Sundara Karma’s lead singer Oscar Pollock is the epitome of insight, he understands the importance of music and lets inspiration come from his heart. When I asked him who inspired the band’s upcoming album Better Luck Next Time he said: “Not a single person!” The album revisits influences that were present when the band first started. He said it was refreshing to make.
Sundara Karma have had over fifty-two million streams on their hit song ‘Flame’ alone and so I was surprised when Pollock told me he’s never made anything he actually likes: “I think that’s what keeps me going, in the hope that one day I will.”
It was evident that the band isn’t only made up of musicians, but made up of friends. Pollock doesn’t overthink the band’s future successes, he looks forward to the times he will share with his friends. When asked about his dream collaborations, he said “the best music is made with friends.”
For Pollock, being in a band with your best friends can be both a blessing and a curse. Sharing success is a blessing, but the hardest thing for the band now is overcoming how life is pulling each of them in different directions.
Better Luck Next Time is best described by Pollock as an album about “resilience, resilience to things not happening how you thought they would or resilience to life taking you a certain way.” He spoke about the band’s latest single ‘Miss again’, which he wrote with Spector frontman Fred Macpherson in LA. The song (and the album) is about missing your mark, and staying resilient despite those things.
One of the most interesting things about Pollock is the way he feels about his music: “I could quite happily never put anything out and just let it exist on a hard drive for the rest of my life, that’s where the enjoyment is for me. Song writing feels like solving a puzzle, it’s artistic expression, you feel closer to the truth of who you are with each song you release, that’s the eternal quest.” He loves song writing, that’s his favourite part of the process. He says working under a time constraint is important otherwise he’d overthink and the process would go on forever.
Pollock’s favourite song from the new album is ‘Wishing Well’, which I’d have to agree with. It is tragically beautiful, something that sounds completely different and yet I’ve had it on repeat for weeks. “It‘s yet another song about longing. There are so many things I look back on and think ‘what if’… It’s a track that’s about the life that passes you by, the life that seems much more perfect and ‘meant to be’ than the one you are currently living. It’s sad but also hopefully beautiful in some way.”
The lyrics are particularly vulnerable, I asked if they were hard to share: “For me, a lyric being vulnerable or a lyric that isn’t there is no difference in difficulty. I’ll happily share a good lyric with anyone no matter how vulnerable the lyric is, if it’s a bad lyric I’ll try to take it out or feel awful about it for the rest of my life.”
He doesn’t believe in suffering for his art: “some people are quite good at separating their wellbeing and the music they make, it depends how invested you feel in the songs you write. If you don’t feel that they are a little piece of you, it is pretty easy to detach from it, and sometimes it is.”
With each album comes a new sound, Pollock said this album was different not only because there are different producers but also because the band are in completely different stages of their lives. He wishes he cherished his earlier years more; looking back, those pinch me moments are the ones you don’t think about at the time. One moment he relished was playing the main stage at Reading Festival before he turned 20, he called it surreal. He once hoped to be an english teacher and all of a sudden he was stood before thousands of eager fans ready to hear their latest sound. He still waits for the next pinch me moment.
What Sundara Karma have is more than talent, it is eternal. Pollock said that his proudest achievement is the fact that he is still able to make music with his childhood friends.
What sets Better Luck Next Time apart from the band’s other albums is that it doesn’t define its purpose, it is there for each listener to serve them as they feel. “I wouldn’t say that there is definitive meaning behind the album”, Pollock said, “I like the idea that whoever is listening can take away what they want from the lyrics.” There are a lot of great indie songs on the record, which makes it feel like a full circle moment for the band.
It is clear that the band thoroughly enjoy what they do, they truly care about people enjoying their music rather than sales and numbers. The band are buzzing about their upcoming tour, in particular they are looking forward to their shows in Newcastle, Manchester, and Glasgow. Pollock said being paid to travel is the cheat code for work: “I’m really looking forward to [the tour]. We keep to ourselves a lot, we have fun, I can’t go into detail because it’s debauched but we have fun like everyone else.”
Sundara Karma’s new album Better Luck Next Time is set to be released 27 October 2023, they play The Leadmill on the 27th November.
Photo Via Carry On Press