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Art of the Meal: Sun & Flesh Dish on Their Favourite Food City, Hometown Restaurants, and Top Chef

We connect with Sun & Flesh members Christoph Manuel and Matt Brewster about eating on the road, America’s best food city, and their favourite chef, Kris Yenbamroong.

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One band that has remained remarkably productive, despite the awful lockdowns experienced over the last couple of years is Sun & Flesh. In just 2020 and 2021, the group released eight singles. While all is quiet on the Sun & Flesh front right now, the quartet is slowly getting ready to reemerge with new music.

Powered by an aggressive approach predicated on speaking their mind, the band specializes in dealing out furious anthems of disenchantment, capable of speaking to anyone who’s frustrated with something or just having a lousy day. The riffs are heavy and bruising, but there is also atmosphere and melody, making the group a very complete package. They have made a career out of working hard, driving in a van to play for whoever wants to hear them, and winning over each fan one by one.

We recently turned the attention away from rock n’ roll and metal for a few minutes and spoke to Christoph Manuel and Matt Brewster about food. For our new Art of The Meal interview, the guys tell us about eating on the road, the best food city in America, and their favourite chef, Kris Yenbamroong.

Do you follow a particular diet?

Christoph Manuel and Matt Brewster: “Hey! This is Christoph and Matt from Sun & Flesh. Let’s get this bread – literally and figuratively!

“Everyone in the band is very conscious of their food choices, we tend to stick to vegetarian/vegan-friendly cuisines to varying degrees, both out of an environmental necessity and a care for animal rights. Not so easy while being on tour and living in a van!”

How does the food you eat on the road compare to what you eat when in the studio or not working?

“Food on the road tends to be a touch greasier and is best accompanied by a few cheap beers… We’ll usually try to offset any bad meals with a trip to the gym, if we can swing it. Probably the hardest thing about eating on the road is the times. You’re eating way later at night than you normally would, or there are bigger gaps between meals, but it’s all worth it!”

Do you prepare a lot of your own food?

“At home, we all cook a lot… Matt’s dad owns a restaurant and all of us have worked in restaurants for varying stretches at a time, so we all know our way around a kitchen. When we aren’t on tour, we’ll usually try to do a vegan band family meal once a week. Record numbers of tacos have been known to be prepared and consumed at these functions.”

What are some of your favourite restaurants in your hometown?

“We split our time between New York City and North Jersey, so there’s an embarrassment of riches, as far as food. Matt will insist the best pizza in the universe is Mr. Dino’s in Montclair, we all love Champ’s Diner in Brooklyn for vegan food, and Christoph can’t decide if his favourite coffee place is Gasoline Alley, Devoción, or Stumptown.”

Do you have a favourite “food city” when on tour?

“It’s got to be Charlotte, North Carolina. We’ve got a lot of friends there and we always hit up Jack Beagle’s for a few pints and some great bar food with friends. And we try to stay an extra day if at all possible. Charlotte’s also got Pinky’s and Brook’s Burgers… I think you can see the pattern!”

What are some of the food items on your rider?

“When we have one, we’ll tell you! For now, a few drink tickets will usually suffice! If the venue we’re playing has some hot sauce to put on the cheap fast food pizza they’ll sometimes give us, then that place is a-ok in our book.”

If a fan were generous and to give you a food or drink-related gift, what should they get you?

“The ability to eat whatever and not gain any weight? Is there someone out there with that? Send it our way with a pound of something deep fried.

“If that’s not possible, we’ll take all the IPA you can legally mail. Can you legally mail IPA? You probably can. Just in a cardboard box, and not an envelope. The envelope gets soggy too fast.”

Do you have a favourite chef?

Kris Yenbamroong of Night + Market in LA. Our last time there we went three of the four nights we were in town and he actually nodded at us while we were eating there. We’re not often star-struck, but man that was awesome!”

What sort of cooking set-up do you have at home?

“Nothing all that crazy; we all live in a house together and Matt’s beyond ecstatic to not have an electric stove. He says if you live somewhere with an electric stove, give him a call, he’ll listen, and let you vent, while softly repeating the words ‘I know, I know…’”

Artwork for the song “Bored” by Sun & Flesh

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