Sunny Sweeney Delivers Balanced Mix of Country and Honky Tonk on New Album

Sunny Sweeney started out as an actor and comedian before becoming a singer-songwriter. When she made the transition in the early 2000s, she did so with the understanding that she wanted to be involved in entertainment in some capacity.

“I don’t even bring [the acting and comedy] up anymore,” she says via phone as she and her band were driving through North Carolina after a weekend of gigs. Sunny Sweeney performs at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 17, at the Winchester in Lakewood. “Starting in 2005, I got out of college and just started a band. It fulfilled a bunch of things all in one.”

She self-released her 2005 debut, Heartbreaker’s Hall of Fame, which was re-released in 2006. Even though Sweeney had limited experience in the studio, the recording process went smoothly.

“It was my easiest record because I didn’t know what I was doing,” she says. “I don’t know what I’m doing now, but I really didn’t know what I was doing then. I was working with some good friends of mine that I still work with. They helped me with the process. My drummer helped me pick out some songs. Honestly, the one thing I remember about going to the studio for that record was the drive down there. You had to drive down I-35 between Austin and San Antonio, and I had this big-ass car that wouldn’t fit through the Starbucks drive-through. I was pissed. I had this over-sized Ford Excursion, and it was kind of jacked-up. It was so stupid. You can take the girl out of Texas.”

She managed to tour Europe in support of the album and slowly built a fan base both here and abroad. Stuck in a contract at Big Machine, she struggled to regularly record and tour in the mid-2000s but once she freed herself from the contract, things kicked into high gear.

“Big Machine took my first album and licensed it and then sold it into that whole thing with Scooter Braun [who purchased the label in 2019],” she says. “I can’t get it back now, and it got sold again. That was that record. I was there for six years before I put out [2011’s] Concrete. It was that ‘artist protection program’ that kept me from doing much.”

When her friend Jeremy Tepper, a SiriusXM program director, contacted her a few years back about becoming a country music DJ on SiriusXM, she said yes without knowing the details. Currently, she hosts the daily Sunny Side Up Morning Radio Show on SiriusXM’s Willie’s Roadhouse and Sunny Side of Life on SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country.

“I said yes without asking any questions because I loved Jeremy so much and knew he wouldn’t offer me something stupid,” she says.

She hosted her show on Willie’s Roadhouse for two solid years before filling in for hosts such the late Alamo Jones and Mojo Nixon on Outlaw Country and then getting her own damn radio show.

Despite the SiriusXM gig, Sweeney somehow found time to write and record her new album, Rhinestone Requiem.

“The songs have a nice, even kind of display of what we think,” she says. “There is a slow waltz and fast up-tempo stuff and a rocking country song that sounds like Jerry Lee Lewis and some storytelling. It’s a nice mixture.”

For the first time, she and her guitarist, Harley Husbands, produced her album.

“I knew we were capable of producing the album,” she says. “There are perks to not having too many cooks in the kitchen. If Harley and I disagree about something, we can talk about it instead of going to someone else for a final opinion. He’s a great musician. For the most part, we think the same thing about 85 percent of the time. He’s way better at picking out how to talk to the musicians in technical terms.”

Though the theme of heartbreak runs through many of Requiem’s tunes, Sweeney says it’s not a concept album.

“Initially, it maybe kind of started as another album about shit going wrong in a relationship,” she says. “It’s presenting a record of country songs that we think is how we want country music presented.”

Though the album doesn’t drop until next month, Sweeney has worked some new tunes into the live show. But don’t worry, she’ll still dip into her back catalog.

“We’ve been doing some of the songs out already,” she says. “There are a couple we haven’t done yet. The response has been great. I’m excited about it and can’t wait to do all the record, but I will never do all the songs in one show. I have 150 songs, and people become fans for a reason. Someone who has been around since 2005 doesn’t just want to hear songs from 2015. Some fans just came out on the last record and they don’t know anything before 2023. As a fan, I hate going to a show where the artist only plays the new stuff. Lame!”

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