With age and tragedy comes a new found maturity, for West Palm Beach-based indie rockers Surfer Blood, those experiences have helped shape their fourth album Snowdonia, released February 3rd on Joyful Noise.
Surfer Blood has achieved plenty of success in the indie world over their first three albums, but the last few years has brought the band plenty of changes. Bassist Kevin Williams left the band and guitarist Thomas Fekete tragically passed away at 27 years old from a rare form of cancer. That’s enough to put an end to any band, yet frontman John Paul Pitts and drummer Tyler Schwarz pushed on while adding guitarist Michael McCleary and bassist Lindsey Mills, whom all four are alumni of the same high school in West Palm Beach, Florida. The changes and tragedy not only didn’t stop the band, but produced one of their finest albums to date.
The new lineup isn’t simply reliving what Surfer Blood has done in the past, instead they’ve taken advantage of the new talented individuals in the band, adding more vocal harmonies to their power pop / surf rock sound. While Snowdonia is certainly a product of what the band has gone through recently, providing dark, melancholy themes throughout, the album still brings the joyful sunny noise, providing one of their catchiest albums so far.
With summer officially here this week, what better time of the year to see the band live and enjoy a heavy dose of surf rock to get you swaying and dancing all night long. Tomorrow, Surfer Blood closes down their current tour in Atlanta at Park Tavern as part of their summer Sunset Sessions, featuring two other stellar bands, Winter, and locals Small Reactions. Best of all, it’s a free show!
Ahead of Sunday’s show, singer/guitarist John Paul Pitts was nice enough to contribute 5 new songs to our Monomania Spotify playlist, tracks that John Paul has been playing nonstop lately! Check out Surfer Blood’s Monomania picks and why John Paul is loving those songs below:
B Boys – “Energy”
This song has a really unique drum pattern and it’s very angular and complex at a time when not a lot of bands are doing that. It reminds me of Devo in a really good way and I’d love to be able to see it live soon. They also intentionally bleep the f-word, which leads me to believe that they’re good boys.
Pip Blom – “I Think I’m In Love”
We were lucky enought to tour with Pip and her band in Europe this March. At the time this song hadn’t even been released yet, but they were playing it last at every show. It reminds me a lot of some of the songs off of Blur’s 13, which is high praise coming from me. Hopefully they come over to the US soon so we can play together again.
Prism Tats – “Pacifist Masochist”
We toured with this band back in February and I fell in love with this song. He set up a second microphone through a distortion pedal in order to get that cool talk-box effect and it sounded so cool live. I’m not sure what the lyrics are but the chorus feels really powerful and it was an absolute pleasure to watch every night.
The Drums – “Blood Under My Belt”
I’ve always loved this band and the new music doesn’t disappoint. This song is sweet and timeless and got me hooked immediately. I haven’t gotten around to listening to the rest of the record, but this first track really got my attention.
The Shins – “Half A Million”
We played some shows with The Shins at the beginning of the month and it was a dream come true. I listened to this band nonstop in high school and was estatic when we were given the opportunity to play some shows together. This is a song from their new album that’s been stuck in my head ever since. /- John Paul Pitts, Surfer Blood
Listen to our Monomania Playlist on Spotify below, including Surfer Blood’s contribution:
Surfer Blood Online:
