s culture and community influenced your journey as an artist?
Sunset Salore: Melbourne has been what inspired me to get into music more seriously. I was more passively enjoying the music scene singing, but quite proactively enjoying seeing other musicians, both local and international. I have a real love for uncovering local talent and heading along to gigs where you’re staring the artist in the eyes and hanging out in the pub. Artists like Meg Mac now fill stadiums (she opened for Teddy Swims on the Australian and NZ leg of his recent world tour), but I remember her from a tiny venue in Melbourne more than 10 years ago. Experiences like that make it easy to fall back in love with music, both consuming it and creating it.
OSR: As an emerging artist with a distinctive style, what advice would you give to others navigating the indie music scene, particularly in a competitive market like Melbourne?
Sunset Salore: It’s interesting you say distinctive style, because I really didn’t know what my style was when I started, possibly still now. I thought I would write a folk or jazz EP to be honest (and they are probably in there somewhere…), but this EP is definitely of a similar ilk. I’d say that the music scene is as big or small as you want to make it. You can gig locally and have a great time, and if that was your goal, you can do it. You can write and release music globally in such a digital age, and again that’s exciting and so much fun.
The thing I’d say is that it’s a lot of work, which is great, but I’m glad I didn’t realise quite how much when I started or I might not have done it. I’d also say that in the age of streaming where players like Spotify don’t have much competition and can pay you $0.003 per stream, you can’t rely only on that if you want to make an income. It does mean that yes it’s important the music is good, but that you need a plan to get it out there in the first place. That makes it harder for musicians who maybe aren’t up to speed with marketing, and don’t have budgets to hire agency support. But if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, did it really make a sound? I guess it depends on what your goal is, and then once you know that, chase it down, and don’t be scared to see where it takes you.
Many thanks to Sunset Salore for speaking with us! For more about Sunset Salore, check out her official website, Facebook, Instagram and Spotify.
This artist was discovered via Musosoup #sustainablecurator
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