It’s no secret that great art comes from the margins. From those who are either pushed to create from inner forces, or who create to show they deserve to be recognized. Los Angeles based street singer, guitarist, and roots music revolutionary Sunny War has always been an outsider, always felt the drive to define her place in the world through music and songwriting.
As a young black girl growing up in Nashville, she searched for her own roots, looking first to the blues she heard from her mother’s boyfriend, and learning from a local guitarist. Moving to Los Angeles in her teens, she searched for herself in the LA punk scene, playing house shows with FIDLAR, and shoplifting DVDs from big box stores to trade at Amoeba Records for 80s punk albums. But here too she found herself on the outside, working to bridge her foundation in country blues and American roots guitar traditions with the punk scene she called home. She first made her name with this work, bringing a wickedly virtuosic touch on the fingerstyle guitar that sprang from her own self-discoveries on the instrument. But her restless spirit, a byproduct of growing up semi-nomadic with a single mother, led her to Venice Beach, California, where she’s been grinding the pavement for some years now, making a name for her prodigious guitar work and incisive songwriting, which touches on everything from police violence to alcoholism to love found and lost.
Her new album, With The Sun, out February 2, 2018 on Hen House Studios, is the culmination of years of burning curiosity as an artist, the result of many wandered paths to find some new way to speak her heart. For the first time, she’s writing songs first and crafting the guitar work second, focusing on her own poetry and trying to tell her own story. She’s an outsider artist in the truest sense, living on the margins of the establishment and fueled only by her own creative genius.
To help achieve With the Sun’s larger vision, Sunny War turned to the ragtag group of Venice Beach musicians she’s fallen in with, mainly members of psych folk band Insects vs Robot, including multi-instrumentalist Micah Nelson, fiddler Nikita Sorokin, and guitarist Milo Gonzalez. Produced by Harlan Steinberger at Hen House Studios in Venice Beach, which also doubled as the record label, the new album pushes and pulls between cleverly arranged orchestration and the DIY aesthetic that remains as Sunny’s throwback to her punk roots. For an artist with so many different influences, the album is remarkably cohesive, choosing to focus on Sunny’s songwriting and intricate guitar work. As an artist, Sunny borrows ideas and patterns at will from across the canon of American music. Her influences range from Elliott Smith, Black Flag, Joan Armatrading, and Tracy Chapman, to Robert Johnson (“To Love You” is her homage to Johnson’s “They’re Red Hot”), Elmore James, and Bessie Smith. “I feel like I am a blues guitarist, but I don’t think I’m a blues artist,” Sunny explains. “I only use the scales and techniques that I know and the only time I was trained in music was on blues guitar. I really love Elizabeth Cotton and Mississippi John Hurt. I still like to listen to them to feel that there’s nothing wrong with me playing the way I play.”
“…her right thumb plunks the bass part while her forefinger upstrokes notes and chords, leaving the other three fingers unused. A banjo technique, it’s also used by acoustic blues guitarists. Her fingers are long and strong – Robert Johnson hands – in jarring contrast to the waif they’re attached to. The walking bass line sounds like a hammer striking piano keys in perfect meter, while the fills are dynamic flurries – like cluster bombs. I haven’t heard a young guitarist this dexterous and ass-kicking in eons.”
– Michael Simmons, L.A Weekly
If you’re looking for a hefty injection of guts and soul, Brophy’s your woman. She’s a woman’s woman and a man’s woman in one. Sassy, sexy and with (quite a lot) to say. She’ll keep up with the best of them, both musically and with her characteristic ability to make herself heard. Nicole Brophy has a voice and style compared to the likes of PJ Harvey, Lucinda Williams & La Roux. Stylistically it fits somewhere between gritty rock, hoedowns and moody, bluesy numbers, all brought together by a raw charismatic rockin’ earthy voice and boundless energy.
‘Empty Tin’ is the much anticipated first single release from Nicole Brophy’s latest album. With natural onstage charisma, bangin’ guitar skills and come-hither-smokey vocals it’s not hard to understand why she was kidnapped by Kate Miller Heidke’s band for a few years!
Lucky for us Nicole is now bottling that “whiskey soaked” voice into some darn tasty brew that deserves to be heard and shared. The first single ‘Empty Tin’ received consistent airplay through Australian Community Radio & reached Number 5 on the AMRAP AirIt Regional Charts. The track ‘Empty Tin’ was also featured on the soundtrack & trailer of the internationally acclaimed film ‘Undertow’ which premiered at the Byron Bay Film Festival.
Recent festival performances include Splendour in The Grass (Byron Bay), Meatstock Festival (Sydney), BBQ & Blues Festival (Port Macquarie), Bendigo Blues Roots Festival, Mitchell Ck Rock & Blues Festival, Byron Bay Guitar Festival, Double Baked (Gold Coast) & Maleny Music Festival.
The 2020 pandemic sent shockwaves through the music industry and devastatingly wiped out tours, live gigs & festivals. During these quieter times it has allowed more time to ponder, write & reflect on life … stay tuned for some post apocalyptic releases later this year.
Venice Street Guitar Player whose music is Roots Americana. Inspired by BB King, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams.
