Sleepy Sun's Bret Constantino dishes on the big bad breakup with ex-member Rachel Fannan

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• Bret Constantino (second from left) talks everything under the Sleepy Sun

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When San Francisco psych rockers Sleepy Sun debuted in 2009 with Embrace, the band earned bear hugs from other well-established and burgeoning acts, including Arctic Monkeys and Black Angels. One connection they lost in the process, however, was vocalist and sole female member Rachel Fannan, who up and quit in October 2010, right in the middle of the tour for Sun's sophomore release, Fever. According to Rachel, her bandmates were "a very difficult group" to work with, she wrote in a statement that detailed elements of her volatile romantic relationship with vocalist Bret Constantino. Hell hath no fury, right?

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Apparently Constantino hasn't missed those boy/girl harmonies too much, because he handled the vocal duties on his own for the third album, Spine Hits, which dropped April 10 via The End. The result is one of focus: Jams have been slimmed down to a minute or so, and there's no trace of Rachel to be found. We did, however, find Constantino in the middle of Sleepy Sun's current tour, and for the first time he told his side of the story regarding the whole Rachel debacle: why he was intimidated by her talent, why it's been easier without her, and why it's still a difficult matter for him to articulate. Constantino also opened up about the emotionally-draining characters he created for Spine Hits, and the book he's gonna bury himself in the next time he's sitting on a porch in Atlanta with his beverage of choice.

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Sleepy Sun. With White Hills, Sleepy Genes. $10. 9p.m. Fri., April 27. 529, 529 Flat Shoals. 404-228-6769. http://www.529atl.com/

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So this is the first record since Rachel left. How has it been without her?

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Bret Constantino: Oh it's been a little bit easier, to be frank. It's also a challenge. It's a challenge in the sense that we're - sighs - I don't know. There's a lot of people talk, you know? People liked Rachel a lot, and we liked Rachel in the band, too. It's been sort of skewed as far as what the band is about. It's always been this line-up, the creative process hasn't changed that much. Umm, it's good. It's forced me to step up my game a little bit. I've been a much better singer since she left. I was very intimidated by Rachel - and her talent. She'd always tell me, "You're not singing!" Always giving me shit, saying I'm not singing on key, and I'd say "I'm just tired."

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You sing the same melodies for sixty days in a row and you sort of forget what you're actually doing. But then you also develop this psychology like, "What does this mean what we're singing?!" It's so weird to sing the same thing over and over again. But it got kind of exhausting for both of us. It was a strange relationship. But I ran into her- we didn't talk for almost like a year and a half. We were in L.A. staying with some friends and Rachel came up to the van and said "Hey!" and gave me a hug. It was the first time I'd seen her since she left the tour, you know? And that was almost two years ago. And so things are fine, you know. I think, I don't know, maybe I'm happy with the way things have gone because I've learned so much from her and the relationship that we had.

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What did you learn from her?