gloomy june dances through the fog.
gloomy june is a rad indie pop band from California. Sparkly jams, refracted through an anxious lens. Anthemic, often queer, and always a little tragic. The group's coming to atac on November 6th, so we had a little chat.
Hello. Who is gloomy june?
We’re Alexi, Devin, Jack, and Ash, an SF-based band that walks the lines between glossy pop and heavy punk, and between sadness and joy. We started figuring out our sound and our band name in 2021, and officially came into existence in March 2022. Since then, we’ve been putting out music videos and going on tour as much as possible, trying to find people like us who want to have fun and dance, but feel out of place at parties.
Your single This Party Is A Warzone (2021) touched on pandemic-related anxieties—how have those feelings played out over the last year?
2022 has been a blur of shows all over the country, and we almost always end our set with Party is a Warzone because the song is about going to shows and parties, and also feeling anxious and uncertain about it. There’s still an air of uncertainty in indoor show spaces, but most DIY spaces have been mindful in all kinds of safety aspects, so people seem a bit more comfortable there. It’s getting less weird over time, and I hope it keeps trending that way.
gloomy june feels like…if AFI were ghost-writers for a lost Katy Perry record. Does that feel right? What are your actual Influences?
That’s a perfect description! I (Alexi) wish I had those Katy Perry belting skills, though she’s honestly not my first choice pop vocalist haha. AFI is definitely an influence for us, although it seems the children have forgotten AFI. Devin’s from Berkeley, and actually got to meet AFI back in the day. I’ve been really into the Dirty Hit Records roster lately- beabadoobee and [The] 1975 in particular. In terms of pop I love Charli XCX and Carly Rae Jepsen. My favorites come from all over, though, like everything from 80’s new wave to early 2000’s garage revival, and I’ve been delving into Y2K-era hip hop, but not sure how it all comes together for me.
Being a self-booking, DIY band ain’t easy—what are some of the frustrations and rewards?
We don’t really know another way, so I guess we do the best with what we have! From the sound of it, it seems like being a AAA group is no picnic either, at least right now. The DIY approach just means that we all have our own responsibilities within the band, and on top of our lives and day jobs, it can be really overwhelming at times; but at the same time, it makes us tighter, with each of us shouldering our weight. I’d say the most frustrating thing is when you’re counting on someone outside the band to get something done, and you lose that first-person urgency of getting something done yourself.
DIY bands often rely on merch sales, and merch production’s often closely related to systems of power that work against progressive interests. What’s the sustainability model for the band; how does it intersect with your politics?
This is something we wrestle with a lot when making merch decisions. We primarily use local and small pressers for shirts, tapes, and records, and dye the shirts ourselves, and it’s really the best we can do when our livelihood depends on the merch we sell.
For us East Coasters, who are some names to know in the San Francisco indie scene?
So many sick artists in the bay right now! I’d recommend you check out Thank You Come Again, Juicebumps, Ha Vay, LoserLees, Fauxes, The Moondrops, Small Crush, The Band Ice Cream, Diners, and Destroy Boys.
You organized this atac gig from 3,000 miles away. How?!
Ash went to college in Worcester, so they used their networks to see what former college classmates were out there and ended up networking a bunch. They are also really crafty with the ways they go about researching bands, so they perused the atac website and other venues nearby Framingham to see if there were any bands that lined up with our sound. Lots of instagram stalking and flyer searching later, Ash got a bill together with almost too many bands and had to narrow it down even further to make sure that the night would be able to go swimmingly!
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gloomy june will be at atac on Sunday, November 6 along with Heart Shaped Lakes, Daddy's Mittens, Evil Felipe. Grab tickets here.
