Despite anything reissue culture may have taught us about an appropriate length of time to wait before a record is deemed definitive enough to be repackaged as an anniversary bundle, five years is a totally acceptable cause for a celebration carried out with more than just a self-congratulatory tweet. Remember Sports agrees, and their forthcoming reissue of their debut LP Sunchokes (released under their original moniker Sports) proves just how far they’ll go to honor the wooden anniversary of a record they’re still quite proud of.
Along with the remastered versions of Sunchokes’ eight tracks, the deluxe edition comes padded with just as many demos, most of which were recorded by Carmen Perry’s solo venture, Addie Pray. The first demo they’re sharing, “You’re So Sorry,” posits these original versions as significantly lighter than the garage-punk finals, this particular cut being stripped to an acoustic guitar and percussive plinks, with Perry’s vocals modified accordingly. Stream the track below, and read a brief Q&A with Perry about revisiting Sunchokes five years later.
Sunchokes (Deluxe Edition) is out November 15 via Father/Daughter Records. You can pre-order it here.
Was there more pressure re-writing/recording “You’re So Sorry” as Remember Sports compared to when you wrote it as Addie Pray?
All of the early songs we recorded together felt pretty low pressure. Making Sunchokes was my first time recording an album with a band, so of course we wanted it to sound good and representative of how we sounded live, but at that point in our time as a band we really didn’t have any expectations beyond that. I originally wrote and recorded “You’re So Sorry” alone in my bedroom, but playing it and recording it with my friends who really seemed to believe in me and the work I was doing felt like coming alive.
I feel way more pressure making music now than I ever did back then, just because we had absolutely no expectations for ourselves. Everything that happened to get us from being a short-term college band to one that (hopefully) has more longevity happened by accident. We put Sunchokes on Bandcamp not expecting anybody but our friends to listen to it, but it ended up spreading around the internet and gaining traction really organically. It really changed our lives in a way I don’t think any of us saw coming. I have no idea what I would be doing now if it wasn’t for that album.
What memories came back to you while you were organizing the re-release?
It was really fun/sad/nice/painful to go through a lot of the old photos and emails while I was putting the book together. It’s easy to go on autopilot when you’re playing really old songs sometimes because you feel so far removed from where you were, or who you were, when you wrote them. Making this archive sort of just brought that time flooding back to me and made me remember all the hurt and excitement that went into writing Sunchokes. I think it’s important to be able to honor those emotions when I’m playing the songs now, so it felt like a good exercise.
Do you still relate to lyrics?
It’s funny because I still relate to the lyrics, but not in the way I used to. Obviously I wrote them, so at the time they were just snapshots of my life, but now they feel like someone else’s words that I’m relating to through whatever’s going on in my life right now. I love really personal music when anyone writes it because you always end up making this really cool palimpsest starting with your emotions, and then slowly incorporating how everyone else feels about the song. I kind of think that once you put a song out into the world it becomes less of a closely guarded secret that only you know, and more of a shared experience for everyone else.
How do you think artists should commemorate the anniversary of a project they’re still proud of after just five years or less?
I think people should celebrate any anniversary that feels important to them, all the time! One year, one week, whatever. A lot’s happened to us in the past five years and we’ve been able to do things and go places we never imagined we’d get to because of Sunchokes. That feels pretty significant to me.
What do you think is the significance of this re-release coinciding with your band’s involvement in the No Music for ICE boycott?
It kind of feels like good timing on someone’s part that the Amazon stuff is happening around the same time as this re-release. I think a big thing for us about revisiting this album is just remembering what it felt like to play music purely for joy, and being reminded of how special that is. It’s definitely hard to navigate the music industry and walk that fine line between getting to do things for joy and sometimes having to do things just for money, but we wanted to get a conversation going about the ethical limits we think should be agreed upon by the members of our community. It’s not about “selling out” or not, but instead just having standards about the people and corporations you agree to work with, and holding yourself to them even if it means you have to say no to something that could really help you and your band members and your team.
We’re not trying to position ourselves as a perfect product of this idea, nor do we think anyone has to have perfect politics when it comes to things like sponsorships and branding. But I do think that as musicians we have a lot of power to be able to organize and have people listen to us when we feel strongly enough about something to say, “Hey this isn’t right.” It feels good to use whatever platform we’re lucky enough to be given to that end.
