I had actually seen a few people discussing this band in the comments section of My Mazzy Star
video i put out about a month ago. The link to that video is down below.Both Mazzy Star and the
Sundays shared some similarities as they were both fronted by women and the attention of the band
rested on the vocalist and guitarist. Both bands took long hiatuses and were known for being
press-shy.Today let’s take a look at whatever happened to the british group the Sundays.
The sundays enjoyed modest success in both the UK and America, but after only three albums they
seemed to vanish. While they were prominent during the early to mid 90’s their origins
dated back almost to the late 80’s when vocalist Harriet Wheeler and guitarist David Gavurin met
and started dating at Bristol University. Gavurin would be messing around with his guitar and tell
the New York Times started and i quote ''mucking about with music,' Then we bought a drum machine,
a bass guitar, and a four-track recorder and began writing songs for a band,
even though there were only two of us,'' He would ask his girlfriend Wheeler to
sing on the tracks he was working on & By either 1987 or 1988 they soon moved to London where they
enlisted bassist Paul Brindley and drummer Patrick Hannan. They would call themselves the Sundays.
Gavurin would reveal the origin of the band’s name telling a 1990 Boston College independent
student newspaper named The Heights, “We liked the sound and feel of it, and because it wasn’t
a name that was bigger than the music. Gavurin would cite the Cocteau ) Twins, Joni Mitchell,
John Martyn and the Indian folk-pop singer Najma as the band’s influences. In the same interview
he reflected on the band’s lyrics calling them and i quote ''impressionistic.'' and going on to say
''The mood of the music determines the diction of the lyrics. 'We don't tell
structured stories or have specific matter that can be unlocked with a magic key. Our
lyrics are more a jumble of personal impressions. In the confusion, important feelings get mixed up
with completely meaningless garbage.'' Gavurin and Wheeler would write most of
the band’s songs. Their writing style was quite different from their conventional,
straightforward musical style with Gavurin revealing to the Morning call newspaper
"The way we write is, I'll put down a lyric and Harriet will write the next line," Gavurin said.
"I admit it's kind of weird, since I don't know how many other writers work that way. But it works
for us."We like that a person can be writing a song one way and the other person can take
it on a completely different tangent. Actually, it's the only way we know how to write" he'd say.
It was during their time in London they cut their first demo tapes & Gavurin would tell the Heights
“Harriet and I made all these tapes and sent them everywhere— and only one guy listened,"
The quartet played their first show only 8 weeks after assembling in August of 1988
opening for the group Caretaker Race. At that gig, the Sundays were one of three openers that night
and in the audience were three members of the british press in the audience who were their
to review the headliner. Instead, they were mesmerized by the Sundays performance. The
following day following their first gig positive reviews appeared in several music publications.
For the band’s second show, a number of people from major record labels showed up.
Gavurin would tell the LA Times in 1990 “We’d done no gigs, contacted no one, sent out no tapes,
and suddenly we had record companies courting us and four firm offers,”
Wheeler would add It was very exciting as well as quite stupid--a few weeks of not sleeping a lot
because there was so much to think about.” The Sundays opted to sign with an indie label Rough
Trade, which was home to the Smiths. The band’s import only copy of the single can’t be sure
which came out a year before the band’s debut album would soon receive rave reviews. The British
press would fawn over the band with NME magazine putting Wheeler and Gavurin on the front cover of
their first issue of the new decade, calling 1990 and i quote “The Year of the Sundays.”
