Sometimes we come across a song that we fall in love with as soon as we hear the prelude. The music of Sunset Rollercoaster gave me that feeling. The first day I heard “My Jinji,” in the intro part, I felt like I was watching the sunset at the getaway surrounded by the sea on all sides and where warm waves rolled.

The songs of Sunset Rollercoaster, a band that originated in Taipei, Taiwan, are laidback. They sing about ‘life’ without a hint of impatientness or haste. Time slows down for a moment as you listen to them talk about love, friendship, pandemics, and hope in a soft, relaxed tempo. Maybe that's why the music of Sunset Rollercoaster took care of many folks’ minds.

The beginning of the Sunset Rollercoaster goes back to 2009. From a duo that started out as a demo song to growing into a band touring overseas. I looked back on the long journey of the Sunset Rollercoaster.

1. [RSK] Hello, Sunset Rollercoaster! I met Rolling Stone Korea for the first time through an interview. Nice to meet you. Please introduce yourself and say hello to the subscribers of Rolling Stone Korea.

Hello subscribers of Rolling Stone Korea! It’s really nice to meet you guys. I’m Kuo of Sunset Rollercoaster. We’re a band from Taipei, Taiwan.

2. [RSK] You must have been very busy this year. Since releasing the album "Infinity Sunset," you have toured Canada, the United States, and Mexico, and I heard you will be touring Australia soon. I want to know how you feel.

Actually, “Infinity Sunset” isn’t an album but a compilation we made with some of our musician friends overseas including Michael Seyer, Layton Wu, Paul Cherry, Edison Song, O3ohn, never young beach, and Phum Viphurit. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to Mexico this time around, but it’s true that we are going to Australia in two weeks and we’re all really excited about it. It will be our first time ever going there.

3. [RSK] I'm sure there were a lot of memorable episodes during the tour. Can you tell me one of them?

Yeah! I remember that we played two shows straight in Toronto. Our full set is around 90 minutes long, so after the first show we took a two hour break and then played another full 90 minute set, which is the first time we have ever done that.

It was our first time in this way, but I think we’ve ever tried it professionally. Because we don’t want the crowd to think we look exhausted if we play a second show. When we’re touring we want to respect everyone who has taken the time and bought tickets to see our show, so each show takes a lot of energy. 

4. [RSK] Now let's go back to the past. I wonder how the band Sunset Rollercoaster started.

Sunset Rollercoaster started around 2009 or 2010. In the very beginning I thought of it less as a band and more as a collective or a side-project from another band. During that time in Taipei that’s the way things were with bands. 

When it started it wasn’t anything serious. At the very beginning it was me and my friend, Kevin. We would write demos in Ableton and put them up on Myspace.

5. [RSK] ‘I also want to hear the start of the name 'Sunset Rollercoaster'.

Mac had a built-in app called “Photo Booth” and there was a rollercoaster preset with a huge sunset in the background. We needed a band photo to upload to our Myspace page so Kevin and I took a picture using that preset where we had sunglasses on and we put our hands up pretending as if we were riding a rollercoaster. I think he might still have the original picture.

6. [RSK] "My Jinji" is your representative song that is loved by countless folks. The song contains really romantic mood. And Jinji means kumquat, and lover. I wonder what kind of emotions make you write a song like this. 

I think at the start it was just a jam session. I recorded with my phone and arranged in my laptop so I could try to write lyrics to the song. When I write songs I never start with trying to write a song that’s going to have a certain emotion, but a certain feeling always comes out once I finish writing a song.

Eventually it started sounding a little nostalgic with psychedelic and love song vibes. I can’t say it’s a love song, but if you were to go by just the lyrics it might seem like a love song. I think it’s easier for the audience to connect when you write a love song, they listen to the music and it brings up bittersweet feelings.

7. [RSK] There's a track called "Vanilla" with a similar vibe. It's a song that goes well with the upcoming winter. Whenever I heard that song, I feel some kind of nostalgia. I wonder if you intended to feel this atmosphere.

