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The new volume of the Japanese Wild
Sazanami Beat! compilation series featuring "Surfville"
by the Surfites is out now!
PIPELINE'S ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2007
CONTEST
...and the winner is...
ON STAGE AROUND THE WORLD
by THE CHARADES
Congratulations to The Charades and Power Records and to our other top
quality nominees:
BIG POUNDER by THE SURFITES on DOUBLE CROWN RECORDS
TWISTED FATE by THE SLEEPWALKERS on GOOFIN' RECORDS
LATIN BREEZE by LOS JETS on HOME MADE RECORDS
http://www.pipelinemag.co.uk/
Interview From 2005 In Dead
By Mono Zine:
...a word with...THE SURFITES!
Welcome to the underground lair of Dead by Mono... Franz Rothko will be
asking the questions today. Hope all is well with you guys. Here we go...
Klas: Hi Franz, Klas Fjellgren of the Surfites here. Hope all is well with
you, too.
Dead By Mono: Do you see your recent participation on a compilation like a
test to your songs?
Klas: Not really, but more of a way to promote the band and get people to
be aware of our stuff. However, it's always nice to be part of a
compilation if it's a cool release.
Dead By Mono: Is it fair to say that most of your musical influence comes
from the old school surf American scene?
Klas: Yes, we would say that all of our musical influences in the Surfites
comes from the early to mid 1960s U.S. 1st wave period. In our opinion,
"surf bands" that are too progressive and picking up influences
from anywhere doesn't really "get it". Of course anyone can play
and look like whatever they want, but sometimes we feel that surf music
have started to lose its roots. And that certainly won't do it any good.
Dead By Mono: I guess that in Sweden the surf music spirit is hard to
find...is that because of the cold weather? How did you manage to get into
this hot musical scene?
Klas: Actually Stockholm isn't that cold except for a couple of months in
the winter. Anyway, today there isn't much of a surf music scene in Sweden
but during the 3rd wave boom in the mid '90s, surf music was quite hot
even up here.
For us it all started in the late '80s when me and ex-Stomach Mouth Lars
Kjellén formed the Daytonas, a band that did both surf vocals and surf
instros and released four albums during the '90s. Then a couple of years
ago me and my brother Jack (who also played drums in the Daytonas) decided
that we would like to give it another go and put together the Surfites. In
the band, we two write and arrange the songs and then for the recording
sessions we play all the guitar parts. At the same time we have some
buddies of ours dropping by on bass, electric piano and drums.
Dead By Mono: So... being from Sweden how did you turn out to sign with an
all North American band record label?
Klas: We haven't signed with any label yet!? But if we would do it in the
future, it's in the U.S. that most of the labels dealing with surf music
are located.
Dead By Mono: Are you planning on sticking with a small label or do you
have big plans?
Klas: Any big plans wouldn't be realistic. We would be more than happy to
release records on small labels. Also we feel that it's a good thing that
the surf music scene isn't that big since when something gets too
mainstream, it often gets bland, boring and dorky pretty quick.
Dead By Mono: Well... what about concerts? As you're mostly a studio band
do you usually have gigs? Any challenging venues in the next few months?
Klas: For the moment the Surfites are entirely a studio band and we are
happy with that. In the Daytonas we did quite a few shows over the years
but now we would like to concentrate more on recordings since we were
never really happy with how those turned out in the Daytonas.
Dead By Mono: Which was your best live experience so far?
Klas: During the Daytonas years we had some pretty amazing live show
experiences. It's hard to pick out a single one but our two appearances at
Hultsfredsfestivalen (Sweden's biggest rock music festival), our 2 weeks
California tour and several private party gigs with awesome crowd
responses comes to mind. At the first show at Hultsfredsfestivalen, we
played the smallest stage but the crowd quickly got too big and finally
went totally wild over us so the organizers had to call in extra security
to calm things down a bit.
We also had a couple of lousy shows though. One time, due to some confused
booking, we had to play in front of a crowd of senior citizens. They
expected a pleasant evening with musical entertainment but they were
shocked about how loud we played. They told us to turn the volume down...
well, we told them to turn down their hearing aids!
Dead By Mono: Now... tell me a little bit about your rehearsal room...
would I find for e.g. an “Elvis Presley” poster in it... or a “The
Raveonettes” one?
Klas: You won't find either, although we really dig the King! Instead, our
basement studio "The Surf Shack" is cluttered with wacky surf
graphics all over the walls. For the right inspiration, it would be nice
to hang up some early '60s surf movie posters, too.
Dead By Mono: Which are yours all time favourite surf bands?
Klas: Dick Dale & his Del-Tones, The Astronauts, The New Dimensions,
The Beach Boys, Eddie & The Showmen, The Surfaris, Jan & Dean, The
Super Stocks, The Trashmen... just to name a few of the more well known.
There were also loads of great surf bands during the 1st wave era that
only released a 45 or two. However, many of these obscure tunes are now
also on compilations released during the last 20 years.
Dead By Mono: Any prediction about when your debut album is coming out? If
yes, will you be promoting the album in other countries or only in Sweden?
Klas: Nothing is settled yet but hopefully a debut album for the Surfites
will be released sometime next year. Most of the promotion will be over
the internet so I guess one could say that it will have world wide
promotion.
Dead By Mono: Make sure you tell us how to buy it, listen to it or (if
you're into mp3) where to steal your album when it comes out. :) Where is
the album going to be available? (maybe with us as well…)
Klas: We expect it to be available at least at record shops and online
stores that are into surf music and hopefully with you as well!
Dead By Mono: Good luck! Hope to see you soon on stage...anywhere! …
Klas: Thanks!
Here's what other surf
musicians are saying about 'Big
Pounder':
"I
have to chime in again after listening for a few days. At first the
massive drip and overall mix made me think of the Astronauts, as others
have mentioned, but now I'm hearing a really strong Gary Usher (Super
Stocks era) influence in the melodies and song structure(s). You can't go
wrong with that. Excellent!" Ted - Satan's Pilgrims
"I
got it a couple of days ago, and enjoyed it in the few times I have
listened to it. I like the packaging and the sound is great. When Klas
said that they recorded straight from preamp to the recording medium, I
remembered that we did some scratch tracks with DIs in my old band, and
they sounded very good. Also, I agree that tape gives something, but the
machines and the tape is expensive, and today there are good digital
options. This CD certainly proves that you can get a very authentic sound
using "modern" methods. Good job on that.
The songs I like the most so far are the ones that were on the myspace
page and the website (Surfville, Tube Steak that changed to "For
Surfers Only", Fleabag, etc), but I think that's becasue I have
listened to them many times before. Time will tell. Anyway - for anyone
that haven't heard any samples yet, they style is very trad, some of the
songs can be thought of as The Astronauts "Movin'" meets
electric piano. There are some other styles, with some songs being more
melodic than others, some are mid tempo, some faster. IIRC, no slow songs,
adds to the fun factor. Be aware that the drums are low in the mix, in
accordance to the 1st wave recordings. Works perfectly for this album. The
electric piano adds a lot, it has a mellow sound that's really different
than the Farfisa/Hammond organs that's popular in Garage/Surf combos.
I'd defintely reccomend the album." Ran - The Sand Devils /
Astroglides
"Jon
yes I recieved my copy today Monday April 9th, and man the lead guitar in
every song is insanely drippy now that's what I'm talking about hell yeah!
the drip reminds me of Frank Blandino's drippy guitar so if your a fan of
The Fathoms hell you'll dig this disc!" Kyle - The Verbtones
Big Pounder'
has been played stations all over the world, including: |
