“Everybody should try to be like Crass.”
Sunny War speaks to Victoria Segal.
Why did you move to Nashville?
“I was born here but I only lived here ’til I was 12. And then me and my mom and my stepdad moved to Los Angeles. I signed the deal with New West and I knew they were based in Nashville, so I figured out that we would probably record there. Also, I had just broken up with my boyfriend that I was with for, like, six years and I just wanted to leave LA because I was just feeling weird. I was like, I’ll just move to Tennessee.”
How did Jim James come to be on Anarchist Gospel?
“Jim James, I know from LA because I was working with Food Not Bombs and he volunteers with them. One day, I just asked him, ‘Would you ever let me write a song for you?’ Because that’s another thing I want to try to get into – writing for other people. He’s just like, ‘Yeah, send me something.’ But then I ended up asking him later if he would sing on that song, Earth. He’s just really nice.”
On Shelter And Storm, you repeat “the humans are away” – what does it mean?
“I think of humans as, like, cancer on the earth. In the beginning of Covid when it was the lockdown, animals were coming back and there were reports of, ‘Oh, somehow the air quality got better.’ Then I was eating a lot of mushrooms during lockdown, because I didn’t know what else to do and I was having anxiety attacks all the time because I was just freaked out about Covid and everything. One time while I was ’shrooming, I started talking to this tree outside my window and it was telling me, ‘Everything’s going to be better when the humans are away.’ I just thought of that all the time. Like, Yeah, once we’re gone, everything’s going to be fine.”
You quote Crass on Whole – what do they mean to you?
“I think I was probably 13 when I first started listening to Crass and I felt like they really politicised me and all my friends at that age. A lot of pain comes from people trying to fit in with everybody. That’s why Daniel Johnston sounds so good to me because that’s an original person right there. Crass was just there for me emotionally. They were so innovative musically. I just feel it was explosive in every way because even as a punk band, they were the first ones to really experiment with just sampling different sounds. Everybody should try to be like Crass. I got my Crass tattoo when I was 16. That was when I was squatting, and I was really living that life. I wish I had no tattoos – but I still think they’re funny when I look at them. I’m like, Yeah, there’s a reason that people need to be licensed to do that. You shouldn’t just be getting tattoos from some guy in an alley.”