To us it feels like a Summer song, because we think about going to a beach-side villa during the Summer. It’s attached to the ocean and the sunset, and I think it’s a song that really captures the “Sunset Rollercoaster” vibe because it also has a psychedelic feeling, the structure of a love song, and it’s special because even though it’s one song it’s separated in three different parts.

8. [RSK] The album [Vanilla Villa] is composed of three tracks, but it seems like one song is separated into three parts. 

The first part is an 80’s synth intro that feels kind of like elevator music, or the kind of music you would hear in a villa, a hotel lobby, or a spa session. The second part, Vanilla, is kind of 60’s/70’s oldies - a simple three or four chord love song, and the last part, Villa, is kind of funk, soul, and city-pop inspired with a lot of heavy synthesizers like YMO. That’s part of why I think this song is special, it contains 3 different kinds of eras and sounds smashing together into one song.

9. [RSK] I wonder what your intention is to arrange it like this.

As far as my intention goes… Maybe we’re just lazy? We can’t even write three full songs. Or maybe we just had one track and we decided to tell people we have three tracks. I guess no matter which intention it is, it makes our lives easier.

10. [RSK] Out of all the songs, I think "Vanilla" is my favorite. How does each member feel when you guys perform “Vanilla”?

I don’t know what the other members feel because we never talk about what song we like best, so if you ask me I can only say for sure that we feel like a band playing Vanilla. Still, I can tell everyone enjoys playing this song because of the huge smiles on their faces when we perform it.

11. [RSK] Many people were impressed by the music video of "Slow/Oriental" released in 2018. The color, light, and composition of the music video made me feel as if I were looking at a film photo book. How did this storytelling and directing begin?

Two female artists from Korea formed a crew called “No Future” in Berlin, emailed us saying they wanted to make a music video for this song. Eventually, we had a meeting where we talked about a lot of references and storylines. 

It reminds me of the 90’s Mandopop music videos that you see when you go to Karaoke. I tried to make it so you can’t tell there’s a clear storyline. I wanted to focus on the emotion and making sure the images fit with the music, and that’s how we set up the script.

After that, I flew the team - the two artists and a DP from Korea - out to Taiwan where they worked with a Taiwanese crew to shoot the video.

12. [RSK] I wonder where you get inspiration for the song.

I remember I was playing a show at that venue, Revolver, with another band called “Angel Baby.” During sound check I had my guitar and was fiddling with different chords and found a really interesting chord progression and immediately a melody came into my head. As I was playing the chords and humming the melody the drummer from the other band, John, told me that he thought it was a really good song. So that night I took a recording of that moment back home where I finished all of the lyrics.

The lyrics are all about Taipei life, which to me, has a bit of slowness to it. That’s not a negative, things move slowly and we take our time. Even though it’s the capital it still doesn’t feel that busy. That’s where the inspiration came from.

13. [RSK] I think Sunset Rollercoaster's music crosses various genres. Jazz, disco, synth pop, Hong Kong pop, etc. What is the reason to be able to cross these various elements?

We have this kind of diverse interest in music. We don’t want to be a genre band where we only play funk music or rock music. In another way I guess you could say we’re a little greedy. It makes sense since all five of us have different tastes, so if Zun Long, our drummer, gets really into reggae we’ll bring in some elements of reggae. If Gump, our keyboardist, gets into fusion, we’ll have a lot of jazzy chords on the keyboard. I was really into guitar solos for a time so I would always try to shred in a song.

14. [RSK] I think you have a variety of styles. I heard that the most recent album, "Infinity Sunset," is an omnibus album. Why did you choose this format and what is the story you want to tell through the album?

During the 70s and 80s indie labels would use 7-inch vinyl records to introduce new artists because the A-side could be one artist and the B-side could be another artist. This way they could put two different singles on one vinyl and give them to radio stations for DJs to play. So we decided to use this format to release the album as five 7-inch vinyl splits.

