Native Sun Talks Bowery Ballroom and Concrete Language
Interview by Nathalie Naor / Photos by Colin Lane
If you've done a music festival solo, you know how it goes. It's just you, the music, and however the day unfolds. I caught Hinds, then Faux Real at Pooneh Ghana's Freaky Friday showcase at Radio/East, and both sets were great. Like, genuinely great. By the time Faux Real finished I was ready to go find some tacos.
I was literally walking out when I heard Native Sun.
Something about their sound just stopped me cold. Their stage was a DIY carpet, a few amps, and a spray-painted backdrop. The crowd was already locked in, smiles on their faces, as lead singer Danny Gomez was on the floor, screaming into a mic. Needless to say, I stayed. And as they wrapped up their set, I remember thinking — these guys fucking rock.
Fast forward to 2026, Native Sun played Bowery Ballroom alongside Torture and the Desert Spiders and Cab Ellis, and I felt that same pull all over again. That energy that makes you stop whatever you're doing and just watch. Colin Lane, the iconic photographer behind The Strokes' Is This It cover, was there that night shooting, and the photos he came away with captured exactly how that room felt.
The stars finally aligned for me to sit down with lead singer and guitarist Danny Gomez and bassist Justin Barry at Mister Nancy's this month. We met on a Monday night after a big snowstorm, and got right into it.
Native Sun is Danny Gomez (guitar and vocals), Justin Barry (bass), Jack Hiltabidle (lead guitar) and Nico Espinosa (drums).
Newest release: Concrete Language, debut album, September 19th, 2025. It's really good. Go listen to it.
Freaky Friday Showcase, Austin TX — March 2024 | Nathalie Naor
NATHALIE: The first time I saw you guys was South By Southwest 2024, at Pooneh Ghana's Freaky Friday show. Faux Real and Hinds played that one too. I was standing there thinking, holy shit, I love these guys. What was that show like for you?
DANNY: We still get messages from people in Austin, somebody was hitting us up the other day being like, "You coming back to South By? We need that carpet set!" That whole thing came about very quickly. I think we got asked when we literally landed in Austin. Pooneh was like, "I have this great idea, I think you guys need to play in the crowd." And the way it turned out, she was right.
I remember Dry Cleaning was setting up their whole set and I was just going crazy on the carpet. Everything was so DIY.
NATHALIE: It was more memorable than a lot of actual stage shows I've seen, honestly.
JUSTIN: I remember the spray paint can that I used to make the backdrop. At one point I was using it as a slide and then I just threw it on the ground. And I was like, you know, there's a lot of condensed air inside that thing. That probably wasn't very smart — like if it blew up or something! Yeah, I wouldn't do that again.
DANNY: That show was chaotic in a limitless way.
JUSTIN: Yeah, and as you get more professional and rehearsed, you become more polished — but at the same time that rawness is super important. So it's about finding that balance between both.
Bowery Ballroom, New York — January 2026 | Colin Lane
NATHALIE: Fast forward to the Bowery Ballroom — a totally different environment from a carpet on the floor at South By. How did that shift feel?
DANNY: What I enjoyed about it was…that raw energy was still there. Sometimes in bigger venues it gets lost.
JUSTIN: Something that was really cool for me was being more present, watching the crowd and watching how they were interacting with the songs. That was our first bigger show after putting out the debut record. So the crowd kind of knew where the songs were going and reacted accordingly. I was like... oh, these people know the songs. And they're responding to them.
DANNY: The carpet show was a very good example of a set that was just like, drill you in the head, non-stop. The train's going. Only got five stops. And then now, having a first record, it allows those moments Justin was talking about. Being able to create an experience on stage that has ups and downs, with the nuances of how life actually is.
There's nothing like being up there and using the energy you're being given, and giving it back to the audience, and back and forth. That's a very special feeling and one of the main reasons I love playing live.
Bowery Ballroom, New York — January 2026 | Colin Lane
NATHALIE: What does it feel like when you're up there and you see that many people, and they know the words?
DANNY: It's kind of blank, first of all. I almost understand the show better after it happens than when it's actually happening. But when it's happening, as clichéd as it sounds, it really is a flash.
JUSTIN: Yeah, I kind of black out in a way too where it feels like it's just happening. Almost like a primal thing.
DANNY: Like if we thought too much about it, it would almost be insincere.
JUSTIN: But in some moments, if you're looking out and trying to consciously connect with the crowd, you make eye contact with somebody and it has a more personal feeling. You're realizing how many different people are coming together and enjoying this moment with you.
