Summer Suns | Interview | Reissue of long-out-of-print folk rock / power pop album

The Summer Suns formed in Perth, Western Australia in 1986 as a one off project to release Kim Williams’ songs ‘Honeypearl’ and ‘Rachel Anne’.

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The popularity of the single saw The Summer Suns become a more permanent fixture in the Perth scene, 1986 – 1996, releasing records on indie labels including Easter, Waterfront, Bus Stop, Parasol, Spring and Get Hip.

Although plying his songwriting trade in other bands and other genres, Williams never entirely gave up on his love for melodic music. After some time playing sadcore then garage rock he formed The Love Letters with Katherine Browne, playing music very much like The Summer Suns unplugged. In 2013 with a stockpile of tunes he began working simultaneously on a new Summer Suns album and a Love Letters album with different versions of some songs to appear on both records. With Williams playing most of the instruments and producing the recordings, time took its toll. Katherine Browne quit to concentrate on her real career leaving Williams to decide what to do with the two projects. With about 30 recordings to choose from he decided to edit it down to a single project under The Summer Suns banner. Thus ‘Eulalie’ was born and self-released in a limited vinyl edition of 100 copies, each numbered and with a unique vinyl colour and photo taken by Kim Williams. With literally no publicity at all the album quickly sold out. With demand for this now impossible to find folk rock / power pop album increasing over the years, Hanky Pank Records reissued it in a limited edition of 250 copies with improved detailed cover and two bonus tracks!

“In the mid 1980s I was totally obsessed with power pop”

What was it like growing up around the Perth area? Were there a lot of places to hangout? A lot of clubs and bands to see?

Kim Williams: In my teenage years my hometown Perth was small compared to big cities like Sydney and Melbourne. There were only a handful of bands and not many venues to play. In the early 1970s most of the cool Perth bands were playing electric blues or heavy blues rock. The earliest bands I saw in my youth were Bakery and Fatty Lumpkin. Both of them released some great singles. Venues responded to the demand for original music but bands who had members with long hair and afros were still expected to perform wearing a suit and tie! Eventually things loosened up in the mid 1970s, but Perth has always been a pretty conservative place which in itself helped spark a revolution in underground music. Something to rebel against. Just at the time I reached legal age to go to licensed venues punk broke out and perhaps surprisingly some venues welcomed this revolutionary new music. The Governor Broome Hotel, Broadway Tavern and most notably, Hernandos Hideaway. Bands such as The Victims, Scientists, Rockets, Manikins, Triffids all played at these. Now alas, all closed down.

If you would take us to your teenage room, what kind of records, fanzines, and posters would we find?

On record you would see my earliest 45s purchased by bubblegum bands, The Monkees et cetera. On LP you would see the heavy bands I was listening to such as Budgie, Uriah Heep, and Grand Funk Railroad. The only magazine readily available in the early 1970s was Go-Set which was like an Australian version of New Musical Express. They had a Perth section which was unusual as we were often neglected by national media. I didn’t buy many posters as I spent most of my meagre funds on vinyl but you would have seen one large Jimi Hendrix poster on my wall.

Can you elaborate on the formation of Summer Suns?

In the mid 1980s I was totally obsessed with power pop. I was listening to The dB’s, early REM, The Plimsouls, The Records and most notably, Big Star. I’d been playing bass in a band, The Holy Rollers which I loved and we were kind of a mix between The Go-Betweens and The Velvet Underground. I had started to write my own songs but they did not seem to suit that band nor did there seem to be room for two songwriters. So I decided that with a couple of songs I’d do a one off solo single (albeit recorded under a band name because that seemed cooler). I decided to put a band together of like minded pop fans which turned out to be Dom Mariani and Gary Chambers from The Stems. The single of ‘Honeypearl’ / ‘ Rachel-Anne’ was released on my own label, Easter Records and was very well received. We did two live shows to promote it and then went back to our respective bands. As I continued to write songs it occurred to me I’d need to form a band to play them so I reluctantly quit The Holy Rollers and started to sound out possible band members. As fate would have it The Stems had just split and it seemed like a good fit for Dom and I to reunite to make some more pop music. The line-up that played on the Get Hip 10″ gigged quite often around Perth.

What are some of the recollections from the session of the 1986 album by The Summer Suns?

The Get Hip 10″ LP was originally recorded as a memento on cassette just for band members, as Dom had decided to quit and the band might have been coming to an end. When word got out to our fans, public demand meant that we released a couple of hundred cassettes. Some years later I mentioned the tape to Gregg at Get Hip and he offered to release it on vinyl. I suggested a 10″ as I’ve always loved the format. We recorded most of the songs live as we were well drilled from regular gigging. There wasn’t a lot of polishing as it initially was just for the band’s own amusement. I think it is an accurate document of where the band was at a particular point in its evolution.

How did you decide to start House of Wax?

I started my own record store, House Of Wax Records in Perth in 1989. I had worked in a couple of indie record stores, White Rider, and Dada Records since high school and through university and it seemed like a natural progression to run my own as I had found myself unemployed for a few months with seemingly dim prospects. I took almost no wages for the first two years and it was a struggle to survive “the recession we had to have” but the business lasted 10 years, influenced countless customers and supported some important Perth bands.

On your label you released your second album, ‘Calpurnia’. What do you recall from it?

