Mikey Powers hops off the stage at Philadelphia’s Union Transfer with a warning: Hanging out with all five members of Sun Club at one time might be weird. He’s not wrong. But weird is fun.

 Everything about the Baltimore quintet is a little wonky–endearingly so. Packed into their dressing room backstage after the band’s soundcheck, Powers, who handles vocals and guitar, and the rest of Sun Club–fellow guitarist and vocalist Shane McCord, drummer Devin McCord, bassist Adam Shane and keyboardist and percussionist Kory Johnson–show off their quirks. Devin is sitting on the floor, sometimes crawling underneath the coffee table in the center of the room. The other four members are squeezed on a couch, clamoring over one another to get a word in, discussing the time they accidentally ran the Canadian border, simply because they missed the checkpoint. 

“The next time, we stayed in this weird, abandoned bombshell,” Mikey continues. “Canada’s weird in general.”

Sun Club’s sound is just as rambunctious. Their debut album The Dongo Durango, out last fall on ATO Records, features wildly exuberant shrieks of joyful vocals, infectious summery melodies, a tag team of zany guitars and stomping drums. The song names themselves skew a little eccentric like “Beauty Meat” and “Puppy Gumgum.” Sun Club is art school meets the playground–endlessly colorful and entertaining, yet kind of experimental and messy. They have the ability to sound right at home at both a secret warehouse show and a larger club where they’d open for Ra Ra Riot.

 Fresh off a trip to SXSW and about to embark on a headlining tour, Sun Club let us know the essentials to their beings.

They’re Childhood Friends

As adolescents, the brothers McCord teamed up with their neighbor Mikey to teach themselves music by listening to the White Stripes, The Beach Boys and Devo. Eventually, by the time they were teenagers, they were playing parties and writing songs as a metal band. In 2010, Kory joined and the shift to indie-pop began. The full Sun Club lineup was completed in 2012 with Adam. Now they’re in their early 20s and a tight unit.
 

They Sound Like If Vampire Weekend Got Into a Paint Fight and Went to the Beach

Think signature Vampire Weekend guitar work meets surf rock. Add tribal-inspired drums and unintelligible lyrics—you’ll be too busy dancing to listen for words—and you’ve got Sun Club.
 

Sonically, Sun Club Hits Every Part of the Musical Rainbow

One of the most fun things about listening to Sun Club is the wide range of tones. The band’s instrumental breakdown hits every section. Shane explains: “My guitar is the high end stuff, Kory’s got that middle percussion stuff, Devin’s got the deep percussion shit, Mikey’s got the lower guiar end, Adam’s got the really low bass sound. Everyone has a different range and a register.”
 

Chipotle is Their Go-To

Through the good times and the bad, Sun Club have been getting their burrito on–no E. Coli to report back on either.

“The only reason I would be pissed at Chipotle is the amount of times we’ve fucking repped them and they still haven’t given us a sponsorship,” Mikey says.

“They haven’t even given us a free burrito,” Shane continues.

“It’s not going to stop me from going,” Mikey says. “One day, we will have a Chipotle sponsorship.”

“That’s the only sponsorship we wanna do,” Shane mentions. “Taco Bell once sent us $500 in free Taco Bell. I spent $50 on two grocery bags. I try to eat healthy, but I’ve been going to Taco Bell a lot. But I just want to get sponsored by Chipotle and nothing else.”

Speaking of Food, They Got Kicked Out of a Waffle House with Philly Rockers the Districts

When two bands of 25-and-younger pair up, food is never far from forethought. After a particularly nasty Waffle House experience, some guys ditched the check and never looked back. “Some people didn’t pay,” Shane clarifies. “It was disgusting, it was the worst Waffle House experience.”
 

More Food: They Stole a Can of Cheese Once

After getting the cold shoulder at a venue, the guys decided to jack a giant can of cheese, which they still have in their van. “It’s 2 lbs! its liquid cheese! It transferred from van one to van two,” Shane says.

“It’s the kind of cheese that you leave out and it’s always liquid and it never changes,” Mikey describes.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Taco Bell bought it off of us,” Shane replies.
 

They’ll Ditch Songs That Aren’t Working Out

Even if you like them. After a while, if a song they were previously excited about dulls, they’ll remove it from their set list. Sometimes the audience notices if it’s a fan favorite, but they stick to their guns. “They were like ‘Oh that’s cool, they’re doing better stuff now,’” Mikey says.

Adam Has a Really Great Aspirational Hobby

He plans on collecting gelatin molds of celebrity heads. He doesn’t have any yet, since they’ve been on tour, but there’s nothing wrong with admiring from afar. “I’m really into molds of B-list celebrities where you can fill them up of Ray Liotta and Topher Grace,” he says. “You can get them on Etsy and stuff. They’re made for refrigerator temperatures, but you can put ice cream in them.”
 

They Bring Dolls on Tour with Them

Imagine an Animal House-style chant: “We bring dolls on tour with us, we bring dolls on tour with us!” There are no dolls in this dressing room, however, only vague talk of them with very little explanation concerning the outburst: “We actually have a doll on tour with us, that’s very real,” Devin mentions.
 

Devin and Adam Have a Side Project

Dubbed d@Nj@ B°Yz (pronounced Danger Boys), the two create personality-filled raps and record them on their phones. There’s “Daddy,” that sees them alternating between “Daddy made a boom boom / Every single day / Daddy make a boom boom” and beatboxing. There’s also “Open Up The Window.” Lyrics include “Hear that city bop bop / On Christmas day we come together / Regardless of the awful weather / We are young but restless never / Come on jump into the river.”