SUGAR SUGAR SUGAR

Some bands express frustration, elation, anger, romance, heartbreak, yearning, nostalgia or a number of various other emotions into the music they create and play. Sugar Sugar Sugar is steeped in sex.

“Our goal is to make people shake it, go home and get it on,” said Lupe Flores, the band’s drummer. “We want to make people feel sexy. Everyone wants to feel sexy.”

“We always keep up the level of good lovin’ even when we’re writing about heartbreaking shit,” added Andy Piper, the bassist and vocalist.

“It’s not just copulation,” continued Christopher Nun, the guitarist, “it’s making love. That’s what good sex is all about.”

“We just want to have a good rocking time, for us and for our fans,” Piper said. “People seem to concern themselves about being so original that they miss the point. Making music that makes the audience like deer in the headlights for the sake of being original is not what we do. We make the music that we would want to go out and see, drink and dance to.”

“We play stripped-down rock ‘n’ roll,” he explained. “We sound like rock ‘n roll, and that’s spelled m-u-s-i-c.”

The members of Sugar Sugar Sugar began playing together a couple of years ago after Piper approached Nun at the end a Styff Anyss show at former venue Chiribin’s. A while after that, Flores introduced herself to Piper after a Lonebird (his solo project) show, simply announcing to him, “I’m Lupe. I’m going to be your drummer.”

“I’d never seen somebody put a tambourine on their head,” Flores recalled with a laugh. “And Andy just said, ‘You know, the thing about Lonebird is I’m supposed to be, well, alone.’”

Instead of becoming Lonebird’s drummer, Flores joined Piper (of Bar Tabac and formerly of The Reeks and the Wrecks as well as Party Favorites), Nun (formerly of Guinness and The Preparations in addition to Styff Anyss) and Jason Sands (also formerly of The Reeks and the Wrecks and currently with The Whammies and Frozen Cloak), the three having had begun jamming together and working on forming a new band. The four never had the chance to play all together, however, due to various commitments.

“Jason had too much other stuff going on with his other bands to play with us, so we ended up being a three-piece,” Piper said.

The group also added John Sampson (also of Bar Tabac) on saxophone for a few songs, and the current incarnation of Sugar Sugar Sugar was born. Since its first live performance in late 2007, the band has quickly become a local favorite, occasionally performing in town at different venues on consecutive nights.

The group’s straightforward approach to making and playing music to get the audience moving and feeling good is obvious in its live show, often whipping the audience into a sweaty dancing mass with pounding drum beats punctuated with sporadic cow bell smacks, bluesy rhythmic bass lines and guitar-rock riffs with a wolf-whistle or two thrown in for good measure.

“Thankfully, my parents raised me on blues and ‘60s and ‘70s rock,” Piper said. “My heart is somewhere in the early- to mid-80s, and my soul is from somewhere around 1972. In the mid- to late-80s I got into punk, and then in the 90s I thought, ‘What the hell happened to rock ‘n roll?’ And then I didn’t listen to anything newer than 1972.”

Despite counting blues and 1960s and 70s rock like that of Jimi Hendrix, T-Rex and AC/DC among their inspirations, the band members don’t regard Sugar Sugar Sugar a retro or throwback group. They consider themselves as playing the kind of music they want to see live, thus drawing heavily from their influences.

“I don’t understand what ‘Throwback’ is,” Piper explained. “‘Emo’ either. I don’t understand how you consider that a genre. Every great band is a reeking echo of what they dig, of their personal inspiration. And Emo? What good is music if it’s not emotional?

“We play rock ‘n’ roll like it’s folk music. I believe true art is past, present and future. No writer ever even considered picking up a pen without being inspired by an author before his or her time. The same is true with music: every great band carries the essence of its inspiration, as well as a vision of its future. It is each individual artist who changes the flavor. Woody Guthrie wrote, ‘God damn anyone who would write a song that doesn’t make somebody feel better about themselves.’ I live by that.”

In the approaching months, the band will be including a handful of new material in its shows while working on a live 6-song EP before hitting the road for a mini-tour to San Francisco. Not long after, the band plans to record a studio album, and then head out on the road again for a springtime tour to Austin, Texas for the South By Southwest music festival. The band will have Sampson on stage more often at upcoming shows, as well as implementing an electric organ for a few songs, Piper said.

“We are ever evolving,” he added. “We go into a rehearsal with a simple idea: something danceable or rocking. We get into it, and suddenly there’s a spark, something unexpected, something fresh. And then months down the road we realize we were just playing a Hendrix song backwards. Then we laugh about it and go have a drink.”

Catch Sugar Sugar Sugar on Oct. 10 at Boundary Bay, Oct. 12 at Rumors, and Oct. 31 at Jinx Art Space. The band’s online at their MySpace. - What's Up Magazine