After playing the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Julien Baker & TORRES closed out 2024 with the release of their critically acclaimed debut single ‘Sugar in the Tank’ via Matador Records. Today, they share the official video for the track which was shot in collaboration with the queer country dance party Stud Country. The clip features original choreography by Stud Country’s co-founder Sean Monaghan and star members of the Stud Country community. “We were so excited to cast people from our community including Geo [Jedlicka] who has been dancing in NYC for three decades. Having established artists like Julien and TORRES, who’ve actually been to our events, collaborate with us during this country revival is incredible,” says Monaghan. Jae Cripe, Stud Country regular and DJ, says “It’s been very healing for me as a trans person who was raised in the South to reconnect with this part of myself in a place that feels safe, supportive, and also happens to be full of very hot and nice queer people.”
Julien Baker and TORRES spoke on the video saying, “We were really honored that the Stud Country folks were willing to have fun with us and prepare this line dance for the song! Everyone involved is so talented and they were patient and sweet with us while we learned the moves. For us it’s particularly special to find someplace and some people to do cowboy shit with here in NYC.”
Listen/share ‘Sugar in The Tank‘ here and watch the video, directed by Caity Arthur here.
Formed by their shared experiences of growing up queer in the south, ‘Sugar in the Tank,’ which is now #2 most added at AAA, not only reflects Julien Baker & TORRES’ love of country music, but joyfully reclaims the genre’s traditions and iconography which until only recently felt exclusionary. The single is a beautiful duet that is authentically country as it is a celebration of the songwriter’s roots.
Praise for Julien Baker & TORRES
“Straightforward country — guitar strumming, banjo picking, pedal steel guitar — perfectly suits the all-out declarations of love in “Sugar in the Tank.” – The New York Times
“a twangy cut that pulls at the heartstrings” – Rolling Stone
“On ‘Sugar In The Tank’… the pair trade lines reflecting on their mutual experience of growing up queer in the south. Their lyrics are in turn romantic and realistic as they harmonize on lines like ‘Getting the hell out of downtown / Let you be the chain that keeps me.’” – The FADER
“(a) great song!” – Stereogum
““Sugar In The Tank” doesn’t seem to be a random flash in the pan. Rather, it seems like a new beginning.” – UPROXX
“This song has everything: banjo twang! Superb harmonies! Lyrics about yearning! I feel like I’m driving a dusty old van down a desert road with the love of my life in the passenger seat.” – Nylon
“the pair’s voices fit together like puzzle pieces, making ‘Sugar in the Tank’ a must-listen for any country music fan out there.” – Billboard
https://julienbakerandtorres.com/
About Julien Baker
A native of Memphis who began playing music in church as a child, Julien Baker shot to worldwide attention in 2015 with her show-stopping debut, Sprained Ankle. Recorded in only a few days, it was a bleak yet hopeful meditation on identity, addiction, faith, resilience and redemption. An intense and immersive performer, her live shows were described by The New Yorker as “…. hushed, reverential. The only sounds you hear between songs are her fingers as she tweaks the tuning on her electric guitar, scattered whispers between friends, and the rustling as the crowd waits patiently for Baker to start strumming again.”
Baker’s acclaim grew with 2017’s Matador debut Turn Out the Lights and the following year’s self-titled debut EP with boygenius, the trio she formed with fellow era-defining artists Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. With the release of her 2021’s solo album Little Oblivions, Baker cemented herself as “one of the leading female singer/songwriters of her generation, both for her music’s muted grandeur and lyrics that seem to dive headlong into emotional chaos” (Rolling Stone). The album was met with worldwide critical acclaim and supported with performances on Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Late Late Show with James Corden and CBS This Morning’s Saturday Sessions.
Baker reunited with boygenius in 2023 for their first full-length, the record, which won three Grammy Awards and was supported by the biggest tour of the musicians’ collective careers — including sold out shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden and Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl.
About TORRES
TORRES is the pseudonym of Mackenzie Scott. She was born January 23, 1991, and lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her wife Jenna, stepson Silas, and puppy Sylvia. She has been releasing albums and performing as TORRES since 2013.
What an enormous room is TORRES’ sixth studio album (her third with Merge). It was recorded in September and October 2022 at Stadium Heights Sound in Durham, North Carolina. It was engineered by Ryan Pickett, produced by Mackenzie Scott and Sarah Jaffe, mixed by TJ Allen in Bristol, UK, and mastered by Heba Kadry in NYC. The album contains 10 songs. Mackenzie wrote all of them. Sarah played bass guitar, synths, drums, organ, and piano. Mackenzie sang vocals, played guitar, bass, synths, organ, piano, and programmed drums. Additional synth bass, tambourine, and shakers were played by TJ Allen.
