Today Surfer Blood is sharing "I Can't Stop Believing" at MySpace and announcing the Exclusive Record Store Day limited double vinyl release of Astro Coast on its 10 Year Anniversary.
John Pauls Pitts says "Originally written for a project in college, 'I Can't Stop Believing' became one of those earworms I couldn't get out of my head. While I can't remember what the original assignment was, I'm happy to finally have the chance to share it with the world. It was recorded in the same apartment as Astro Coast, Tyler had left his drum set there for the weekend, and I knew I only had one take before the neighbors complained."
Looking back on Astro Coast:
In 2009 Barack Hussein Obama (see: Catholic Pagans) was President and a scrappy bunch of kids from West Palm Beach, Florida quickly outgrew playing shows in their storage-container-rehearsal-space and started booking their own shows across the country, sleeping in 24 hour Walmart parking lots and going for broke like only teenagers can. They had songs of MySpace. They became CMJ breakout artists. They had a chance meeting with a Brooklyn indie label. And in January of 2010, Surfer Blood released their debut album Astro Coast, 10 tracks that Pitchfork named Best New Music and said upon release that it “succeeds wildy” as a “relentlessly catchy, ‘classic indie’ album”– and their “debut LP … is first and foremost a great guitar album packed with sing-along hooks, but there's more going on beneath the surface.” Rolling Stone said “they dress up their guitar-mad escapades in a stadium-echo kick that Nineties indie kids were too grumpy to try.” Surfer Blood spent the year touring the world and were the most blogged about indie artist - blogs were a very big thing – culminating with them landing on everyone’s year end lists.
There were a couple of main drivers to the rise of Surfer Blood. One is John Paul Pitts, main songwriter and front man, whom his band mates have described as a “fucking poet.” JP used his college scholarship money on microphones and set to recording in his off-campus housing with a cracked version of Italian ProTools. With co-founder Tyler Schwarz providing a steady backbone, it wasn’t until later - at an Ultra Music dance festival of all places - that John Paul and Tyler met up with Thomas Fekete. Fekete was instrumental in getting the band out of Florida and lighting a fire under their asses. As it became public later, there was something else driving Fekete’s sense of reckless abandon. (Fekete lost his battle with cancer in 2016.)
In 10 years, the Surfer Blood line up has seen changes, but they’ve released three more acclaimed albums, plus EPs and cover songs, on both major and indie labels, and have continued to tour throughout the decade. With the impending anniversary, John Paul Pitts dusted off some old hard drives and found never before released demos and an original work: I Can’t Stop Believing. And while it never fully developed onto Astro Coast, it is vintage Surfer Blood nonetheless.
The limited edition double colored (blue/purple) vinyl gatefold release, with 10 unreleased demos and live tracks, a foldout poster and download card, will be available on Record Store Day April 18, 2020 at participating record stores worldwide on Kanine Records. #RSD20
Record Store Day Exclusive Double Vinyl Details below.
