On The Phone With... Lance Anderson of Corners of the Sun
This week I talked to musician and artist, Lance Anderson. You might most recently know him from his artwork and Instagram handle @Cornersofthesun. But what you might not know is how many other parts of the Fresno scene his story touches. Over the course of our conversation, we jumped from punk shows to ceramics classrooms, old Tower venues, concert flyers, skateboarding, vinyl collecting, and all the strange ways creativity keeps finding its way back into your life.
Lance has been part of the local music scene for decades through bands like Buzzbomb Phase 4, King Sugar, and Barnaby Clones, but he’s also become recognizable for his artwork, including hand-drawn show posters and recent pieces inspired by old Fresno signs and landmarks. And talking to him, it became clear pretty quickly that none of those things really exist separately for him. They all overlap somewhere.
At one point, we started talking about how different the local scene feels now compared to twenty or thirty years ago. Lance remembered when there were only a handful of places for bands to play and almost everything was word of mouth. “When we started, it was Club Fred, Wild Blue, and they were both 21 plus. I was 19,” he told me. “They would kick me out after I played.”
Now, he sees younger bands growing up in a completely different environment, one with all-ages venues, pop-up shows, social media promotion, and more opportunities to get involved creatively. But what still stands out to him most is the people who continue to keep Fresno’s scene alive year after year. “Fresno has all these individuals that are really, really dedicated to the music,” he said. “It’s not just like, ‘Oh, I’m trying to make a buck and move on to the next thing.’ It’s like, man, these guys are all in it.”
Whether we were talking about promoters, venue owners, artists, or musicians, Lance kept circling back to people simply wanting to create spaces where art and music can exist. And Lance has spent most of his life doing exactly that himself.
Before retiring, he spent 25 years teaching, including time at Tioga Middle School and Sunnyside High School, where he taught ceramics and art. He talked about teaching with the same passion he brings to music, describing it as almost like performing every day. “You have to kind of come outside yourself a little bit as an educator and put on a show like you’re a front man in a band,” he said.
One of my favorite stories he shared was hearing about the ceramic mosaic suns he and his students placed around Sunnyside’s campus. The idea was simple, if somebody was having a bad day, they could spot one of the suns and remember tomorrow was a new day. “Maybe things aren’t going to change, but it is a new day,” he said. That idea of leaving little pieces of yourself behind seems to connect to almost everything he does now.
These days, Lance spends much of his time creating artwork, including concert posters and themed pieces for local art shows. A lot of his recent work has focused on old Fresno signs and locations, including the former Luau restaurant sign and other forgotten pieces of the city that still hold meaning for people who remember them.
“We’re so quick these days to go out with the old and in with the new,” he told me. “Maybe if I bring them back, people will remember that some of these old things we have are cool, and maybe we should take care of them and refurbish them a little bit rather than just knock them down and make some cookie-cutter thing in their place.”
Even the way he approaches poster design still feels deeply connected to Fresno’s DIY music scene. Lance explained that a lot of the early Buzzbomb flyers were put together at Kinko’s long before Photoshop made things easier. Over time, that evolved into the hand-drawn lettering and digital coloring style he uses now. “I hand-draw more than anything and then insert it into the computer and digitally color it that way,” he said.
A lot of Lance’s recent artwork feels connected to memory, nostalgia, and preserving pieces of Fresno that disappear over time. During our conversation, he talked a lot about old restaurants, venues, signs, and buildings that people drive past every day without thinking much about anymore. For him, recreating those places through art is partly about documenting them before they vanish completely. “I just like to work with my hands, and I like to make stuff that I like,” he told me.
Listening to him talk about these pieces, it became clear the artwork isn’t really just about the signs themselves. It’s about Fresno’s history, memory, and the emotional connection people form with places over time. And even now, after decades of creating, he still has unfinished paintings hanging around his studio waiting for the right moment. “There’s a lot that nobody ever sees,” he said.
What makes this current stretch especially interesting is that Lance feels more creatively active now than he has in years. Between the themed gallery shows, poster work, painting, and new Buzzbomb material, it feels like Lance has found himself creating constantly again. A lot of that seems connected to finally having the time and space to focus entirely on creating again. “At 19, you wanted to be an artist, and now you’re doing that,” he told me at one point during our conversation. “How cool is that?”
The conversation eventually circled back to Buzzbomb Phase 4, the band he’s been part of since he was 19 years old. Nearly 35 years later, the band is still going. The current lineup for Buzzbomb Phase 4 includes Lance on vocals, Charles McClelland on guitar, Bob Hamasaki on bass, and Michael Faeth on drums.
Buzzbomb Phase 4 has existed long enough to span multiple eras of Fresno music, from the DIY flyer days and Tower shows of the ‘90s to today’s digital-release world, where bands can record and upload music from completely different cities. Lance laughed while talking about how much easier recording has become compared to when the band first started. Back then, everything felt expensive and difficult. Now, songs get passed back and forth remotely, drum tracks get recorded separately, vocals happen whenever schedules line up, and albums slowly piece themselves together over time.
Even after all these years, it’s still clear Lance loves talking about making music. A lot of the newer Buzzbomb material was written remotely, with songs slowly taking shape between Fresno and Southern California as demos bounced back and forth between band members. What started as occasional writing sessions eventually turned into a full-length release.
What stood out most about the band wasn’t just how long these guys have stayed together, but the fact that the band kept finding its way back to each other through different stages of life. Kids, jobs, health issues, distance, and time never fully pulled the project apart. “There’ve been points, time lapses in between stuff, but we always come back together,” Lance said.
The band recently released their first full-length record in decades, something Lance described as both surreal and rewarding after years of life changes, health struggles, and time away from playing live regularly.
A big part of our conversation also centered around health, creativity, and learning how to adapt. Lance spoke openly about dealing with autoimmune issues, anxiety symptoms, spine surgery recovery, and recently discovering multiple food allergies. But even as he talked about those challenges, he kept returning to the importance of continuing to create.
“I’m thankful I have a creative mind that is still seeking out things to do and create,” he said. “Because man, if I was like I am now and didn’t have this purpose of always wanting to create something, I’d be pretty miserable.”
After talking with Lance, it became pretty clear that creativity has been the thread running through every part of his life. Whether it’s music, pottery, teaching, skateboarding, graphic design, or painting old Fresno signs, everything seems connected through this constant need to make something meaningful and share it with people.
If you want to check out Lance’s work in person, he has several upcoming art shows around Fresno over the next few weeks. On Saturday, May 23rd, he’ll be part of the La Bamba-themed art show hosted by Wyse Fools at Julio’s Kustom Studio. Then on May 29th, he’ll have work featured in To Infinity and Beeryond, a Toy Story themed art show at Tioga-Sequoia. Lance described his contribution as a parody of Dr. Dre’s The Chronic album cover featuring Buzz Lightyear.
In June, he’ll also be part of multiple additional shows, including a food-themed exhibit with Hella Fresno at My Homie’s Kitchen during ArtHop, where his Luau-inspired Fresno sign piece will be displayed, along with an upcoming Beastie Boys-themed art show at Strummer’s hosted by Hella Fresno and Fresno Underground Art.
