About
Steve Miles writes, sings and plays the songs of European Sun.
Rob Pursey and Amelia Fletcher play, sing and produce the songs of European Sun.
Ian Button does the drumming.
John Jervis presents the songs to the public.
Humble advocates for kindness, equity and justice, European Sun also make music.
The band’s first single, The Future’s Female, was released on the day the UK left the European Union. It was a simple song for the new decade, a rallying cry for progressive people to have hope in a future that threatens to be dark.
Twitter: @european_sun
Instagram: europeansunband
Facebook.com/europeansunband
https://wiaiwya.bandcamp.com/
The moment when the record player’s needle..... is lifted carefully from its cradle and held over the spinning vinyl is a special moment. It is the beginning of the conversation that ensues from the making of the music. The mixing of the intentions, experiences and passions of the band and the listener is about to begin. As a teenager sitting on the carpet by the record player in the living room of my parents’ house, feeling more at odds every day with the world I thought I knew, the records I played were the conversations, the arguments and the hugs I didn't have in real life, but craved. The records were visions of a different life: letters from my best friends, declarations of political purpose, consolations for my miseries, questions for me to wrestle with, and a powerful subconscious injection of energy and emotion into my body and my spirit. Inside me were thoughts I didn’t feel I could talk to my parents about; rising up in me were passions that no-one else I knew was talking about, and sometimes the singers I played on those records said them right out – just as I would have wished to say them, if anyone had let me. I didn’t know what I was feeling a lot of the time, and I definitely didn’t know why, but I had a burning desire to understand, and I craved all the discussion and dialogue I could get that would help me understand better. The stylus drops gently onto the vinyl and slides over to the groove, crackling irritably a bit as it does so. However hard we try, we all, every one of us, every day, struggle to overcome the bad, sad, mad and dangerous thoughts that our genetic makeup, in conjunction with our upbringing and the wider world, cause us to entertain. But we don't want to do that alone. And that's why we make records and that's why we listen to them. And because we like the twang of that guitar, of course. |
Hugs
This is a song called 'Hugs'.
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Hang on, hang on, can I just say a few words?
Sorry, Steve.
Yeah, Sorry.
I just want to say a few words about feelings before we start. On the one hand there’s love and on the other hand there’s loss, and I think that’s something really important to talk about – properly and honestly, I mean. From the heart, from personal experience. Sometimes it can save your life just to hear that someone else feels the same way you do, someone else has been through what you’re going through.
Or maybe the opposite: hearing and understanding why some people don’t feel the same way you do – that can be just what you need to go forward together. I just think we can never have enough sharing, never have too much openness about what goes on inside our hearts and our heads… That’s all I wanted to say, really.
OK, this song is called Hugs and it’s about having no confidence in yourself.
Was it the hugs your mum didn’t give, was it your dad too scared to live?
Oh where, oh where did you get so sad?
Was it the teacher who made fun of you, or was it the friends who wouldn’t stay true?
Oh where, oh where did you get so ‘bad’?
Was it your shape you felt let you down when you compared it to others around?
Oh where, oh where did you get so ‘bad’?
Was it the lover who never said that you were the nicest person he’d met?
Oh where, oh where did you get so sad?