At first phases of their newest tour, Surf Curse (comprised of members Nick Rattigan [lead vocals, drums], Jacob Rubeck [guitar], Noah Kohll [guitar], and Henry Dillon [bass]) is in Manchester getting ready for the tour launch. The sleep disadvantaged band is raring to share music from their newest album—Magic Hour—with followers, and their upcoming assortment of stay exhibits is positioned to do precisely that.
Hailing from Reno, Nevada, founding members Rattigan and Rubeck have opened themselves up creatively on this document—and with the inclusion of Kohll and Dillon—have delivered a extra strong inventive shade palette than on any of their earlier musical numbers.
After we join over Zoom, the indie group dives into their collective historical past—from formation to newest document—their inventive influences, what followers can anticipate on Magic Hour, and the way hashish performs a task of their stay performances and helps them really feel extra linked to the music.
Excessive Occasions Journal: By way of the music, did you at all times know you needed to be performers or had been there different paths alongside the way in which that led you to the current second?
Noah Kholl: I used to be at all times set on the concept that I needed to play music. Ever since I used to be most likely two years outdated.
Henry Dillon: In all probability ten years outdated for me. However, two? [Laughs]
Jacob Rubeck: I at all times needed to be a musician, however once I was seven, I keep in mind studying this Picasso ebook and eager to be an artist. Once I was ten, I needed to be a chef. Once I was twelve, I needed to be a bartender and personal my very own bar. After which, I needed to be a musician.
Nick Rattigan: I needed to be a music journalist for the longest time after which I received pressured into enjoying bass guitar. That led to rhythm guitar and writing songs and all of it fell into my lap in a pleasant approach.
Excessive Occasions Journal: So that you all had an curiosity at some stage in being performers. How did you all come collectively and type the group?
Nick Rattigan: Properly me and Jacob shaped the group twelve or extra years in the past after we had been in highschool and school and began enjoying music collectively.
Jacob Rubeck: We had been a two-piece and we had individuals who got here and went after which we went on tour with Henry and Noah in 2019 and so they’ve simply grow to be increasingly more part of the band ever since. Part of the household.
Excessive Occasions Journal: Was there a second alongside your trajectory the place you realized you had one thing particular with the group—both as a two-piece or all collectively?
Nick Rattigan: I keep in mind the primary time we received paid for a present—it wasn’t a lot nevertheless it was surprising [laughs].
Jacob Rubeck: The truth that we might be booked on a present meant greater than truly getting paid or no matter for the primary couple of years that we began. It was insane getting our first actual test.
Nick Rattigan: We might undergo hell simply to get on a present or play a present. We might drive 9 or ten hours only for a day to play a present and that was thrilling to us.
Jacob Rubeck: Even when we walked, we’d really feel cool that we received to try this. It feels nice that now we have everybody on board now.
Excessive Occasions Journal: And now, you’re primarily doing what you had been doing then—doing what you like—albeit at bigger venues with bigger crowds.
Nick Rattigan: Yeah man, it’s additionally very unusual as a result of persons are craving the songs we wrote like ten years in the past. Ten years in the past we had been busting our ass attempting to get folks to pay attention to those songs—
Jacob Rubeck: Now we’re crafting songs we’re actually pleased with and exploring much more with sound. Particularly with these two [motions to Noah and Henry] coming alongside, we’ve positively ventured out in a inventive approach the place we’re all placing our efforts into making the very best type of stuff. Their skills are so unbelievable to have that it’s completely [insane] that persons are craving the songs we wrote after we had been eighteen and nineteen.
Nick Rattigan: There was positively much less effort that went into [those tracks]. “Goth Babe” has grow to be certainly one of our prime songs and I keep in mind after we had been about to document, Jacob was like, “We are able to’t do this music for the document, no approach.”
Jacob Rubeck: We wrote the lyrics in fifteen or twenty minutes. After we’d play it over time, each phrase would actually hit with some folks.
Nick Rattigan: Whereas, a few of the tracks on the brand new document took weeks to jot down and we actually put quite a lot of thought and energy into them. In the case of songs like “Goth Babe,” we had two days to document the album and Jacob was like, “If you wish to hold that music on the album, you need to write the lyrics.”
So I received some pancakes, sat down, began consuming the pancakes—
Jacob Rubeck: Writing off of a sugar excessive—
Nick Rattigan: And by the point I’d completed the pancakes, the lyrics had been completed.
Noah Kholl: Massive songs are written on small napkins. Warren Zevon’s largest music “Werewolves of London” was written in 5 minutes on a bar serviette.
Excessive Occasions Journal: [To Nick] Simply assume, perhaps for those who had eaten eggs you wouldn’t have had the identical thought course of.
Nick Rattigan: If I had eaten eggs, there’d be no “candle wax dropped on my nips,” I’ll inform you that.
Excessive Occasions Journal: Very completely different monitor that’s born with say, a brioche bun.