DANNY: Yeah, I was looking at some of the photos Colin sent and I'm seeing things in the crowd you don't even know are happening. You see people holding hands, just so many different things happening within one scene, and you forget it's all just centered around music. It's almost like a Where's Waldo of moments and facial expressions.
Bowery Ballroom, New York — January 2026 | Colin Lane
NATHALIE: Would Native Sun be Native Sun without the live music?
JUSTIN: Playing live is core to us because the live show differs from the record. There's an unpredictable quality to it, it's not the same every single night. Things are ebbing and flowing and changing, and we have to be alert to each other and what we're playing. That's why certain sets are different from others. It's fun.
DANNY: It's a different piece of the pie. When you listen to our songs and our record, there's an interesting songwriting that comes through. And when we play live, it brings another side to it.
When I was walking over here I was listening to Guided by Voices — Justin's been getting me into Bee Thousand, and eight songs in a row I kept stopping like, wait, what song is this? And they were all so different. But then Justin sent me footage of them playing live and seeing how visceral those songs were... I think a lot of my favorite bands have that, where when I'm alone I can have that record and connect with it personally. But when I see it live it's a different experience in connection with a crowd. Like The Replacements, the Velvet Underground, Television.
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NATHALIE: If someone's never heard your music, where should they start?
JUSTIN: With the debut album, Concrete Language!
DANNY: Start at track one, press play.
That's why I felt kind of shitty about the Bee Thousand thing — because I hadn't listened to that record in straight form. We're big fans of the 33⅓ series. We give it to each other for birthdays, just to be like, here ya go, read, learn about music. And Justin's reading the one about Bee Thousand and was telling me how the track listing was so important. It's something we labored over a lot when making this record.
JUSTIN: Sequencing is a big keyword for us.
Bowery Ballroom, New York — January 2026 | Colin Lane
NATHALIE: Tell me about the name. How did you land on Concrete Language?
JUSTIN: The reality is you can interpret it many different ways, which is up to the listener, as the easy cop-out tends to go. But in some ways, we wanted something that felt both constructed and living at the same time. That juxtaposition between concrete and language, and being in New York City, where we're based and writing — taking real-life stories and capturing those experiences and putting them to a record. Building on the lineage of music here in New York through our own lens.
DANNY: It definitely has a clear meaning to me, but I don't want that meaning to be the same for everybody. Concrete is something that's always in flux. It's a soft substance, but it's also such a hard substance. And I think the record reflects both of those sides. We wanted to write songs that talked about everyday life — leaning on that concrete language of how do we talk about real experiences and the real issues people are facing every day? The lived experiences we've had in these past few years culminated in this piece of music.
NATHALIE: "Language" does that too. It's structured but completely up to interpretation. Transient in a way.
DANNY: Yeah, exactly.
Bowery Ballroom, New York — January 2026 | Colin Lane
NATHALIE: Is there a song on the album you feel is a little slept on?
JUSTIN: I'm not on Spotify so I genuinely have no idea what's slept on or not. But I really love "All I Can See."
DANNY: That one's actually pretty high up on Spotify! People are connecting with it.
JUSTIN: So I guess it's not slept on. But if you listen to the record all the way through, it's one of my personal favorites. It makes sense as a closing song — going back to sequencing. It's not necessarily what one might expect from the band, which makes it more interesting to me.
DANNY: It's a special song. I came home early one morning and in about thirty minutes it just poured out. I made a quick demo on my phone, showed it to Justin, and he was like, "Oh, this is a really good song." When we were making the record, everybody kind of connected with it. It has a mood to it. I enjoy when a song matches the mood of its creation.
NATHALIE: How did you record "All I Can See"?
DANNY: We recorded it to a TASCAM 388 tape, did the take live, then Justin added the bass, then the vocals, and ended with the guitar solo. Jack recorded an overdub of that, and it was very organic. It's the first Native Sun song without drums for most of it. Kind of inspired by some Smiths stuff, where they fade away and add a trail of things. But it was like, how do we bring that into the world of something like Ziggy Stardust, with the shredding guitar as well?
JUSTIN: The lyrics deserve a closer look. I don't want to put my interpretation on it, but they're my favorite on the album.
DANNY: Sometimes in more aggressive music, lyrics can be forgotten. But it doesn't have to be that way. A big foundation of Native Sun has always been that every great band can rock your socks off but can also play you something that makes your heart turn. From the Rolling Stones to Joy Division to the Ramones — they can write you a ballad as good as a rock and roll song.
