Surf Curse Talks DIY Music Scenes, Friendship and TikTok Algorithms
Surf Curse by Julien Sage
When I think of 2013, I think of Buds, the debut album from Los Angeles indie-rock band Surf Curse. At the time, I was just discovering the music and film that would impact my teenage life in an identity-shaping way. I was stoked to hear those same points of inspiration in the band’s collaborative songs and independent projects (Current Joys and Gap Girls), and couldn’t get enough of their garage-rock sound that was re-emerging at the time.
Surf Curse has come a long way since then, and have been touring their new album Magic Hour this past year following the viral success of “Freaks,” which came off their first album.
I’ve been lucky enough to get to know Nick and Jacob over the years, in both Los Angeles and at home in Montreal, and was happy to catch up with them before their recent show at Club Soda. We spoke about the all-ages venue in Reno that changed their lives, their friendship over the years, and the impact of TikTok algorithm’s on DIY music scenes.
Malaika Astorga for Also Cool: Can you describe the scene you came up in Reno and what it was like when you moved to L.A.?
Nick Rattigan: I feel like there's like three parts: Vegas, Reno and L.A.
Also Cool: I went to Vegas for the first time recently and was wondering how people live there full-time.
Nick: Yes, we do that every time we come back.
Jacob Rubeck: Especially when you're young, it's like you're musically depressed, you know? It would take forever just to go see a band that you actually like. When we got to Reno, there was finally an all-ages space,The Holland Project, where bands that Nick and I loved would actually play.
Nick: It was kind of shocking.
Jacob: The very first night we were in Reno, we got invited to a show that was on the college campus by this guy handing out flyers. It was for a band called The Babies, and it was Kevin Morby and Cass Ramone from Vivian Girls. I had literally gotten the seven-inch record that day in the mail and loved it. Then this guy's handing out flyers for a show that they're playing in like two weeks, and I was like, “Where have you been my whole life?”
Nick: That guy booked our first show.
Also Cool: Not to say that Vegas is a small place, but I understand that there's not much going on music scene wise, and I’m also from a place where there was not much going on. This made it so that any show at all was really exciting and special. It was better than nothing, and I so desperately needed that.
Nick: We went from a little bit of something to a lot, because L.A. is a lot. When we first visited, it was always the extreme of what we experienced at The Holland Project. There were so many all-ages shows, so many event spaces and places for people to play. So that was very exciting and exhilarating. Now I don't have my ear to the ground at all. I'm like, “Where’s the new stuff in LA? What's going on with the scene?
Jacob: Yeah, it's funny; it’s a lot of touring bands. What's great about being able to live in Los Angeles is that everyone comes to play here. So, you're reunited with old friends, bands that you always wanted to see; they’re all going to land here at some point. I got to see Duster this year and have been stoked on that. I got to see two nights of Pavement, which was incredible, and Danny Elfman for Halloween at the Hollywood Bowl, which was absolute lunacy. The one thing that I do like about L.A. is that you have access to so much.
I will say that I do miss being in smaller venues, like seeing a show at The Holland Project back in Reno. I miss being in that room and on the stage and figuring out what to do at the end of the night. With all these LA shows, I tend to leave immediately afterwards and go home, you know? Like an old guy.
AC: Yeah. I mean, one of my questions was, and I know politics with The Smell are a bit complicated, but it obviously had a huge impact on your lives, so much so that you wrote a song about it. I'm wondering what other venues or spaces have been impactful for you in that way? Often when I talk to musicians, they often have “this one venue that was the only spot where everyone went to, and where that's how they met everyone in their lives.”
Nick: Yeah, I feel like that was mainly The Holland Project for us in Reno because it was the only all-ages space we'd ever experienced before. It's where we played all our shows and where the bands that came through hopefully would play.
Also Cool: And bands don't really tour through Reno?
Nick: And bands don't really tour through Reno. They do sometimes. They did a pretty good job of lassoing some pretty big bands. I remember Future Islands came through, and that was like the biggest deal of the year.
But then in LA, my favourite was Pehrspace. It's actually the new cover of our first album because the other cover was so bad, I was like, “We have to change this.”
Also Cool: Why do you think it was bad?
Nick: It's just like us sitting on a couch with some waves behind it.
Jacob: It was a little beachy.
Nick: It's a little beachy. We already suffered the “surf curse,” which is that everybody just seems to think that we’re a surf rock band.
Jacob: Which you know–-
Nick: It's the surf curse.
Jacob: It's a curse.
Nick: You get what you know, two beachy dudes from LA.
Jacob: We love eating pizza.
Nick: Yeah, yeah. We love movies and pizza.
Also Cool: Movies and pizza, great.
Nick: Movies and pizza, yeah, we still like movies. I've actually been eating a ton of pizza the last few days, but Pehrspace was just this really cool DIY venue in L.A.
Jacob: It's supposed to be coming back.
