From the outskirts of Houston to the big city of Austin, lead vocalist and guitarist, Evan Fundora, is determined to revive the raw, gritty sound that characterized 90s grunge music. With a blend of malicious sludgy and distorted guitar power chords, thunderous drums, and intense heavy vocals, Sap will have you headbanging the moment you enter the venue.
In August 2020, Fundora relocated to Austin in search of a more lively and welcoming music community. After settling in Austin, Fundora began his search for musicians to join him. Through Craigslist, Fundora was able to connect with Hank Barna, a skilled bassist who shared his passion for the genre. They bonded over their love of bands such as Silverchair and The Smashing Pumpkins and began jamming together. Three months later, Jared Cox joined the band as their drummer, completing the lineup.
Sap released their debut album, ‘Lard Baby,’ on July 13, 2023. The nine-track album is characterized by its use of heavy guitar riffs and thundering drums, coupled with Fundora’s gravelly vocals. Its lyrics revolve around themes of emotional and physical abuse, a desire for internal freedom, and death.
The track ‘Mr. John’ exemplifies this with repetitive lyrics like “You take out your rage on us / Fists full of anger,” which speak of the flight of a victim of abuse. Other songs like ‘Trash Man’ feature verses quite literal to the song name, with lyrics like, “And he picks up another bag / Yeah he is the / Trashman.” ‘Hairy Jerry’ follows this same theme as it tells the story of an ugly, hairy man full of pride. Both ‘Big Fat Macho Man’ and ‘Kiss My Kitty Cat’ delve into themes of love gone wrong, with ‘Kiss My Kitty Cat’ ending in hateful lyrics that repetitively sing “I hate you / Am I dead?”
Fundora shares the creative process behind the track names, revealing that they later planned on changing them to match the lyrics, but upon positive feedback, stuck to the original titles.
“Once we get a first version recorded on the phone, we need to title it obviously, but we just wrote the song so there are no words or anything,” Fundora explains. “I like to put random names of random things because if we write basic words, all the songs would be indiscernible. I go with some weird, creative name for each song that way I remember what name goes with what song.”
Similarly, the band waited until right before their first open mic performance to choose a band name, spontaneously deciding on the name Sap, and never altering it.
“We recorded the album in spring, and it came out in the summer,” Fundora said. “All that time since releasing, we’ve been recording. We’re trying to write more freely, just whatever comes to us.”
The band is experimenting with new sounds and dynamics for their next album. After writing around 100 songs, they’ll narrow it down to the best of the best.
“Our sound has evolved a lot since we started,” Barna said. “We started out making pop punk stuff, and we are now involved in harder stuff which became Lard Baby. Now we’ve been evolving even further than that.”
Sap has managed to accumulate almost 10k monthly listeners on Spotify, with their hit single ‘Kiss My Kitty Cat’ already exceding 100k streams.
“Right now we’re just letting the album sit for a bit,” Fundora said. “We’re just playing more shows and trying to reach more people. Then yeah, next year we’ll focus on producing our second album.”