If you’re confused about who the hell Tommy & June are, join the club. Fat Wreck Chords quietly released the acoustic duo’s debut album last week without any of the usual fanfare you’d expect from the prominent label. If you’re curious what the deal is, here’s the origin story straight from label owner Fat Mike himself.
I never really put a band together before. It seems like a weird thing to do, but some things need to happen. I meet a lot of people on tour. Tommy I met in Israel about 12 years ago. Great singer/songwriter playing in a punk band. He was cool, and I started listening to his solo stuff. It was great, but no one ever came to see him play in the US. I felt bad. One day in SF Tommy asked me what he should do. He said no one comes to see his punk band or his solo shows. I said that’s how it goes. You’ve been doing this for over ten years and if you’re not drawing a crowd now, you never will. He was bummed. I was bummed. He’s a great songwriter, but who cares? Two days later I remembered I met an Iranian Colombian dude on tour that was a great singer-songwriter too. I hadn’t spoken to him in years….I had a weird idea. I emailed both of them and told them to start a band together. I know you live in two different parts of the world….but I think you would make a great two-piece band. Let me produce the record and we’ll see how it goes. You don’t have to tour. Just spend a week in the studio with me. I said record short acoustic weird songs with a new wave edge. They did. We did ten songs that came in at 20 minutes. I fucking loved it. Totally simple and clean and short and catchy and I had never heard a band sound like this before…. AND like Stiff Little Fingers (Protestants and Catholics), no one expects a Jew and a Colombian Arab to be making music together. Like SLF, it’s fucking good.
I introduce to the world Tommy and June…. two kinda boring guys that make really fucking great music together.
Stream the self-titled album below.