Helen Sun Interview
by Joseph McCain
28 February 2026
How's your sleep schedule?
Sleep at 1, wake up at 08:15. It's pretty consistent. And if I don't sleep more than 7 hours a night, I get really nauseous the next day. And I have to work.
Are you working outside of music?
I'm working at an architecture firm…
What do you have planned for tonight?
I have a birthday party, and I bought a synth off Facebook Marketplace today. So when I come back, I'm gonna play with that. I think they're just doing pres, but I don't really wanna go to the club after, I'm just staying for pres.
Are you outside?
I'm always outside.
Wait, but you just said you're not going out.
It's just like, I don't really know the people who are gonna be at this birthday party.
But normally, you would go?
Oh, I thought you just meant in general.
I like the idea of me being at the club. But in reality, I don't really go that much, ever. I do not enjoy it so much. It has to be a really good lineup, and it has to be an event that I'm interested in seeing. And it has to be worth the money. But I am working on being outside more.
What inspires your writing?
I constantly write down little phrases and words that I think about, see, and pick up. Then I try to stitch them together in a way that makes sense.
What do you say when people say, “Describe your music?”
Any time someone asks me to describe my music, I just say, “I don't know.” Never known what to say.
Is there a certain genre you resonate with the most?
No, I'm not genre phobic. I even like country. People who hate on country I have beef with. They haven't heard great, progressive sixties country. There will be a great awakening.
What was the inspiration for the cover?
I wanted a portrait for my cover. And then I made it with my friend Carson Petree. I made a bunch of different variations of it, and none of them were quite right, and I called Carson to help me, and he had these really great ideas. We were looking at all these different old magazines and references, and I wanted a bit of color, but just one shade. And then he created a bunch of different versions, and we chose that one.
Have you been surprised that Shiny kindness is the most popular one so far?
I guess so. Before I released it, I was really thinking about trying to make it sound more interesting. Sometimes when you’ve heard something so many times you lose yourself in it a bit. And I felt a little insecure about it because I thought maybe it didn't sound interesting enough. But I try not to think about how popular it's gotten.
Did you have anything you felt like you wanted to get across through this project?
I made a bunch of songs when I was a teenager, and I think they were really melodramatic and almost petulant in a sort of way. And I feel like, once I started college, the songs that I was making seemed so immature, and they were about being like 15, 16, 17 years old.
And now that I think about it, I think some of them are probably great songs, but I deleted everything, and I was making them on my school computer that I had stolen IT passwords from to torrent a DAW. This was my first time really making music again, and I wanted it to reflect that older music I was making as a kid.
Follow Helen on Instagram. Listen to talk with your Teeth on Spotify and Apple Music.