It feels like the perfect time to be interviewing Sunfruits. Melbourne is finally reopening after months of tentative and anxious slumber; Dan The Man told us to finally get on the beers again; seemingly every share house in the city scrambled at once to book a table in their favourite beer garden. It’s perfect timing because the psychedelic pop of Sunfruits - both lyrically and sonically - belongs to the outside. Their rhythm is blissfully sunny and their guitar grooves are infectiously breezy, while they deliver strong words of eco-consciousness.

Sunfruits are Winnie McQuinn, Evie Vlah, Elena Jones, Gene Agiro, with Acacia Coates and Shelby De Fazio, and they released the 7” Mushroom Kingdom/Bonsoy in September. This came hot on the heels of their acclaimed debut EP Certified Organic, which only came out in February. Their music recalls the garage and psychedelia of the 1960’s, sounding like the ancestral Australian cousins of the West Coast Experimental Pop Band or the 13th Floor Elevators.

Nostalgia in music is always an intricate tightrope walk: lose your balance and homage quickly becomes pastiche (we’re looking at you, Greta Van Fleet and Led Zeppelin). Sunfruits’ retroness feels lived-in though, their influences sweetly informed by passion. Such nostalgic psychedelia made them a great fit for Sydney’s excellent Third Eye Stimuli Records, the label releasing some of the finest psych-touched music from both here and New Zealand. There’s also acts like Bananagun and The Babe Rainbow currently, creating the sense of a mini-psychedelic revival in Oceania.

Their music may enjoy cosmic hijinks but it’s infused with a serious underlying message. When now it feels like all art is necessarily political, no matter how small the form, Sunfruits’ sound isn’t just dreamy and idealised, their words back up their aesthetic. It’s Psychedelic Pop As Trojan Horse and it’s a successful mode on the 7”: the danceable ‘Mushroom Kingdom’ has a spoken word passage (sung by Zoe Fox) about the wonders of hallucinogenic drugs but the song truly cares about finding peace in nature and understanding the land better; ‘Bonsoy’ is a sprightly ode to an environmentally-friendly alternative source of milk.

We caught up with the band to discuss the 7”, their many collaborations, and their future plans. So before you head down to The Retreat or Northcote Social Club this weekend, read our interview with Sunfruits below.

TJ: First, an important question: is ‘Mushroom Kingdom’ a hallucinogenic reference or an ode to Nintendo’s Mario?



S: The ‘Mushroom Kingdom’ is whatever you want it to be but the band has had experiences with both of these references.

What’s the real message behind ‘Mushroom Kingdom’? 




To let nature into your life, the beauty and destruction. To try and stay present as much as you can.

When was the 7” written and recorded?





‘Mushroom Kingdom’ and ‘Bonsoy’ were written during 2019 and we’ve been playing them live for a while. We recorded them over a long period in late 2019 - 2020 and then finished off around June/July this year. The two interludes were recorded in between the two lockdowns in Melbourne/Naarm. The 7” includes all current and past members of the fruit collective with Acacia, Shelby, Elena, Evie, Gene and myself (Winnie) all contributing to the tracks on it. A communal affair!

Did you always intend for another release in 2020 after your EP Certified Organic or was it just due to the free time brought on by COVID-19?



We had originally planned to have both ‘Mushroom Kingdom’ and ‘Bonsoy’ on an album down the track next year sometime but due to the pandemic we thought we may as well put them out and give them their own release. Our drummer Gene talked me into it actually haha and I'm glad he did!

Tell us about how much you adore ‘Bonsoy’, your band’s favourite plant-based milk alternative?



Bonsoys just the MVP in terms of Alternative Milk, Oatlyf is also up there but during this release it's strictly Bonsoy!

You seem like a very eco-conscious band - are you all vegetarians or vegan?



Winnie and Evie are vegan, Gene and Elena are vego. We try to be as environmentally conscious as we can, most of our songs lyrics are about environmentalism and issues surrounding it.

Are there plans for a collaboration with Bonsoy after the song?



There’s a very exciting collaboration announcement coming with Bonsoy. Ardneks designed some real groovy limited edition Sunfruits x Bonsoy shirts which the brand will be selling. There’s also going to be an online competition to win a bunch of Sunfruits + Bonsoy merch so keep your eyes to the ground and sky!

