Texas-based indie rock duo Surfaces is keeping the summer feeling alive during the cold winter months with their new track “Bloom.” The band, comprised of members Colin Padalecki and Forrest Frank, takes viewers through a whirlwind romance in the sweet animated video for “Bloom,” which was created by Showoff, the minds behind Childish Gambino’s “Feels Like Summer.” The track features a medley of musical elements, ranging in everything from calypso, to hip hop, to reggae.
Though Surfaces is currently in the midst of their sold-out Warm Winter Tour, they took the time to sit down for a quick Q&A. Check out their backstory, upcoming year, and “Bloom” music video below:
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**How did you two meet and start making music together?**
It kind of just fell into place. We met through Soundcloud and happened to be going to colleges about an hour away from each other in Texas. We would meet up and just jam with each other with no agenda in mind, but eventually started to create our first album _Surf_ when Forrest moved to Seattle.
**How have things evolved since? What is your creative process like?**
When Forrest moved to Seattle, we would still send each other ideas back and forth to bounce creative energy off one another. One day in the summer of 2017, I had sent the song “Be Alright” to Forrest for verse ideas and he sent me back a voice memo and was really excited about it. From there, we started to record _Surf_ in Forrest’s houseboat in Seattle every other weekend. As far as creative process goes, we’re both very hands on and cohesive in everything we do, whether it be songwriting, production, album art, or merch designs. We want to make sure that every brick we’re laying to create our world is 100% authentic and true to who we are.
**What was the creative process like while you two were attending separate colleges?**
We never let distance get in the way of what we we’ve been trying to do. We’d always send songwriting or production ideas to each other over text and if we felt something needed to be worked on further or recorded we would make time for each other and travel to wherever was necessary to do so.
**What inspired you to have an animated music video?**
We’ve never been big on using our personal likenesses in our art because we feel it’s not necessary to create the world we’re trying to provide the listener. As you may have seen, all of our album artworks are animated and none include our faces because it’s not about us, it’s about the message and direction of our music that we’re trying to spread. We thought that an animated music video would help consolidate the worlds of all of our artworks and help visualize the “universe” we’re always talking about/trying to let the listener live in.
**Surfaces maintains an overarching positivity. Do you find that you have to work at staying optimistic, or does that come naturally?**
When it comes to classifying our music, it’s important to know that we’ve never initiated a song or project with the mindset of creating a specific type genre or “forcing” a song to be positive. These outlooks and sounds just come naturally to who we are and the energy we have within ourselves. As far as everyday life, it does sometimes take work. Our todays are built from previous todays so we feel like anything we can do to make today better helps.
**You've had an impressive year with a sold out tour going on right now. Besides your upcoming album, what can fans expect from Surfaces in 2020?**
For 2020 we’ll be touring a lot more, including a few festival appearances that we’re really excited about. Even though we have our 3rd album ready for release in early 2020, we’re always writing and creating everyday so there’s no telling how much music we could end up putting out in the coming year.
Photo by Stefan Kohli
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