Bowery Ballroom, New York — January 2026 | Colin Lane
NATHALIE: An impossible question, but: what is one of your favorite lyrics you've ever written?
DANNY: "Politicians, stupid senators, never said anything to me about my life." That feels pretty relevant to today.
We get another round. The conversation drifts into vinyl, tapes, TikTok and the death of the attention span — and somehow always back to sequencing. Danny says the word and Justin just nods, like it's the answer to everything.
DANNY: Sequencing!
NATHALIE: My biggest takeaway from this interview.
DANNY: We just joke about how this is why I'd never want to see the album as a medium go away. People forget sometimes that there's a reason why the artist wants you to listen to this record this way. There's intent. And once you learn the intent and reason why the art was made, it just gets you excited about it.
JUSTIN: There's something really nice about buying a vinyl record and opening up the artwork and physically engaging with something. An album that you're intentionally supposed to listen to front to back is more powerful because it reclaims our attention. It's not just like a thirty-second clip of a song on TikTok. It's supposed to take you on a journey.
Bowery Ballroom, New York — January 2026 | Colin Lane
NATHALIE: What music was always played in your houses growing up?
JUSTIN: A lot of Neil Young. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, but also Neil Young solo. That's my mom's artist, I would say.
DANNY: I grew up in Colombia for a bit, so my parents were listening to a mix of Colombian salsa and a lot of the songwriting greats. It wasn't one of those households where music wasn't a part of it. My dad always liked to sing anything from Billy Joel to The Beatles.
Danny moved from Colombia when he was seven. His dad had a cleaning service, and every week he'd give him a CD. The first one was Beatles 1, the greatest hits compilation. He still has it.
NATHALIE: Can you hear these influences on Concrete Language?
DANNY: The influences are heavy, but there's a common thread, which is the conversation of what rock 'n' roll music has done in the past sixty years, and how do you keep progressing from that while at the same time acknowledging it.
JUSTIN: I almost prefer to allow those things to stay embedded in our DNA, where it's a little less referential. We tend to dial in on things we all agree on: this has validity, this has importance — and then we ask: what does that look like for us?
DANNY: The most organic thing would be that those influences rise to the surface without you having to say them. What you make becomes its own thing to take from. Now you've got a whole new painting.
Bowery Ballroom, New York — January 2026 | Colin Lane
NATHALIE: What about non-musical influences (filmmakers, writers, photographers)?
JUSTIN: It's a wide world. I really like Wim Wenders. Been recently getting into Tarkovsky, which is kind of a crazy world to live in.
DANNY: Samuel Beckett. The Romantic poets…Baudelaire, Rimbaud, that lineage you see all the way tied to Oscar Wilde. Godard, Truffaut, Hitchcock. We were just watching Nouvelle Vague, the Linklater film about the making of Breathless, Godard directing in the streets of Paris, rewriting the script daily, actors not knowing their lines. It's very rock 'n' roll.
JUSTIN: You become so shaped by so many different things that you're getting little bits of everything.
NATHALIE: Everyone's like a collage of all the things they've ever taken in.
JUSTIN: Yeah, exactly that.
DANNY: And we're also that generation where it's not so segmented. It's not like the goths are over here and the punks are over there. It's Wong Kar-wai as much as it's John Lurie. It doesn't have a lunch table where everybody sits. And I'm grateful for that.
Bowery Ballroom, New York — January 2026 | Colin Lane
NATHALIE: Last one. New York City. Each of you have lived here about twelve, thirteen years. How has living here shaped you and your music?
JUSTIN: It's endlessly inspiring. Danny and I were especially drawn to the art that's made here and can't really picture being somewhere else. And although things are changing and everything can feel relatively grim, you can view it in a favorable way too — how resilient the city is, how you walk down the street and there are so many people different from you but you share the same space. There's a million things you can tap into and it's all at our disposal.
DANNY: This city represents what I'd like the whole country and the world to be. You see community, you see diversity, and you see love for your neighbor. People here are resilient no matter what. There's always going to be people fighting back to make their voices heard. We come from very working class, underprivileged environments, and every day is a struggle to be here. But we do it because we love it and we believe in what the city and community is, and that projects outward to the whole country.
NATHALIE: Any final messages?
DANNY: Fuck ICE.
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Native Sun's debut album Concrete Language is out now. Start at track one.