Surf Green [Interview].
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| Photo on 35mm film |
Surf Green have charisma, enthusiasm and punk charm. Fans of Green Day and Weezer, they are known for their energetic performances and use of balloons, confetti canons and inflatable aliens. They scream and jump and make questionable facial expressions on stage with bassist Iwan using the analogy of a "demented puppy" to describe himself. They are the winners of Blackstaff Battle of the Bands and got through to the semi final of Metal to the Masses and are now ripping through the Belfast punk scene one gig at a time. Gigs on the moon and clones are dreams of theirs but as far as reality hits, the band just want to have a good time and write good music. Friendly and fun, their music not only brings smiles to peoples' faces and gets the audience on their feet, but the songs cascade through the angst of late teen years and become metaphors for letting off steam. Read on to find out about their music video inspiration, how their lyrics come about and their overall musical influences.
What made you want to be in a band?
Iwan: I used to watch Martin play guitar a lot and I was like "This looks fucking awesome and I would really like to do this with him" and then I was going home one night and listening to different songs on my iPod at the time like trying to figure out what instrument I wanted to play and "Carousel" by Blink [182] came on and I was like "bass, this is awesome, it's the coolest song in the world".
Martin: And the good thing is you don't hear bass any of the other times, it just sits in the back so Iwan can kinda mess up as much as he wants. Well that was my reason for teaching him bass...
Iwan: If in doubt, I can fuck up as much as I want and no one will notice.
Martin: Yeah, probably...
Iwan: Kind of shows how little we knew about bass at the time.
Martin: I knew about bass... I knew it was a Iwan instrument. But yes, I wanted to start a band because I wanted to write songs and play them with people. I taught myself guitar and never got a chance to play with anyone so I was like "I wanna play music with people" so even when Surf Green were awful I thought it was the best thing ever, this is a band and it's awful but it's good.
Iwan: Some of the best fun we've ever had.
David: It's getting out and doing something. I started playing bass before I started playing drums and tried to learn one song with two notes in it and just cried. And then 2 years later picked up and was like, let's go - started playing in bands and then realised it was good craic.
Where did the alien come from?
Iwan: Okay, okay. I went on a family holiday to Wales, it was awful. It was the most boring holiday ever. One day my mum, my granny and I drove around for four and a half hours trying to find something interesting. There was just nothing around for about a hundred hours from where we were. So we drove around four and a half hours, we came past one cafe and a slate museum. A fucking slate museum to the history of slates.
Martin: I have a bit of that slate in my room...
Iwan: It was the only time I've ever stolen anything in my life; I stole some slate from the slate museum to give to Martin for his birthday. And in the gift shop for the slate museum they had these blow up aliens, and I was tired and angry and was like, "Why is there an alien here, what's the point in having blow up aliens at a slate museum?"
Martin: So you bought one? And gave it to me for my birthday with the slate.
Iwan: Yeah I got two. One for Martin and one for my Uncle.
Martin: Two aliens? There's a second alien? I didn't know this. Revelation
Iwan: Yeah man. And so for the Craving More video we took the alien out and pretended it was my boyfriend at the time and we just had a great time.
Martin: Yeah we went to loads of McDonalds but it looked like the same McDonalds because every one looks the same. We shouldn't of went to a franchise. The worst idea we could've done.
Iwan: We wanted to come up with a theme for our video and we thought and a relationship going through its different stages in different McDonalds... so we travelled all around Northern Ireland going to McDonalds to McDonalds. But then after we got all the footage we realised it looked like we spent all day in one McDonalds. So I went home with our old drummer who helped us make the video and it's about half one in the morning and we go though the footage and we just realised, this is awful. It all looks like one McDonalds.
Martin: We also got it to drink vodka, went to sleep with it, put it in a candle lit bath - that was the best shot in the whole thing.
Iwan: I wanted to make it look romantic...
Martin: On it's own?! A romantic bath on its own?
