At this point it’s not much of a controversial opinion to claim that pedal steel currently has a chokehold on just about every corner of indie rock, adding a certain rural-South, sunset-over-a-HELL-IS-REAL-billboard charm to many of the year’s most widely beloved releases. Yet in the hands of Austin’s Sun June the instrument invokes a slightly different setting—its appearance on a track named after a country-folk legend keeps things firmly rural, yet the sleepy liminality that extends beyond the track and across the entire LP like a morning fog places Bad Dream Jaguar viscerally within the early early morning hours. Like pre-rooster-crow early.
To hear the band dissect their third collection of quite literal dream-pop songs, the “bad dreams” part of the record’s title largely informed its subject matter—assuming the band members were able to sleep at all, with album cut “Get Enough” stemming from a period of insomnia that afflicted guitarist and co-songwriter Stephen Salisbury. Yet while that angst certainly finds its way into the music, each of Bad Dream Jaguar’s 12 tracks feel like their rough edges were meticulously sanded down until they were smooth enough to fit within the collective’s reflective pre-established canon. “We’re always trying to write moodier and darker songs, but a lot of times we get sidetracked,” the band notes in their track-by-track breakdown of the LP.
With the album out today via Run for Cover, the group—rounded out by vocalist/guitarist Laura Colwell, guitarist Michael Bain, bassist Justin Harris, and drummer Sarah Schultz—discuss each track, which range in subject matter from unsettling unconscious recollections, to their complicated feelings about their home state, to ultimately “letting go of desire for structure” to arrive at the final draft of a song. Stream the album below, and read on for their words.
1. “Eager”
The base of this song is a demo we recorded at home, using a rented Roland TR-8 and a borrowed Juno 106. Laura was sitting on a shitty drum throne and you can hear it squeak a few times. We brought it to the studio and the band added a bunch of live parts on top, and then Dan Duszynski, our producer, messed around even more in the mix. This song felt like a good intro to the tone of the record, and “It’s too easy to fall in love” felt like a thesis statement. We’re always trying to write moodier and darker songs, but a lot of times we get sidetracked—we had to fight the urge to add a third chord or a true chorus.
2. “16 Riders”
We needed to submit a song for a comp a few years ago, so we looked through some voice memos and found this. It felt like a trivial song at first, but after recording the demo and finishing the lyrics we realized it would be one of the anchors of this record. It feels like it establishes the themes with the diminishing demands of “Be honest, be cool, forget it.”
3. “Mixed Bag”
“Mixed Bag” is one of our Texas exodus songs. When we were moving back and forth between Texas and North Carolina during the pandemic we often missed Austin. That’s the backdrop for a lot of the record. In this song we’re dealing with ongoing tensions and anxieties about who we are in our relationship. We’re both stubborn people who also avoid conflict, so our arguments are super fun. We wanted to keep the music boppy and breezy with just a touch of distortion—a first for us!
4. “Moon Ahead”
“Moon Ahead” sort of embodies a growing desire to better understand generational dysfunction and the infamous Colwellian mantra “It’ll be fine.” I extend empathy to my parents but struggle to do that for myself. The “moon and stars” part is about hoping to find assurance in the night sky like a goddamn sea captain (Captain Sandy). This song features some of our favorite woodwinds by Alexis Marsh, who fronts the band DYAN. We just sent her the songs and she sent back layered arrangements we immediately fell in love with.
5. “Ambitions”
We’ve had this song for a while, and struggled to find a way to finish it. The song centers around anxiety about the future and feeling guilty for always living for the moment instead of ever planning ahead. I say things in the song that I struggle to admit to in real life. We recorded one take of the acoustic guitar track in North Carolina, assuming the song wouldn’t work. But when we brought it to the band at Dan’s studio, everyone took turns flopping around on it and we had so much fun we couldn’t stop. Letting go of our desire for structure made the song work. It’s a sleeper.
6. “Easy Violence”
We bought ourselves a crappy synth and drum machine for Stephen’s birthday and built a demo for this song. The vocal take on the record is the first time I ever sang the song through. We kept thinking we would replace tracks with better sounds or better takes, but we ended up liking how amateur they sounded. Sarah, Michael, and Justin added their own (very well-played and well-recorded) parts in Texas and the song ended up becoming a great lo-fi and hi-fi hybrid. It’s a pretty slight song, but it centers the sleep issues that appear throughout the record and it provides the image for the album title. Our own minds haunt us at night! It’s not cool!
7. “John Prine”
“John Prine” is about appreciating something for the first time after it’s already over, and struggling to let it go. It’s also a shout out to my father who loves to say, “I’m not asleep, I’m just resting my eyes.” It’s the first song on the record’s “New York Trilogy.” The song was recorded in North Carolina by Alli Rogers and features Justin Morris (Sluice, Fust) on pedal steel. When Dan mixed it he morphed the pedal steel into something more haunting and more ghostly (and more sleepy).
8. “Sage”
Another song about waking up in a sweat! “Sage” was a response to a recurring dream about my childhood home slowly dissolving away and missing the good times it once held. It was scary sometimes, too. I used to have night terrors as a kid about this same home. Haunted? The house is long gone, but I tried to imagine I could sage it from a distance. Hard to sage your mind. But by the time we finished recording the song, it felt very therapeutic to go from a sad bedroom guitar demo to something bigger. Music rules.
9. “Washington Square”
Years before meeting, both Laura and Stephen used to ride the Fung Wah bus from Boston to Manhattan a lot. This song is about looking back on those first trips to the city from a distance and taking stock of all the mistakes we made between then and now. We miss drinking in the subway because we were too young to get into bars. We miss crashing on our friends’ friends’ friends’ floors (though we still do that…we’ll be on tour this fall and winter!). We miss the Fung Wah most of all. The song is an attempt to get over those mistakes and to move on from what might have been. It’s a little dancy, a little dirge-y, a little dingy—like our ol’ pal the Fung Wah.
10. “Get Enough”
This song is about becoming addicted to different forms of upheaval. It stemmed from a bad bout of insomnia that Stephen had a few years ago that led him to hear Beatles harmonies that weren’t there. The song feels like a mix of the true insights and false delusions you can have when you’re flying high. We wanted the music to reflect that, too—so it’s a straightforward indie rock song that devolves into chaos but never fully breaks apart.
11. “Texas”
Started from a rage-induced prompt, “Texas keeps breaking my heart,” after the state banned abortion after six weeks. We wanted to write a country song about the love we have for a place that didn’t love us back. It got more complicated as I was preparing to move away from Austin. The strain of distance and long drives through the Bible Belt sunk into the song.
12. “Lightning”
We’ve driven between Austin and LA a bunch, often stopping in Balmorhea, Marfa, or Alpine, or in New Mexico north of El Paso. It’s a wild region that seems scaled for giants. There’s something terrifying but reassuring about the desert. It feels like there are Big Powers conspiring against you but that everything is going to be OK anyway. So we wanted to end the record in a liminal space, with some fear, some confusion, some mystery, and a little bit of hope.
