The fun thing about surf-rock is that it can really come from anywhere. You might mistake Say Sue Me for some dreamy pop band from California, but the four-piece actually hails from Busan, South Korea. The port city is the subject of Say Sue Me’s latest single, “Old Town” from their forthcoming sophomore record, Where We Were Together. “Old Town” navigates the restlessness of wanting to leave home while also acknowledging the parts that maybe aren’t so bad. Lead singer Sumi Choi gave us an example:

Busan is the second largest city in Korea, but everything revolves around Seoul, so of course, the underground music scene in Busan suffers a bit. Although the scene has been around for a while, compared to Seoul, there are fewer venues and promoters, and smaller audiences. Nevertheless, there are a lot of bands working hard and making their own music, and we’re one of them.

Because audiences willing to pay admission can be counted on your fingers, we often play for free at bars where there are drunk people ready to dance to any music they hear. We used to play while getting drunk because the bar would offer us free beer and we couldn’t refuse it.

Our guitarist, Byungyu doesn’t enjoy drinking alcohol, but one night in 2013 in a bar called Basement where we play most often while we were waiting for our turn to play, the rest of us were drinking so much that our performance got messy and Byungyu threw down his guitar and made us stop playing. Actually, the song “Sorry That I’m Drunk” from our first album was made with that night in mind. It would be hard to have a situation like that occur if we were in Seoul. We hope we don’t do this kind of thing again, but a masterpiece was born from it, and Busan is a lovely city.

And their song about it is jaunty as heck. Listen below.

TOUR DATES:
03/06 Austin, TX @ SXSW Festival
04/17 Glasgow, UK @ CCA w/ Otoboke Beaver & Leggy
04/18 Leeds, UK @ Brudenell w/ Otoboke Beaver & Leggy
04/19 London, UK @ Scala w/ Otoboke Beaver & Leggy
04/20 Coventry, UK @ The Tin Music and Arts
04/21 Chester, UK @ Telford’s Warehouse
04/22 Cardiff, UK @ The Moon
04/23 Leicester, UK @ Soundhouse
04/24 Colchester, UK @ Arts Center
04/28 Dordrecht, NL @ DOOR
05/03 Trier, DE @ Ex-Haus
05/04 Schorndorf, DE @ Manufaktur
05/05 Freiburg, DE @ Swamp
05/08 Hannover, DE @ Kulturpalast Linden
05/09 Berlin, DE @ Schokoladen
05/11 Offenbach, DE @ Hafen 2
05/12 Colmar, FR @ Le Lavoir
05/17 Brighton, UK @ The Great Escape Festival

Where We Were Together is out 4/13 via Damnably and Electric Muse.

CREDIT: Busan Cultural Foundation