Blast From The Past: Sunny Day Real Estate

Seattle, Washington is placed in the rock & roll history books in the early 1990's for the grunge explosion thanks to bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden. The grunge band movement swept the entire nation and everyone was eating it up. So with the swoon of grunge bands, and deservedly so, who would pay attention to a small time alternative emo group? Somebody did, and whoever that is needs an emphatic "thank you".

Foo Fighters - Nirvana = Sunny Day Real Estate

Originally formed in 1992 under the name Empty Set, Dan Hoerner (guitar, vocals), Nate Mendel (bass), and William Goldsmith (drums) started to play at a few small clubs in the Seattle scene and released a demo tape. After the release of their first demo tape, they were forced to change their name to Chewbacca Kaboom, since their was already an Empty Set. After being under that moniker, bassist Nate Mendel toured with another band and allowed the other founding members to shake up the line-up. The band introduced Jeremy Enigk as their singer, and he soon became the permanent frontman of the untitled band. Mendel soon returned and the band had their final line-up and their final name, Sunny Day Real Estate.

The band then released two 7" records, but neither of them garnered much attention. However, it did enough to get a small record deal with Sub Pop Records. What came out of this record deal was one of the greatest debut albums that the world has ever seen. The album Diary, was welcomed with overwhelmingly warm reviews. Sunny Day toured on the record for nearly a year straight and became the buzz of the emo world. The band became known for their increasing exclusiveness from the public. During the tour of Diary, Sunny Day only allowed one publicly released photograph and granted just one interview, even so that interview was conducted with fellow emo band Texas Is The Reason's frontman, Norm Arenas. That exclusiveness is only matched by the fact that throughout their early days, the band refused to play shows in California, still for unknown reasons.

Shortly after the tour was over, rumors swirled only to be confirmed that the band had seen the end of its days. During the recording sessions for the follow-up to their successful debut record, the band was clearly suffering from internal conflicts. Egnik suddenly converted to Christianity and that was long since credited to their main reason why they disbanded, but Sunny Day has since downplayed such a reason. The band got together and several months after their initial disband, Sub Pop released the group's second album that simply bared the name: Sunny Day Real Estate, in November of 1995. It has since been referred to as "the pink album" because there was no linear notes or cover art. When the label asked the band about art, Sunny Day responded with "just make it pink". Sub Pop has referred to the record as LP2 and released it with several recordings from the new session as well as a song that didn't make the cut on Diary.

After that record was released the band decided to call it quits for good. When asked shortly after the break up, as to why they decided to go their separate ways, Egnik summarized it by saying ""We broke up and we just felt like we were done. We put no energy into the artwork or into anything". That quote was confirmed by the rest of the band as the proper reasoning behind the disbanding. Egnik went on to his solo project that released a record in 1996. Hoerner decided to move onto a farm in rural Washington and denied any interviews about the band for many years. Mendel and Goldsmith joined Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl in his new band, Foo Fighters. During recording sessions for Foo Fighters' second album, Goldsmith and Grohl got into a great altercation which resulted in Goldsmith's departure from the band.

In 1997 the band got back together for a quick reunion, without Mendel however, because he didn't want to leave Foo Fighters for what he thought could be a "tenuous reunion". The reunion gave birth to the band's third album, How It Feels To Be Something On as well as a few tours. Fans were shocked by the new mature sound by the band and spoke in a slight outrage. The band then got together for another album that became known as The Rising Tide, released in 2000, which has since became recognized as the band's ultimate downfall. The band successfully toured the country on that album, but on the eve of leaving for Europe their new record label (Time Bomb Recordings) pulled their funding. That was good enough reason for the band to decide to call it quits again. In 2009 Sunny Day reunited again, but talks of a full time reunion have not been serious.

Sunny Day Real Estate's sound has become one of the great mysteries of the world. Mysterious in the ways of its simplicity. The sound grew from very humble beginnings by simple garage band construction of compressed drums, soft guitars, forefront vocals, and a driving bass line. Even at such a young point in their careers, all of the band members had a sense of dramatics and theatrics in their careers. That sound evolved into more produced efforts, but never as emotionally charged as their debut record. The guitars became more polished, the drums became fuller, the vocals had a cleaner tone to them, but Sunny Day could never replicate the fire they had in their first album, which should be owned by everyone.

Recommended Listens:
"Seven"
"Song About An Angel"
"47"
"Killed By An Angel"
"Every Shining Time You Arrive"

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Bright Eyes
Modest Mouse
The Get-Up Kids
Saves The Day
The Promise Ring