Nick: It's supposed to be coming back for years.
Jacob: It disappeared because they got kicked out of their location. I'm pretty sure it got replaced with a big chain coffee shop, if I'm not mistaken, but they're moving somewhere else. We opened up for Omni there.
Nick: The Bootleg, Pehrspace is moving into the Bootleg.
Jacob: Bootleg was a good spot, Non Plus Ultra was also a great spot.
Surf Curse Magic Hour
Also Cool: So, I like to ask people who've been in bands together for a long time: What have you learned about friendship from each other?
Nick: It's complicated.
Jacob: It is complicated. I like to look back on us. The cool thing about us is that we didn't drive each other crazy so fast because we had too much time in between everything.
Nick: Yeah, we didn't like, blow up, right away.
Jacob: When we first started, Nick moved to New York and worked as a PA, and I was working as a dishwasher.
We had a lot of time to take space from each other and then reunite again, work on music and show each other stuff whenever we did have the time. So it wasn't like we were young, and then our egos got to our heads and were like, “ I fucking hate you,” or nothing like that. It was like, “It's good to see you again. Let's go back into it.”
The more we’ve toured and added members and worked on new music, you know, not gonna lie, it has been tough and hard, but we've been able to communicate with each other.
Nick: Yeah, communication is key. That's the glue.
Jacob: When we added Henry and Noah, we wanted people that we one; totally respect musically, and two; who are just like really great people. It’s balanced a lot of things out between all of us.
It feels good, creatively. When we do Magic Hour, and we are writing new stuff, I have it in my head that it’s intentionally for someone, you know? Like something that's going to be appealing to them. So when I pitched them like, “You like this, do you like this?”
Also Cool: You both have your independent projects too. I'm sure you separate: “Okay, I'm writing for Surf Curse, and maybe this one is just more for me.”
Nick: I think this year has been a good learning curve to this year because it's the busiest year of our lives, and we're kind of figuring out how to make it all work.
Jacob: When we did figure it out, being as a DIY, independent band or whatever, I think, you know, we mastered it. But then when the major label thing came about, it was a whole other learning curve of trying to figure out what makes sense and what feels good.
Also Cool: I know that film has hugely influenced your music to the point of having song titles on Buds named after movies. What visual media in the last few years has had a similar impact on your creative process?
Nick: We're All Going to do the World's Fair (2021). That's one of the best modern movies I've seen, and is forward in its storytelling techniques. It's a horror movie about this kid that starts playing this online horror game… and that's really all I can tell you about it. You just gotta watch it. It's so good. Alex G does the soundtrack, and I came for the soundtrack, but stayed for the movie.
Also Cool: This is the only TikTok-related question, but I see a lot of kids on TikTok the Internet void, “How do I get involved? Where is the scene? How do I get invited to the party? Where is the secret DIY venue?” Which is really funny but also sweet. They're just like: “I don't know!” So, I'm going to ask the algorithm until it gives me what I want.
I think the pandemic affected this sort of integral experience of being a teenager that starts going to shows. When I was like 16 to 18-ish and was like figuring it out, I had older people showing me how to act at shows and where to find them. That was completely gone for this generation, where they went from being a teenager to being a sort of adult wondering, “How the fuck do I find friends?”
Nick & Jacob: Yeah.
Also Cool: I'm interested in what your advice is for those people who would like to get involved in things in a meaningful way and have a scene again in real life and not on the internet.
Jacob: It's a great question. I think the best way is to pick the shows that you like going to, if you do have that music scene and just start noticing who's there and who are the recurring suspects. Those are potentially going to be the people that you can find in all your music, love and trust in.
Nick: Yeah, that's funny, as soon as you said that, it kind of reminded me of the Facebook question of when people would post their status like: “Hey, what's everybody up to tonight?”At least that's like, my equivalent of it.
When I was 19, we were looking for that too, you know? I think everybody's looking for that. And you sort of stumble into it. I think just life just happens, and you find your people.
Jacob: One thing that I do like about TikTok is that there's no gatekeeping. I see this one girl always posting slowcore stuff. I don't know her name, but she's like: “If you like this, you like Alex G. Here's another five bands,” and then there's discourse that's happening in that comment section. It's like a good way of connecting with people. That's how, you know, I was back in the day on Tumblr, Facebook, and Instagram, just trying to find some sort of sense of a community. It still exists, it’s just changing.
Despite our conversation about searching for community through the algorithmic void, there weren’t as many phones out as expected during Surf Curse’s set that night. The crowd was energetic, respectful to each other (from what I experienced in the mosh pit), but most importantly, just really happy to be there.
Stream Magic Hour on all platforms, and keep an eye out for future shows via Surf Curse’s socials.
This interview was transcribed by Cyril Harvin Musngi.
Malaika Astorga is the Co-Founder & Creative Director of Also Cool. She is a Mexican-Canadian visual artist, writer, and social media strategist currently based in Montreal.
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