Other publications like melody maker soon followed declaring they had discovered the band a year
earlier. The Sundays would spend 1989 recording their debut album Reading, Writing and Arithmetic
with Geffen Records distributing the album Across the pond in America. Released in January of 1990,
their debut album moved up the alternative and college rock charts in the States. The album’s
success was spurred by the singles “here’s where the story ends” which topped the alternative rock
charts and their first single can’t be sure. MTV also picked up on the band with them appearing on
the program 120 minutes. At the same time though, the Sundays seemed to view fame through a lens of
suspicion. with Gavurin revealing to the Heights newspaper. “I have a real fear of what that kind
of success does to the music,”. “Fame would be more of a hassle than anything else.We
don't want to become a big commercial pop band," "We're not elitist, and sure we'd
like to be heard by lots of people, but not by being a sell-out pop band.. We spent ages telling
Geffen to push the record in the alternative and college markets, really emphasizing that,
when they wanted to release a lot of singles to MTV and chart radio. Then after the record did
really well in those markets, it turned out that chart radio wouldn't take the risk on us" he'd say
A few years after their debut album was released their label Rough Trade records
declared bankruptcy. The group would be rescued by Parlophone records in the UK, while Geffen
would still distributed them stateside. In 1993 would release their sophomore record Blind which
featured more polish and layers than their stripped down debut album. Geffen had high
hopes for the band throwing a lot of money behind their tour and promotion.. Gavurin would tell
the Morning Call in 1993 "It seems that even more people are into the band this time around," "We're
playing places that are about twice the size from last time. We play to about 1,000 people. It feels
like we're making progress." The paper would also cite hollywood actress wynonna ryder as one of the
band’s high profile fans. The album would feature a cover of the Rolling Stones song “Wild Horses”
with Gavurin telling the Morning Call "The last time we were in America we bought the Stones'
'Sticky Fingers' album. We obviously knew the song, but after mucking around with it, we decided
to play it and we thought it sounded good." Some critics according to the Chicago
Tribune criticized the band for recycling melodies from the first record. but that
didn't matter as The album would go gold. In 1995 the couple had their first child
and went on hiatus. Some thought the band was done but Gavurin recalled to mtv in 1997
"I don't mean to say that we're not ambitious," "We're happy withhow many
records we've sold, and we'd like to reach more people -- but not at the cost of who we are."
They group would return in 1997 with their third and final album static and silence. Since it
had been almost half a decade since their last release, their was a seismic shift in the music
scene. While the album was the highest charting of the group's career it did not even go gold.
After Static and Silence,, the couple had their second child and went on an indefinite
hiatus probably spending their time raising their children. It resulted in some fans digging deep,
okay maybe a little too deep to see what the band members were up to. In 2014 American Airlines
inflight magazine American Way featured an email interview with Wheeler and Gavurin where they
revealed they had in fact worked on new music revealing “The contentious bit unfortunately is
the reunion gig — first let’s see if the music we’re currently writing ever sees the light of
day, and then we can get on to the enjoyable globe-trotting-meets-concert-planning stage.”
In the same interview the pair hinted that if they ever played live shows again
they’d like to play locales they’ve never played include Aruba, Fiji, & Galapagos rather than
returning to places they’ve already performed. During their hiatus the pair had been press
shy during their indefinite hiatus, but American Airlines scored the exclusive
because the interviewer Adam Pitluck was a huge fan of the band and put in a request
through bandmate bassist Paul Brindley who has since become an entrepreneur. He is the CEO
of of Music Ally, who according to Pitchfork is and i quote “a London-based company that
explores and implements ways in which music and technology can co-evolve,” Brindley passed on
his request to the press shy couple who surprisingly agreed to do the interview.
To promote the feature in their inflight magazine, American Airlines put the Sundays songs on their
in-flight playlists for that month. Then as recently as 2019 there was a
fascinating piece written by David Obuchowski on longreads.com who chronicled his journey
to interview a member of the band. He would be declined by the band members to do an interview
and It culminated with him getting the address of Wheeler and Gavurin and almost going to their
house unannounced and ringing their doorbell. He would end up deciding against doing it.”
Patrick Hannan was the only 1 of the four members who continued to play music
playing drums in the the band the audience and becoming a session musician as well as producing.
As recently as last year hannan gave an interview providing an update on new music
saying Harriet and David had and i quote "never stopped making music" and that there
are a number of tracks that he has drummed on, but he cautioned fans that these recordings may
still never see the light of day. That does it for today's video guys thanks for watching. Be sure
to hit the like button and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.