A childhood pipedream turned full-fledged music project, The Electric Sunnshine is masterminded by one single individual: Tennessee-based Sam Phish. Phish started writing and planning the band during his junior year of high school, back in Indiana, getting some friends from class together to rehearse the new material and play little shows for other people at that school. As the year went on, The Electric Sunnshine opened their first festival, the 2018 Backalley Ballyhoo in Fountain Square. This was the moment that drove Phish to pursue music as a legitimate career and business, and not just a hobby. For the next few years, Sam Phish lived life and gained experience, writing more songs along the way. A few different live lineups joined him over that period of time to bring the music to a live stage, and the foundations of an album were finally starting to show.
Eventually, in 2023, Sam Phish recorded the debut album for Electric Sunnshine: “Midnight Special”. Recorded while living in his 2016 Jeep Patriot, “Midnight Special” contains the final versions of the best songs Phish had written from the beginning of the journey thus far. The first single from that record, “Sky’s Real Slow”, was actually the first song written for The Electric Sunnshine. On October 7, 2023, “Midnight Special” was released on all streaming platforms. To commemorate this debut, The Electric Sunnshine took to the roof of World Famous Hotboys in Fountain Square, Indiana, to recreate the entire album as a live recording. The reception from this event made the band a local favorite in the community, and pushed Phish to write more material sooner than originally planned.
Sam Phish is the only constant member of the band; all of the live personnel are hired on to bring the musical experience to the stage. In the studio, Phish writes and records every part of each song, mixing and mastering everything himself on the very same Macbook that brought “Midnight Special” to life. The live atmosphere, however, is a different story. On stage, Sam Phish is joined by a rotating bassist and drummer, with the rhythm section pushing the grooves and allowing Phish to create spontaneous guitar solos over it all. The end result is a unique live experience that will never be exactly the same twice, as their live shows focus on not just jamming, but creating new improvisational songs on-the-fly that will probably never be played again.
In June of 2024, Electric Sunnshine helped welcome local, live music back to The Fountain Square Theatre (which hadn’t seen any such thing in over 30 years) during the inaugural Prideful Festival. They then ended off the summer season with their second festival, the 7th annual Garfield Parks Arts and Music Festival.
Their sound has been described as a healthy mix between classic rock instrumentation and more modern songwriting. Sam Phish takes a lot of influence from not just classic bands like Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and The Beatles, but also from modern greats like Arctic Monkeys, The White Stripes, and Alice in Chains. The resulting sound is something that can’t be easily narrowed down to one genre; part blues, part psychedelic, part grunge, even part metal at some times, during live shows. Regardless, the unique quality of the group’s tone has become a fan-favorite among the local Indianapolis music scene. “Midnight Special” and all of the new upcoming releases are available on Spotify, Apple Music, and all other streaming services. News, updates, and live schedules can be found at electricsunnshine.univer.se, the band’s official website.