Portraits and live photos by Julia Fletcher, find more of her work here. Feature image and select live photos by Jarett Loeffler
Inspiration finds people in the strangest ways. But for Surf Curse, the Los Angeles-based duo of Nick Rattigan and Jacob Rubeck, music is written and based off of cult films and TV shows. Their new album, Heaven Surrounds You, was released on September 13th, and it comes packed with references to films from David Cronenberg, Dario Argento, Ingemar Bergman and more. Listening to the album feels cinematic, like pressing your head and looking out the window of a moving car, or dancing with a loved one at home alone. I caught up with the duo before their raucous opening of The Dance in the Lower East Side.
First off, it’s been about three weeks since the release of the new album. How are you guys doing?
Nick Rattigan: I’m doing fantastic. I’m a little hungry, and Jacob is falling apart.
Jacob Rubeck: It’s been good, but I’ve been sick for the past couple of weeks, so that’s been a bummer.
Heaven Surrounds You is a very cohesive album. I think you guys did a good job of thematically and compositionally tying everything together, even though the films that inspired the album vary in genre and style. What was your process in taking those original pieces of art and translating them into something new and authentic?
Nick: I think that came a lot in the recording process, because it was our first time doing it all in a studio. We had the opportunity to make it sound cohesive, and make it one unified sound. As we were adding things, we found synths and samples that we liked or put violin on certain songs and I think that tied a string between all of the different songs. And then, we were just obsessing over what order to put them in and creating the proper tracklist. I think that’s one of the most important parts of any album is the flow of it, where it all kind of naturally falls in place. I remember there were a few songs that we didn’t know where to put like ‘Disco’ and ‘River’s Edge’, but then we just threw them in there and I guess it worked.
For a lot of the films you were inspired by (Midnight Cowboy, Maps to the Stars, Hour of the Wolf) you held film screenings for them in LA. How did you guys come up with that?
Nick: You know, I was thinking about this, I think Max Mendelson came up with that idea.
Jacob: Yeah I think it was him.
Nick: He was like “I got it. Surf Curse Summer Movie Screening. It’s perfect. Rolls off the tongue.” We were just trying to think of cool ways to promote the album that were not normal, and that seemed like a fun way to do it. And it ended up being really awesome because it just exposed people to these films. We ended up doing Hour of the Wolf for one of them, and it was a packed room, and afterwards, people were just walking out and being like, “What the fuck was that?” They were arguing over what it meant and stuff and it was really awesome to see kids just experiencing something like that. And also, it was just trying to get everybody in the mood for the album.
Do you think it’s important for your fans to understand the references that you guys put in your music?
Both: No.
Nick: Not at all.
Jacob: Yeah, they could do whatever they want. If they want to explore it, they can.
Nick: I think it’s fun for us. Like, we’re both movie nerds, so it’s a good jumping off point to writing something. But most of the songs, they might have the subject matter, but the latent content is very much about our lives and the things we experience. That’s probably a better answer to your previous question about our process in making music. But we watch a ton of films and that obviously just seeps into our vocabulary and our subconscious. The process of writing a song is such a difficult thing to explain.. but I don’t think it’s really important to understand the references, I think it’s kind of fun if people want to investigate some of the films. I keep saying a song is like a cocktail of influences. Like, ‘Opera’ is not just about the movie Opera, it’s about a whole set of things.
You guys also star, shoot, and direct your own music videos too. Although some artists already do that, you really take to it and add a lot of influence from those films in the videos. Do you think those enhance the songs in any way?
Jacob: Yeah, definitely. I remember, when I did the ‘Midnight Cowboy’ video, I really wanted to make it bigger than the song or just accompany it and make it feel grand.
Nick: Yeah, the videos were just a fun thing, and I knew we wanted to make the videos. Sometimes, we have a lot of time on our hands, so we give ourselves some projects to do. I definitely think the videos enhance the songs. I always get worried that the video is gonna suck, and make the song bad or something. It’s such a strong component, and it could be a really great song, but if you fuck up the video, you’re getting both at the same time so..
Jacob: Yeah, and that’s always a pressure of releasing new things.
Nick: Or doing it yourself versus getting someone who knows what they’re doing.
Jacob: We’ve also never let anyone else do our stuff because we’d rather do it ourselves. We trust our opinions more for our vision.
Nick: I think it’s a control thing.
Since you said you have a lot of time on your hands, would you ever consider making a visual album?
Nick: I did that for my other project, and that was really hard. I was in a manic state for like 3 weeks. I remember Jacob talking to me and being like “Dude, this whole thing you’re making.. like everybody’s really worried about you. You’ve just been out of it, you’ve just been editing. Matthew has been saying you were short with him,” and all this other stuff. It was crazy, I did about 9 music videos in a month. I thought if I made them all one shot, it would be easier, but I was just editing for weeks in my room and was just not in a good place mentally. But I guess something worked out. Some of the things didn’t work out but it was a good learning experience. I don’t know if I would do it again, for a whole album at least. It was a lot of work, I would ask for help this time, if I did something like that again.
Jacob: Yeah, it’s nice to make a couple of videos accompanying the album, it’s not a necessary thing to make a whole visual album. I think we’d rather compose a soundtrack or something for someone else and then make a visual album just because. The whole process is a lot, maybe too much.
Nick: Too expensive. I had to rent cameras and then shoot 6 videos in like 2 days, my friend was flying in to be in one of them. It was.. a lot. For one of the videos, a rig we were going to use broke and we ended up shooting my shadow that was projected up on the wall.
What film do you think Heaven Surrounds You would best soundtrack?
Jacob: Hm. I don’t know. I think the album has these cinematic qualities but it’s not really-
Nick: A good score.
Jacob: Song wise, it’s kind of all over the place too. A lot of the songs are very fast, maybe you could take some of the slow ones and you could put it somewhere, but… I think it’s kind of its own world.
So maybe like Surf Curse: The Movie?
Both: Yeah! Definitely.
Nick: It definitely wouldn’t be a score, it would be a soundtrack for sure. That’s a tough, good question. I definitely want to come back to that.
Who would you guys cast to play yourselves in a Surf Curse biopic?
Jacob: Oh, wow. [To Nick] You wanna pick Paul Dano?
Nick: Yeah, it would probably be Paul, my boy Paul. [To Jacob] Robert Pattinson.
Jacob: Me? Sure, why not.
Nick: Paul and Pat. I used to get Paul Dano a lot.
Jacob: I got Michael Cera in high school.
Nick: That one question is still on my mind… it’s got to be a fun movie but dark. Maybe something from the 80’s.
Jacob: Maybe The Breakfast Club, or Pretty in Pink. Oh! The Goonies, there we go. ‘Labyrinth’, they’re stuck in a maze. ‘Hour of the Wolf’ is when they’re playing the piano.
Nick: Or maybe even a skateboarding movie…
Jacob: How about Brink?
Nick: Oh Brink. Yeah, it would be the soundtrack for Brink. It’s a Disney Channel 90’s skating movie. It’s brilliant.
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photos by Jarett Loeffler
