Sunspot | Brat Fest
Memorial Day Weekend: Madison WI
Sunspot

Sunspot

Friday, May 24 | Punk/Rock | MYPAF Island Stage | 5:10pm–5:50pm

Website: Sunspot

Based out of Weird Wisconsin, Sunspot is a multiple award winner, including a 5-time winner for Best Rock Album from the Madison Area Music Awards and Wisconsin Area Music Industry’s Artist of the Year, an honor shared with Garbage, Violent Femmes, and Bon Iver. Recent television and film placements include Expedition Unknown with Josh Gates, Hellier, the DVD of The Fate of the Furious, Netflix’s Waffles + Mochi, and their song  “Go, Pack!” was even selected by FOX Sports as one of the Green Bay Packers tracks for the 2011 Super Bowl broadcast.

Originally joining forces at the University of Wisconsin, they’ve gone on to tour America’s rock underground for over two decades and have shared the stage with bands like Smash Mouth, Third Eye Blind, AWOL Nation, Gin Blossoms, Fastball, KC and the Sunshine Band, Queensrÿche, Everclear, Death Cab for Cutie, Andrew WK, and Flaming Lips. Even punk legend Milo Aukerman joined Sunspot on stage for a show-stopping rendition of Descendents’ classic, “Hope.”

After years of podcasting tour stories from their van (Sunspot Road Mania), Sunspot branched out by creating the paranormal podcast See You On The Other Side. Featuring interviews and discussions of pop culture and paranormal themes along with a brand new original track every week, they put together almost 300 episodes delving into the weird side of rock ‘n’ roll.

Some of their biggest successes come from their most ridiculous songs. Their unabashedly geeky tune, “Scott Bakula”, ended up being used by the man himself as the theme song for his birthday party on the set of the show, Star Trek: Enterprise.

With their latest album, The Strangest Frequency, the band started recording before the pandemic, and while the wordwide shutdown might have put their official studio time on hold, they didn’t let being stuck at home slow them down. Throughout 2020 and 2021, their “Thirsty Thursday” and “Paranormal Tuesday” livestreams reached thousands of hungry music fans with no place to go. The band was able to record over 50 music videos from home, everyone putting their individual pieces in and then editing them together into a “live” video with tracks ranging from Sunspot originals to ridiculous covers like “Eye of the Tiger” or “Santa Baby”. During this process, they kept writing and eventually finished recording the twelve songs that would form The Strangest Frequency.

With nine studio albums, thousands of shows, hundreds of podcasts, and no intention of letting up, Sunspot is currently working on their next adventure.

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