Sonny Smith began singing while a patient at Warm Springs Foundation Hospital in Texas, to amuse the other patients. Quasi-mystical with a tendency to write about new-agey subjects such as hypnotherapy, extrasensory perception, fortune tellers, palm readers and channelers Smith has been given his own genre by the press as ‘pop supernaturalism’ – we would add "quirky" and "folky" to that description. He was released from Warm Springs in the care of his brother and wife, Ryan Browne and Tahlia Harbour who soon became his backing band. Later, at the Canyon Manor Rehabilitation Center north of San Francisco, he met Kelley Stoltz who became the Sunsets’ permanent drummer. On and off the four of them lived out of a Browne’s Toyota van for the next three years, playing with a revolving cast of musicians. They embarked on a triple album in late 2009 but a hurricane hit the coastal studio they were recording in and most of the tapes were destroyed as well as their equipment. What’s left is the record they just released: "Hit After Hit". See Sonny and the Sunsets live at The New Parish in Oakland on April 21.