Nick Rattigan: You recognize, pancakes—with the butter and the maple syrup—it could actually grow to be a really erotic expertise.
Excessive Occasions Journal: By way of your new album Magic Hour, what went into it creatively and what do you hope followers take from it?
Nick Rattigan: What me and Jacob have at all times dropped at this venture is our friendship and our vitality. I feel everybody [in the group] brings their very own vitality to the music. It’s why some bands sound a technique and a few bands sound one other approach—everybody has their very own vitality, their very own colours, and their very own flavors that they convey into the music. Our shade palette [for this album] was simply expanded by Noah and Henry. Earlier than, we had been portray with some stuff that we’d purchased at an artwork provide retailer—
Jacob Rubeck: Properly, it actually began off with discovering no matter was round.
Nick Rattigan: Yeah, like coloured pencils in a drawer—Jacob, you go seize that. There’s that crayon below the desk, go seize that. And now [for this album], now we have a whole shade palette to play with.
Jacob Rubeck: Every thing is flowing now with everybody working collectively.
Excessive Occasions Journal: There’s extra instruments within the toolbox together with your 4 collective minds, which lets you be extra intentional with what you’re creating.
Jacob Rubeck: We had been very restricted.
Nick Rattigan: However it by no means felt fallacious, you understand? The way in which we’ve completed it has at all times felt so magical. As a result of we had been restricted, that’s how the songs got here out. However extra time and with age, our tastes have developed to need extra depth to our songs, to need extra depth to our lyrics. We wish extra “sparkle” round. I feel that’s what we’ve dropped at the brand new album for certain.
Henry Dillon: I hope, too, that the viewers opens their thoughts to new avenues they didn’t contemplate beforehand. With this new album, hopefully they’ll hear the completely different avenues we’re exploring, which is able to then permit them to department out to what they’re exploring.
Excessive Occasions Journal: So kind of deepening their appreciation of their expertise with you guys, understanding your evolution, and appreciating that as properly.
Jacob Rubeck: And we’re all simply large followers of music generally. We really feel very selfless in the case of the music that we’re listening to, whether or not it’s outdated music or new music—we take quite a lot of inspiration from the previous and the current and hope to discover issues sooner or later. With this new document we drew inspiration from Sonic Youth, Pavement, and even The Rolling Stones.
Excessive Occasions Journal: By way of inspirations, what function does hashish play creatively with the band?
Henry Dillon: I keep in mind smoking weed for the primary time as a youngster and enjoying guitar and it was essentially the most profound expertise. The sensation of my fingers on the instrument and feeling the connection to the instrument—it simply opened up this completely new path ahead of exploring an instrument that I’d already gotten comfy with and established a brand new relationship with it.
Noah Kholl: I feel there’s a time and place for using hashish round creating, after which there’s different instances when perhaps it’s not the very best time to be stoned.
One time I picked up some Acapulco Gold after we had been in Denver and was actually enthusiastic about it from all of the songs that had been sung about it and the place the pressure has in historical past and in tradition. I keep in mind I sat within the venue and there was reggae music enjoying and I used to be rolling this joint and I used to be so stoked to share it with everyone. All of us smoked it and I received violently stoned. I hadn’t been excessive in a extremely very long time, and if you get violently stoned, all of this worry is available in.
I attempted to calm myself down by strolling to this gentrified meals market and was all of those lovely issues. The great deli part and the entire fantastic meats had been nice, however the worry by no means escaped me. We performed the present after which there was this child who broke into our greenroom and I used to be like, “That is it, this child is right here to kill us!” He ended up simply being a little bit fucked up, nevertheless it’s simply humorous how sure settings are simply not the appropriate time to strive one thing new.
When it’s the proper time to play music stoned although, it’s non secular to say the least. It may be trascendental.
Nick Rattigan: Most of this album was crafted whereas I used to be in a bout of sobriety from weed, from alcohol, from every little thing. I feel that basically coloured the document as a result of I used to be sitting with myself, was introspective, and was quite a lot of issues that folks don’t like to have a look at—issues which might be straightforward to cowl up with medication or alcohol or no matter your weapon of selection is. So I feel truly the lack of weed coloured this document and created quite a lot of its content material. It was me going by way of that strategy of turning into sober, being sober, and staying sober.
Whereas smoking weed generally is a lovely, transcending expertise, you simply should watch out with it as a result of you’ll be able to simply tip into the acute. I’m certain Excessive Occasions readers know that and can perceive it.
Excessive Occasions Journal: Something can grow to be a vice and something can masks the genuine expression of what you’re attempting to place on the market. It’s about discovering that stability between inspiration and diluting what must be stated.
Nick Rattigan: I might say that is essentially the most bare and trustworthy Surf Curse document that we’ve made as a result of there have been actually no masks concerned. It was straight to the supply.
Observe @surfcurse and take a look at https://www.surfcurse.com for tickets, tour dates, and their newest album Magic Hour