‘Calpurnia’ was recorded with a 3 piece line-up that had been gigging together for a little while. After the first day in the studio the band was a 2 piece as the bass player inexplicably unplugged, said he’d had enough and promptly left and disappeared from the scene. Undaunted, I played bass and guitar on the album. The pressure was huge as I had to write bass lines then play them as perfectly as I could with an eye on the clock and the budget. I think it turned out OK given the circumstances which included a hippy guy known to the studio owner who would just drop in for vibes at 2am. Vibes, yeah. I asked a few friends to help on the album including Dom Mariani, Kim Salmon, and Jeff Baker who all added their own unique guitar styles to a couple of tracks.

What can you tell us about another project you were part of called The Holy Rollers?

The Holy Rollers was Greg Dear’s band and had been gigging for a while before I joined on bass. Greg and I both had ambitions for the band and went to a handful of local promoters looking for gigs to little avail. Eventually Greg struck a deal with a struggling venue and after 2 weeks we were regularly drawing a crowd of 300 plus on a Friday night, playing 2 or 3 sets. Getting wind of this, eventually some of the formerly unhelpful promoters came around and offered us some better gigs and the band continued to attract a following. The band’s first single, ‘Above The Law’ sold 400 copies in one Perth store alone! We did a shared residency with The Marigolds at the Shenton Park Hotel on Friday nights with each band taking turns to headline which proved very popular through the golden age of indie rock in Perth. We played at night outdoors for a City Of Perth showcase to an audience of about 3000 people.

What led to ‘Eulalie’? What can you tell us about the songs recorded?

What eventually saw the light of day as ‘Eulalie’ by The Summer Suns was the culmination of me working simultaneously on two albums. I was playing in a folky duo called The Love Letters with a friend, Katherine Browne a bit like The Summer Suns unplugged. The duo was formed in unlikely circumstances with Katherine visiting me for a jam. I was sceptical at first, having never heard her sing but from the first moment we sang together it seemed magical to me. Gram and Emmylou. We gigged a few times and people seemed to like us but my major preoccupation at the time was my garage rock duo, The White Swallows. I felt disconnected from pop music but writing for The Love Letters drew me back to melodic music again. I decided to make a Love Letters album and at the same time start a new Summer Suns album with some songs to appear on both, in acoustic or electric versions respectively. With me playing most of the instruments, writing, recording, producing…time took its toll and Katherine quit to concentrate on her “real” career. I ultimately decided to edit down the 20 to 30 recordings I’d racked up into a single album. Originally I was going to do a CD but common sense prevailed and I self-released ‘Eulalie’ as a limited vinyl LP on random coloured vinyl. For the first time ever I released an LP without doing a show, without publicizing it through print or radio and all copies sold via word of mouth. Ten years later through the good grace of Hanky Panky Records, ‘Eulalie’ is available again with a couple of bonus songs and a properly made LP cover.

Where was the album recorded and who produced it?

The majority of ‘Eulalie’ was recorded in my kitchen with me recording/producing. It was lovingly mixed by Chris Cobilis. He is a good friend and I had a feeling he would do a good job even though he is best known as part of the avant garde scene in Perth.

What are some plans for the future?

I don’t know that I will ever play live again with a band. That part of my life seems over. And the detrimental effects of Covid on the local scene continue. I still enjoy writing songs and recording them so I expect I’ll continue to do that, either for my own pleasure or perhaps for another LP release sometime in the future. I’ve also started work on a memoir.

“The Summer Suns started as a concept, became a gigging band, and is now a concept again”

Looking back, what was the highlight of your time in the band? Which songs are you most proud of? Where and when was your most memorable gig?

The Summer Suns started as a concept, became a gigging band, and is now a concept again. The only regular member throughout has been me and when I record now I pretty much play all the instruments and sing. My aspirations for the band in the early days was to record high quality pop songs in the best studios I could afford. After a couple of decades of listening to lo-fi pop, especially Guided By Voices, I’m happy for the sound to be a bit rougher, looser, less polished as long as the song still moves me. Lo-fi seems more real, more true to where I’m at.

My highlight of The Summer Suns as a live band is the residency we had at The Seaview Tavern in the 1980s. We’d play 3 sets, electric/acoustic/electric with different songs each week. I don’t know of any other Perth bands that used to present like that. As well as our original tunes we’d do different covers each week including songs by The Byrds, The Nerves, The Yardbirds, The Records and et cetera.

I can play a bit, sing a bit, and am handy to have in the studio as an ideas man but above all I consider myself a writer. Of the early songs I feel proudest of ‘Honeypearl’ (which I worked on for 3 years!) and ‘Waiting For My Love’. Of the rockers, ‘Girl In A Mexican Restaurant’ is always a show stopper live and has been acknowledged by pop critics as one of the great power pop songs. Yet the whole thing was knocked off in 15 minutes. Of the more recent songs, ‘Cupid The Assassin,’ ‘The Light,’ and ‘Skin Like Snow/Eyes Of Coal’ which for me are among the best I’ve ever written.

Is there any unreleased material by any of your projects?

There is at least an album’s worth of unreleased stuff by The Summer Suns which includes home demos, songs that didn’t quite make it, alternate versions et cetera. I keep everything. You can always go back, rewrite or re-record or add overdubs to make them work. Also a few Love Letters songs and a couple of White Swallows tunes.

Thank you for taking your time. Last word is yours.

Music has been my whole life. It is how I show love and it is the great bringer of joy. Early on before I started playing music it seemed to me that some guys played for the money, the glory, the girls. Not necessarily a bad thing. Others played music almost because they had to. It was one of the few things that helped them understand the world and give their life meaning. That is how it has been for me. I feel extremely grateful that I’ve been able to connect with people through music. I write in blood and it is gratifying to be appreciated. Thank you for your interest.

Klemen Breznikar

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Headline photo: Tony May

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