Native Sun

“Ferocious melodies…Native Sun want to rattle you to your core” The FADER

“A nod to classic rock n’ roll” So Young Magazine

“Full of defiant attitude, thoughtfully crafted twists and turns, and an urgency that compels you to get up and do something” DIY Magazine

NYC alt-rock risers Native Sun share evocative new cut ‘When She’ (out Oct 11th), the final reveal from the band’s ‘Off With Our Heads’ EP, set for release October 14th via NYC indie label Grand Jury (Hippo Campus, Hovvdy, Samia, Twin Peaks, Jordana).

Harkening back to a time when rock n' roll meant something, the group have not only reinvigorated, but conquered the New York music scene. Their livewire local gigs are simultaneously welcoming and rowdy and made them a can’t-miss fixture of city nightlife - with several tour supports ticked off alongside the likes of White Reaper and Geese, as well as dates with acts including Sunflower Bean, Bodega, Gustaf, and Wavves.

Marking one of their most vulnerable and deeply personal songs to date, ‘When She’, was written by frontman Danny Gomez while his mother’s health declined. While the loss of a parent is a profoundly painful experience for anyone to process, both bassist Barry and drummer Espinosa have experienced the same loss. Through the song, their bond, and shared catharsis shines through. Gomez’ vocals stretch and streak across the nimble arrangements, carrying the torch for his mother, but also for those who are experiencing the depths of grief. “When She” is at once purely a personal exercise in eulogizing, but its ubiquity lies in the search for stability, for meaning and understanding loss. ‘When She’ represents both a joyful expression of love and remembrance, while also acting as a reminder that sorrow abates and you’re left with the beauty of your loved one’s memory.

Speaking ahead of its release, the band revealed: “‘When She’ is the most personal track we've written up to this point -- composed during the time of my mother's declining health and ultimate passing away. I wrote the song from start to finish in about half an hour and post-writing it realized how it encapsulated what my reality was in that moment...seeing somebody you love fade away inside and imagining what that must be like. I always found it interesting how the cheeriest sonically sounding track turned out to be the most somber lyrically, the paradox of reality”. “When Danny showed us that song, it was really emotional”, Justin Barry (bass) says, “Everyone in this band has lost a parent. It’s all something we share and have bonded over, music is all we have”.

Teaming with revered indie label Grand Jury for their upcoming EP, the quartet are primed to build on their early press acclaim (The FADER, So Young, DIY), with a full live run this autumn including a date at NYC’s iconic Irving Plaza with FIDLAR, in addition to their own EP launch show at legendary Brooklyn venue Baby’s All Right.

Produced by Walter Schreifels (Rival Schools, Gorilla Biscuits, Quicksand) and mixed by Jeremy Snyder (Fontaines D.C., IDLES), Native Sun’s ‘When She’ is out now via Grand Jury and available on all digital platforms.

Native Sun is Daniel Gomez (singer/guitarist), Jake Pflum (guitarist), Justin Berry (bassist), Nico Espinosa (drummer)

No conversation about New York City rock’n’roll is complete without Native Sun. Fronted by Colombian-American songwriter Danny Gomez, the band makes cathartic and timeless songs that are undeniable. Along with drummer Nico Espinosa and bassist Justin Barry, their livewire local gigs are simultaneously welcoming and rowdy and it’s made them a can’t-miss fixture of city nightlife. But on their latest EP Off With Our Heads, they’ve crafted their rawest and most resonant collection of songs yet. Produced by Walter Schreifels (Gorilla Biscuits, Quicksand), the tracks burst with the kinetic energy of their live show but find Gomez singing about grief, his disillusionment with the world, and lovingly documenting the lives of the outcasts and misfits in his home.

From Native Sun’s earliest days, the band has thrived on winning over new fans, building a scrappy but sizable following thanks to their unpredictable and chaotic sets at packed and sweaty clubs across town. They’ve toured with White Reaper and Geese and shared the stage with bands like Sunflower Bean, Bodega, Gustaf, and Wavves. Barry even joined the band after one particularly raucous night as a fan in the middle of a Native Sun mosh-pit at Baby’s All Right where he chipped a tooth. But the past couple of years when concerts and a physical music community were paused allowed Gomez to reassess and focus on his songwriting. He locked himself in his Brooklyn apartment he shares with Barry and focused on writing a song a day for however long he could. He came out with material that’s startlingly honest and unflinching in its intensity.

One of the tracks from these solitary sessions is “When She,” written about Gomez’s mother, who died from cancer in 2021. “Seeing somebody you love fade away inside and imagining what it must be like for her viewing the world but being totally paralyzed was what I couldn’t stop thinking about while making this song,” says Gomez. Mining the records he loved as a kid like The Beatles’ Revolver and the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Gomez sings over shimmering guitars, “And she looks at the rain / And she dances with the pain / Puts the sunrise in her eyes.” Though it’s by far his most personal offering yet, Gomez wrote the song in a blistering and healing 30 minutes. “When Danny showed us that song, it was really emotional,” says Barry. “Everyone in the band has lost a parent. It’s all something we share and have bonded over.”

To record these songs, Native Sun found a kindred spirit in producer Walter Schreifels, a legend in punk music who founded iconic bands like Quicksand and Gorilla Biscuits. Though Native Sun are far from a hardcore band, Gomez and Schreifels found common ground easily. “He fell in love with our sound and we fell in love with him,” says Gomez. “What inspired him to play music for the first time were the same things that inspired us then too: The Ramones’ Rocket to Russia, T. Rex’s Electric Warrior, and the Stooges’ Raw Power.” Recorded live straight to tape at Studio G in Brooklyn and mixed by Jeremy Snyder (Idles, Fontaines D.C.), songs like “Sister” are searing and confrontational, taking as many cues from Lou Reed as Martin Scorcese’s After Hours. “With our sound, we're really trying to bridge that line between stadium rock and art rock but take out all the cheese and combine it with something more thoughtful and authentic,” says Gomez.

Another highlight comes in the probing and incisive “There’s Revolution.’ On the track, Gomez wonders why and how radical ideas become commodified. He sings over a pummeling wall of fuzzed-out riffs, “That revolution / It’s all I’m lusting for here / And we don’t want it?” Though it’s uncompromising in its bleak assessment of America, Native Sun isn’t pessimistic. In fact, on Off With Our Heads, the band found solace and hope in this pent-up energy and aggression from the sheer confusion of the world. With Gomez and Espinosa both immigrants from South America, their unique perspective has made rock music so quintessentially full-of-life and so quintessentially American: everyone is invited to the party. “For us, music is do or die,” says Gomez. “This is a band that doesn't repeat themselves but is still always themselves. We want timelessness over trends.”