Sun-pop band Sun Club makes a point of playing only happy music. From Baltimore, Sun Club has made their career as an optimistic band, and will play at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on Nov. 5 with some of the best gritty indie rock bands, including The Districts, who they’re touring with. Sun Club bassist Adam Shane spoke with WSN about touring, DIY shows and the band’s growing success.

WSN: How’s the tour going so far?

Adam Shane: Well, we’re on our way from Atlanta into Nashville and I’m currently under a blanket in the back of the van. But it’s been a lot of fun. We’re on tour with The Districts and they’re super awesome. They’re like our best buds now, it’s been like hanging out with friends every night. We’ve been playing with them for the last month and every night I’ll watch at least 75 percent of their set because they’re just so good night after night.

WSN: Is this the first you guys have done any major touring?

AS: No, we’ve been touring for a while, pretty much since we became Sun Club and even a little before. We did a six-week tour that was a lot of DIY and basement shows. Every once in awhile we’d play a real venue but it was a lot of warehouses and art spaces, and that’s what we did for a really long time. Then once we got our manager we started doing a bunch of support tours with different bands. But this is the longest tour we’ve done with another band.

WSN: Do you guys have any
good memories from past
New York shows?

AS: Back when we used to do DIY stuff a lot, there was this place called Big Snow Buffalo Lodge. It was this really dope little DIY, hole-in-the-wall. The stage was just this little tiny concrete slab and every time we’d play there it would get super rowdy. They don’t do shows any more, but it was really cool for a while.

WSN: Do you guys miss the DIY shows at all?

AS: We always have plans to continue doing them. We’ll probably never stop doing them. We definitely miss doing them as much as we used to, but there are nice things about playing legitimate venues. Like having good sound systems and you drink Fiji and stuff, so it’s pretty cool, but I can’t foresee us ever not joining DIY bills whenever they pop up.

WSN: How has it been transitioning out of being a DIY/local act to getting a bit more national attention and signing to ATO Records?

Sun Club: It’s happened so gradually that you don’t notice it, in a weird kind of way. You play more and more venues and start touring with bigger bands. It’s really cool to actually step back and think about what you’re doing, especially with signing with ATO and the fact that we’re actually getting the album out. We put out a seven inch once that we paid for ourselves, and now we have the vinyl and actual physical CDs made for us. It’s all kind of happening in a weird way; all those little things you think about when you start playing in a band, having a label, getting a manager and a booking agent. It kind of happened all at once, but it also took so long for those pieces to fall into place.

WSN: If you had to describe your sound for someone who’d never heard you in five words, what would they be?

AS: Party, party, party, party, party.

The Sun Club will play in the Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn on Saturday, Nov. 5.

A version of this article appeared in the Nov. 2 print edition. Email Carter Gray Shelter at [email protected].