When coordinating a time to meet and interview Bunktown Falls, Santo, their drummer, suggested “hey, it’s actually our buddy’s birthday that night and they’re all going bowling. I feel like that’d be a cool place to do the interview and get some cool shots [of us] being ridiculous lol would that be cool with you?” Without hesitation, I thought fuck it, why not that sounds great! This short anecdote will be what I now think of when someone asks me to describe Bunktown Falls because it truly shows how they are as people and as a music collective: a down-to-earth, group of funky music-loving people who make you feel like you’re family whether you’ve known them for two minutes or two years.
Based on Long Island, Bunktown Falls is a three-piece “jam fused funk reggae” collective who without fail always bring a party with them, musically and personality-wise, no matter which venue, event, or lineup they play. Apart from this interview, my favorite memory of seeing these folks play is when they brought up close friends and acquaintances to jam and sing with them during their sets at The Irish Pub earlier in 2019, even bringing on a saxophonist to a play a few tunes! With groovy anthems like “Cruisin’” and “Australians Don’t Really Drink Fosters”, their music gives you such a sense of summer that you could practically taste the Coronas, lime, and eighty-degree weather! When they mentioned that they were working on new music to release this year, I couldn’t have been more excited. Hearing the guys talk about all the new music they’re planning on releasing you could tell that they’ve put their love and patience and passion into it, and we’re definitely at the edge of our seat waiting to see what they’ll release next.
The After Hours Review spoke with Bunktown Falls(after getting some gnarly spares and strikes at the local bowling alley, of course) about who they are, what they’re all about and what we can expect from their new singles and album, set to be released throughout the 2019 year. Check it out below!
Band: Bunktown Falls
Members:
Santo Puleo – Drums, Vocals
Alex Mundo – Guitar, Vocals
Spencer Blake – Bass
Where can we find your music:
Describe yourself in a few sentences or less
Alex: Truthfully, we’re a band of three guys who like to play music…and party!
Santo: We like to play music and we don’t really give up when everything goes to shit.
Spencer: …We like making a scene, but also making a scene, y’know?
How long has Bunktown been established and how did it happen?
Santo: About five years now? And how did it happen…well I met Alex twelve years ago at a backyard college party and we were wasted and he was like “hey, do you wanna jam? I play the guitar!” and another guy goes “I play bass!” and we kind of got drunk and just started jamming. We always vowed that years later we would link back up eventually since I lived in Florida and they were from New York.
Alex: Yeah, and then something like seven years later I was in another band, getting involved in the scene or whatever, it didn’t really work out so we went our separate ways. Eventually me and the guys I was playing with came back together and said that we needed a drummer; the serendipity of it all was that Santo shows up on my Facebook, I remember he made a post that was like “Hey Facebook! I’m back!” and I think I commented on that post “Well when are you coming to New York, jack-ass, I need a drummer!” and he literally replied “I’ve been living [in New York] for two weeks”. Honestly, it’s been gravy ever since.
So I’ve never seen a band before just add new instruments or vocalists spontaneously in their set, and I think that’s awesome.
Alex: I’ve always loved seeing people like Sublime, sometimes you would see people like Gwen Stefani would jump on stage and it wouldn’t be something like “oh that’s the chic from No Doubt” it’s more like “hey, this is a chic I’ve been rolling with for the last five years, she’s got a great voice, she’s in a ska band, she’s coming up”. Doing those backyard pool shows and all, there was something about that vibe that was cool. It’s just a fun thing to do, and we like putting people in a good mood.
What has been your most memorable moment performing on stage?
Santo: Smoking a huge blunt on stage and the bouncers were like “…eh just let them do it, it’s Bunktown Falls” and then letting us finishing it haha.
Alex: Haha true. I think my most memorable are anything we do at Montauk Music Festival. Last year we did a show with Nonstop To Cairo and a bunch of other “[Montauk Music Festival] regulars” and it was just two hours of a party, it went by like a flash. Something about being with bands that really know each other in a spot we all know really well, there’s this communal energy going on, I love it.
Tell me about the new album, what can we expect, what’s different about it, etc.
Santo: Well, Spencer is going to be on this album. He’s like a new piece of this chemistry going on with Bunktown…everything is also nice and smooth now, everything is structured but we’re still able to jam out and figure out parts we like and don’t like.
Alex: I think we’ve grown a lot in terms of knowing how we want to do what we want to do. Also just learning from our mistakes from recording previously and learning from that process. It’s still going to be Bunktown, it’s still going to be a jam, but this time we’re taking our time with recording and I think that’ll be the biggest difference for this release.
With singles being released left and right, make sure you’re following Bunktown Falls on all social media and music platforms and keep your eyes and ears open for their album scheduled to be released Winter 2019!