Shortly after the release of their new album, “The Living End,” up-and-coming indie rock band Sarah and the Sundays had the opportunity to chat with WVBR Business Director Rachel Korosi (‘24) and Marketing Team member Joanna Teran (‘23) about their recent projects and growing success.
The group of five can currently boast over 350,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, which has left them “blown away,” as their lead singer and rhythm guitarist Liam Yorgenson describes. Three members started the project during their sophomore year of high school without any plans to make it this far.
“When we started this band, it was mostly just for fun,” Yorgensen explains. “And I wasn't even really looking to join a band at the time -- it wasn't something that was on my mind.” The group is completed by Declan Chill on bass, Brendan Whyburn on lead guitar, Quinn Lane on drums, and Miles Reynolds on keyboard and guitar.
Since their high school beginnings, the band has released three albums, and they continue to see a growth in their fanbase every day. Much of this growth skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when live music came to a halt. Whyburn describes how this has made it difficult for their success to “really translate into [their] lives.” He continues, “we had no idea what it meant for… another 20,000 monthly listeners to be there, because we were just still alone in our house.”
The quarantine period had the group’s creative juices flowing: they wrote around 30 songs to be narrowed down for what eventually became their new record, released on October 15th. The band describes how the album is a collection of individual songs that they enjoyed, wanted listeners to hear, and wanted to perform at future concerts. Bassist Chill highlights the song “Pulling Teeth” as a favorite from the record, which he explains was a song from their first album that they were able to revive through learning to play it live.
The title of the album “The Living End” has a profound meaning to the band that helps tie the record together:“[it’s] a phrase that means sort of the utmost or the best of something,” Yorgensen describes. “And so we sort of conceptualized that to represent us really trying our hardest on this album and putting our best work forward. And I think that is sort of a representation of the album in its entirety.”
Check out “The Living End” on Spotify or Youtube. You can also find the band on their website, Instagram, Facebook and more! Tune in to 93.5 WVBR-FM to hear some of their latest releases.