There was previously also King Gizz’s 2014 tribute to Vegemite. What other Aussie food icon should be hailed in song next?



Maybe Tim Tams? I really enjoyed Allara’s recent song ‘Murnong Farm’ which is about the native yam daisy flower / root vegetable. Definitely would love to see some more songs about indigenous foods and plants as the so called “Australia” / colonial version of Aussie food is pretty bland.

After seeing the videos for ‘Mushroom Kingdom’ and ‘Bonsoy’, they feel like transmedia works. How did both come about?



Thank you! That is definitely what we're going for. For ‘Mushroom Kingdom’ we wanted to do something a bit different than our previous videos and we were also in the midst of a heavy lockdown so couldn’t gather at all. We reached out to Slovenian video artists / self described Witches Robi and Alen Predanic about collaborating on a music video for the song. They create, design and build all of their sets and costumes in their apartment in Slovenia and make some really amazing, psychedelic and colourful works so it seemed like a perfect combo.

The ‘Bonsoy’ video was originally going to be filmed together with the band but we hit the second lockdown when we were due to film it. We’ve always loved animation and think it's a really cool device to use in music videos so we reached out to a couple of people but then got hit up by US animator John Mark from Split Constellation. Johns worked on videos for Moon Duo, Flaming Gods and more so it felt like a great fit aesthetically and vision wise, It was perfect timing and he was already connected with Ardneks so we knew it would be a great fit. We were so stoked on all the collaborations with these releases and will definitely strive to always collaborate as much across artforms with our music. 


Is this something that you think will only increase due to the difficult times of COVID-19? This idea of cross-platform collaboration with artists coming together to aid one another?



Yeah absolutely, cross platform collaboration is so important and pretty amazing in this day and age. There’s so many cool independent artists around the globe that are usually too busy to consider cross continent collaborations so i think if there’s anything good about this situation it’s the time it's given to thinking about new ways of creating, collaborating and living.

The sounds on ‘Mushroom Kingdom’ and ‘Bonsoy’ really are a great mixture of 60’s psych-pop and 70’s disco. Were there any bands from those eras that were on repeat when you were recording the 7”?



Hmm there's always bands from those eras on repeat. I think Mushroom was definitely influenced by a lot of the more danceable side to psychedelia, both vintage and modern bands like Khruangbin/Bananagun + bands like Love, Gong etc that have a more wacky side to them.

What do you think is spurring the current psychedelic revival? There’s your fellow Third Eye Stimuli’s bands but also the likes of Khruangbin, Bananagun who you’ve just mentioned, and Babe Rainbow and Order of the Toad as well.



Yeah this is like the second psychedelic revival in the past 30 years haha. I don't know, I mean I think the whole post punk / kraut-rock revival definitely helped spur the more psych style revival as the genres sometimes spill into each other. Maybe people just want to try and escape this world and this music is good at opening new pathways in your brain/consciousness.

How much importance do you place on maintaining a humorous side in both your songwriting and groove?



I think one of the main things with Sunfruits is trying not to take ourselves too seriously and keep it light and fun but not in a way that just makes everything comedic and not credible. We want people to have fun listening to us / seeing us but we also want our music to be respected.

We really should try and reflect on positive times, so what was your favourite show you played before COVID-19?



The whole Certified Organic EP tour was some of the most fun shows we’ve ever played, definitely the most people we’ve played to and to have that support in multiple cities felt so special. Our last show before Covid was at Brunswick Music Festival for the food band show with a great lineup of Eggy, Beans, Crepes, Biscotti and Long Lunch.

2020 must go down as a successful year for the band personally with the debut EP and now the success of the 7”.



 Aw yeah thank you, I think we’re definitely very proud of what we’ve achieved this year with Certified Organic and this new 7”. We had lots of plans with more touring supporting the EP but I'm glad that we were able to release this 7” in a different style to the last. Focusing on collaboration and really trying to involve as many people as possible. We wonder what this year would have been like if things had gone differently but we’re defs grateful for all we’ve achieved and done this year regardless. 


What are the plans for Sunfruits looking ahead to 2021?



We’re in the process of finishing writing our debut album. Hopefully we can record it early 2021 and release it! There’s a couple fun shows / festivals on the horizon as well but we’ll just have to wait and see if they can go ahead. Thanks for the lovely interview xx