Iwan: Well Craving More is as much a love story about humans and aliens as it is anything else...
David: You tried to make it look romantic and that's all that really matters.
Iwan: I mean how do you make a romance story with an alien? This is just ET with extra steps...
Martin: People think it's funny.
David: I'm just glad you didn't get any more intimate with it in the video, that could've been strange.
"This is just ET with extra steps..."
Why is the band called Surf Green?
Iwan: From the guitar colour...
Martin: Yeah it's another Blink [182] thing. Mark plays a surf green bass. It's the nicest colour ever and you can't replicate that colour anywhere. Like our logo doesn't have surf green in it. But it's turquoise-y so it's close enough. Surf green is just the best colour ever.
Iwan: And even though we're not in any shape or form a pop punk band anymore...
Martin: just punk...
Iwan: Yeah I don't think we're gonna change it... I think it really suits us. We come up and we look the exact opposite of what you think you're gonna see and I really like that.
Martin: We got through a metal competition with the lovely Surf Green logo and it just looks so happy...
David: [to Iwan] You look like a pop punk band with your tie and your big bass...
Martin: And I've got the 10 year old spike-y hair.
Whats your proudest moment since being in the band?
David: Mine is a short list. Joining the band. Getting through Metal to the Masses probably. That's mine but that's only a month, if even a month.Martin: Aw man I absolutely loved the Blackstaff 'Battle of the Bands'. I watched a video of it, of them announcing who won, and my heart melts. It was the nicest moment. Everyone turned up and we were playing last which meant nobody stayed but the people who did stay went crazy. It was good. A good time. It was our first, 'we're gonna put signs up and have a crowd interaction' sort of gig.
Iwan: And for me... getting banned for life from Whisky Mick's. It has to be that. We can't go back there.
Martin: They didn't know what a band was. They wanted us to turn down the drum kit...
Iwan: The drum kit wasn't mic'd or anything.
Martin: It was as quiet as it could possibly be. This bar was brand new and everything was really echo-y and they wanted us to turn everything down. First two bands, SX-70 and Electric Blue played through their sets, about half an hour, and then we went on, played two songs and they were like "you have to stop" so we turned everything up for a song and screamed out faces off and the bar down the road asked us to play the next week.
Iwan: We were so loud we were heard in a bar 100 metres down who liked what they heard? And gave us a gig. And that pretty much started our gigging life. Well that's my joke answer but for my real answer it's probably the Oh Yeah gig where we headlined and got to play with Brand New Friend. That was such a good night.
What are your influences?
Martin: Green Day obviously, you can hear it all the way through. Weezer, and then Metallica and metal influences too. No Effects, Smashing Pumpkins, Wavves.
Iwan: Rise Against, My Chemical Romance, Sum-41. Pretty much every band that has really dynamic frontmen who do loads of screams and just make absolute tits of themselves. That's just what I want to be.Martin: Yeah he wants to be a frontman. So he's a bassist...
Iwan: If in doubt just jump and scream and it works, sometimes.
David: My influence for Surf Green would be No Effects, Sum-41, old Blink 182 back when they were like really shit. Pretty much shit punk bands to make it a good punk band.
Iwan: When talking about punk bands we use the word 'shit' very affectionately. It's beautiful shit.
What's your favourite song to play live?Martin: Part Two or we've got a new one called Thomas and it's named after a guy who danced about in Dublin but that's a story for another time. So it's either Part Two or Thomas. Thomas is like a groovey one and Part Two is just 'shakes first angrily'.
Iwan: For me it would either be Gladys or The Line. I die every time but I love it.
David: He gets to scream his head off every time at The Line. I don't see why not.
Iwan: It's all a man needs in life. A lot of screams.
David: Mine is Reasy Ajarro. It was my favourite song of theirs before I'd even joined the band. Always loved the riff in that. But I've got to say Part Two is pretty explosive sometimes too so I like playing that too.
