Interview: The Lonely Surf (Written)

Games, Brrraaains & A Head-Banging Life are pleased to bring you an interview with indie punk rock band, The Lonely Surf.

1. Hello! Thank you for taking the time to chat to us. First things first, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started.

Hey! I’m George, the drummer for The Lonely Surf – we’re an indie punk band from Bournemouth. We started the band in 2017 under the name Death By Shotgun, but relaunched in 2020 under our new name with a new and improved sound. I met Dom, Matt and Dan when I put on their bands in Bournemouth as a promoter.

2. Someone comes to you and asks you to sum up what kind of music you play – what do you tell them?

This is annoyingly harder than it should be…we’re a band that sits somewhere between indie, punk rock and surf music. If you could imagine a Venn diagram with those genres, we’d be right in the middle. We’re influenced by The Wombats, The Menzingers and Bruce Springsteen, but there’s a bit of The Beach Boys in there somewhere too.

3. What’s currently going on in your camp? New releases? Tours? Etc.

We’ve just signed with Disconnect Disconnect Records to release our new single ’12 Months Out’ on Friday 11th August. We’ve also joined Mad Addiction for bookings in the UK and EU, so there’s a lot in the pipeline! We have our annual Christmas Ripper: a free entry show at The Bear Cave in Bournemouth on Friday 22nd December with some special guests. There may even be another single coming soon…

4. What has been the most positive experience of making music to date for you?

Without a doubt, every recording session with Daly George at The Ranch Production House in Southampton. He’s a dream to work with and the nicest guy. In terms of performing, whenever we’ve been over to Europe, it’s been the best time. We’re buzzing to get back over to the mainland in 2024.

5. Likewise, what has been some of the more challenging aspects and how have you overcome them?

Well Dom is living in Dublin at the moment, which isn’t ideal for him, but he’s using most of his holiday and draining his bank account to come over as much as possible! We’re also lucky that nowadays you can send demos and write remotely, so we’re still writing new material and getting our heads around it before we can get in a room together.

6. How do you handle the modern expectations of being in a band? Always online, having to put out content constantly, your success measured in likes and follows?

Luckily we don’t stress about it anymore. We’re doing the best we can to promote the band whilst balancing work and our personal lives. There’s so many ways to be a band…some are constantly putting out content, others have short bursts every few years when they release a record. As long as people are enjoying the music, that’s all that matters really.

7. What’s something that really ‘grinds your gears’ about the industry/business these days and what would you propose is done to combat it?

As much as I love the access people have to music now through streaming and playlisting, I’ve found myself rarely buying physical releases. It’s half the price of one vinyl record to stream as much music as you like for a month, and during a cost of living crisis, it’s just harder than ever to afford to support bands.

8. Speaking directly to listeners – what would you ask they do to help support your music?

If anyone enjoys our music, thank you for stroking our egos. But jokes aside, if you can share our music with anyone you think will enjoy it and come to our shows, that would be extremely kind of you.

9. Outside of the music, what do you do to relax?

Football is my passion outside of music, although it’s not relaxing when you’re 3-0 down on a rainy Tuesday night. Paddleboarding and hanging at the beach is pretty great when you live where we do!

10. Where can people find you?

You can follow us on streaming platforms like Spotify to keep up with our latest releases, as well as Instagram and Facebook using our handle @thelonelysurfband. You can also pre-save our new single ’12 Months Out’ here:

https://thelonelysurf.ffm.to/12monthsout