During the pandemic we weren’t allowed to tour and we missed our friends that we wanted to make music with. So we started having video calls and sharing ideas, and each artist would take the idea and write their own song. We work with artists from LA, Japan, Korea, and all over the world. So we call it “Infinity Sunset” because no matter where the sun is, it’s always a sunset for one of us. I guess it could be “Infinity Sunrise” too, but then again we’re Sunset Rollercoaster and our label is Sunset Music. 

15. [RSK] It was nice to see the names of Phum Viphurit and O3ohn, who are familiar to Korean fans, in this album. What's the process of collaborating with them?

We’re good friends with Phum after playing a few shows with him before the pandemic and we were always telling each other we should find some time to make music together, but it never happened. Once I told him our idea for these splits, he was down immediately. Our collaboration was kind of special because we both wrote our own “Little Balcony” but when he heard my demo he decided he really wanted to do a cover of my song. When you put the two versions together, you can’t even tell they’re the same song, which I think is the sign of a really good cover. It’s also the only cover in the whole compilation.

Sunset Rollercoaster was touring so we never got a chance to meet O3ohn, but our manager, Mary, met him while he was in Taipei. She was a big fan of his so she reached out to him about this project. I think it also helped that we had signed Edison Song, who is an actor and had a connection to O3ohn because O3ohn had made music for some Korean Dramas.

16. [RSK] Sunset Rollercoaster also collaborated with the Korean band Hyukoh, and I think the colors of the two bands, which have similar musical colors, are very well blended into one song. Were you satisfied with the results?

I’m ULTRA-satisfied with the results. We’ve been friends with Hyukoh since I think 2017/2018, and we’ve always been looking for an opportunity to make music together. Luckily enough we made this song together just before the pandemic hit, and the whole song, which is called “Candlelight”, really illustrates the pandemic era.

The song is about a storm coming through a city which knocks out the power. You light a few candles and you know that in a few hours things will go back to normal, but you share a special moment that night in candlelight. The whole song is trying to say if you’re capable of love, you’re capable of hope, and the world will become a better place.

17. [RSK] Out of the songs that you've shown to the public so far, what is the song that each member is most attached to?

This one is difficult to answer because I can’t speak for the other members, but I would probably have to say the song we’re most attached to is “Greedy.” It’s also a jam song, and the structure was easy, but we really struggled with finishing the song because we had so many different versions and arrangements. It took us almost two years to finish recording the album Cassa Nova, and Greedy is one of the songs on that album. We were recording with our producer, Lao Wang, who has helped us produce 90% of our music. Finishing this song meant a lot to us after having gone through so many struggles and losing people that we loved.

18. [RSK] It's time to wrap this up. Let's talk about goals. What is the main thing that Sunset Rollercoaster is trying to say through music?

There’s nothing special that we’re trying to say through our music. For us our music is about life. The idea of playing music professionally used to be a dream for us. Of course, it’s still a dream, but since we’ve been doing it for quite some time it’s become a part of our day-to-day life.

I would say that we’re really lucky the way that our career has developed. Some people become superstars overnight. For us it’s been a long and gradual process. For that reason recently I’ve been thinking how this music career isn’t going to be an occupation, it’s going to be a lifetime.

When I think about it that way the music becomes the only important thing. It’s not about how popular we can be, or about winning awards, or selling out shows. It’s about how we can write music we love and use it to explore our lives. As long as music remains beautiful to us we will keep carrying on. I think that’s probably the thing we want to say through our music. We love it, so we just want to play it. That’s pretty simple. 

19. [RSK] If you look closely at the sunset, there are countless different colors. In this context, Sunset Rollercoaster’s color seem to be very rich. I’d like to express my support and love for you to continue to do your own music freely. Lastly, please say how you feel on the interview and say goodbye. Thank you!

I feel very happy. All of these questions have been really detailed, going back to the early days of the band. Answering these questions has been a nice way of reflecting on the long journey we have made to get here. I hope someday soon we can play some shows in Korea so we will have a chance to talk in person!

<Photographs by - Sunset Rollercoaster>