Mod Sun elicited the help of his “best friend” and “biggest critic,” Machine Gun Kelly, to create the song he was destined to create.
Long before the duo — along with producer No Love for the Middle Child — made the version of “Sunshine” that fans will hear on June 7, Mod tells Page Six in an exclusive interview that he was in a creative rut.
After feeling “uninspired” post-Avril Lavigne breakup while living in a house located “in the heart of Hollywood,” Mod spent all of August 2023 in his hometown in Minnesota, hanging with his mother and sister-turned-manager.
At the time, the singer-songwriter contemplated taking “three years off of music” and focusing on another one of his passions: painting.
However, upon returning to California and shacking up in a log cabin (where he still resides), Mod got his musical juices flowing again.
The rocker/rapper is now sitting on 100 tracks, but he really only loves six of them.
“While making those songs, because my intentions were so pure, I stumbled upon what’s going to be my biggest and best and most successful f–king album that I have right here,” he tells us.
Mod describes the unfinished record’s debut single as one he’s “been denying [himself] of creating since the day [he] decided to be Mod Sun,” which stands for “Movement On Dreams, Stand Under None” and/or “Modern Sunshine.”
Mod — born Derek Ryan Smith — says he didn’t “want to put [his] finger on the pulse too much” but eventually stopped fighting his destiny.
“And, like, I made the f–king sunshine song,” he tells us of the reimagined lullaby, adding that he immediately went over to MGK’s home studio to play it for him.
“He’s like, ‘Yeah, let me hear what you’ve been working on, man,’” Mod explains. “And he’s sitting behind me in the studio at his house. And I’m, like, sitting facing the computer, like this. And I hit play, and I’m so scared to look back because I’m, like, this motherf–ker’s about to be like, ‘Yo, that was the corniest s–t I ever heard. Like, what are you on right now?’”
Sentiments of the sort are not uncommon, the sober musician says, as MGK — a rocker/rapper himself — is always brutally honest with him.
Mod reveals MGK will say things like, “I’ll tell you the truth. And I love you, bro. I love you to death. You’re my best friend. … I know what you’ve gone through in the last year. I want the best for you, bro. Like, let me help.”
To Mod’s pleasant surprise, MGK loved the track but felt it wasn’t “there yet.” So from October 2023 to the end of March, MGK put Mod “through a clinic.”
“He goes, ‘Hey, OK, so you’re about to record it. Take your f–king sunglasses off. Put your cigarettes down. Take off your f–king boots. Stop trying to be cool, guy,’” Mod recalls his pal telling him.
Mod adds that “Kels” and the former’s father, who died of alcoholism in April 2020, were very close.
Getting choked up, Mod recalls MGK — born Colson Baker — encouraging him to sing as if he were talking to his late dad.
“He’s on the phone with me, and Kels goes, ‘What you need to do right now to get this right, bro, is you need to talk to your dad while you record this verse. … Get in that headspace. What would your voice sound like if you were having a conversation with him? That’s how you need to sound,’” the 37-year-old shares as he wipes away tears.
Typically, Mod will write one, maybe two, hardly ever three versions of a song before he considers it done. But MGK, 34, was so nit-picky with “Sunshine” that he made his buddy rewrite it close to 35 times.
“He f–king took it there with me and helped co-write the song, helped get me to where I sound the most authentic and real I could ever sound in a song,” Mod gushes.