Iwan: I would've said Part Two if you hadn't said Part Two. So I guess we can all agree on that one.
What are you working on right now?
Iwan: We've recorded fully one EP, half way through another and we have 6 other songs that we're just kicking around.
Martin: Yeah we have a lot of songs and we're taking a break from gigging until July. We're gonna write a load of songs and finish up and solidify what we have because David hasn't learnt some of them cuz he's just joined and we've had a hectic month. Release the new EP in July, get a big massive gig, as explosive as I can make it.
Iwan: I'm going to clone Sam Morgan and have two Saint Sapphires play, the exact same set.
Martin: Why not just have one Saint Sapphire play two sets?
Iwan: Because one Saint Sapphire will bring the Saint Sapphire fans and the genetically cloned Sams will bring the -
Martin: - will bring the scientists?
Iwan: Will bring the scientists! Exactly man. I love how we're on the same wave length for all things that don't matter.
Martin: That won't happen.
What do you write songs about?
Martin: To be honest I don't really know what I write songs about. There's the odd song where it's like 'I've got an aim to this' but the rest is just a big pull of words. It's all in the energy and how people interpret it.
David: He claims it's his 'subconscious', cognitive brain patterns and moments that just comes out. I believe him.
Martin: The only lyrics we have that make sense our Iwan's - Gladys and Sweet Nothings.
Iwan: I had an experience earlier today that I'm gonna write about. I dropped a pound coin and it went underneath a machine that was underneath another machine in a canteen somewhere and I tried to climb in underneath but there was like twenty people behind me going like 'what are you doing?' and I was holding up the queue and I was underneath a canteen and it was really scary and I didn't get the pound back and there's gonna be a really sad, aggressive, angsty song about it..
Martin: Please caption this 'Iwan is in tears'!
David: Please caption this 'Iwan has lost his mind'...
Do you have any interests that influence how you make music?
Martin: I play games and get really annoyed and am filled with something I need to get out. Try to get all the trophies in Grand Theft Auto or something and then I need to write a song. But I don't know it could be something like I'm watching football and feel the need to sit and write something and it usually I never get a sing and then all of a sudden I'm like 'oooooh' and come up with 12 albums.
What do you think about when you're on stage?
Martin: I usually think, 'How can I get the crowd to do something that they don't want to do but are gonna do it because it's gonna be fun'. Like I used to get people to like crouch down and jump up and then two seconds later they're just standing exactly the way they were before. But I get lost in it....
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| Martin (frontman/guitar), Iwan (bass) and David (drums) |
Martin: I don't even try, it just happens. If you ever see photos of me at gigs I'm like screwing my face up in ways I don't do. It's really disgusting. I look at the photos and think 'why did I do that?' I just jump about and get into it as much as I can and try not to be a dictator.
Iwan: On stage, I'm pretty much like a demented puppy that's just really really happy to be jumping around and moving...
Martin: That actually is a decent analogy, you are like a demented puppy.
Iwan: It's like if Satan and a jack russell had a baby.
What is the dream outcome for the band?
Martin: Play in front of everyone.
Everyone in the world?
Martin: Yeah... I recon a massive show on the moon where we get... nah that's not gonna happen. Just something where we get to play in front of the most people we've ever played in front of. And then we do it again. And again and again. And we just create a gig where we have at least 10 people at. And we write and record good tunes and get better at the songs. I wanna get better at singing too.
David: Have a good time and bring a good time. You don't want to play music and have people just sat there flat faced. You want them to have fun.
Martin: When you see people appreciate what you're doing it makes you appreciate what you're doing.
Iwan: It's nice seeing people smile, even if they're laughing at you.
Upcoming Surf Green gigs:
Sister Ghost, 39 Gordon Street 24th May
Crazy Town, Foundry 21st June
McHughs (Headliner) 6th July
Underground Dublin 7th July (also Headliner)
Hand Models, Foundry 25th August
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