You may have heard Surf Curse and not even realized it. The song you might've heard is "Freaks," from the group's 2013 lo-fi surf rock debut album, Buds. No, the tune by the Los Angeles-by-way-of-Reno garage rock band started by drummer/singer Nick Rattigan and guitarist Jacob Rubeck wasn't placed in the latest season of Stranger Things. It hasn't been a fixture on rock radio since its release. In fact, it wasn't even much more than a staple of the band's live set until a full eight years after its release.
So, umm... have y'all ever heard of this little app called TikTok?
Seemingly out of nowhere, "Freaks" became a viral hit on TikTok starting in the summer of 2021. And it came as a total surprise to the band, who struggled to process the growing phenomenon. That is... once they became aware of it.
"We didn't even really know it was happening," says Rattigan. "It was so slow," adds Rubeck. "People would be like, 'Oh, I'm hearing your song a lot! Like online.' And we're like, 'OK, yeah, whatever.' [Laughs.]"
Songs blowing up on TikTok isn't exactly a new trend, but even among hits the app has created, "Freaks" stands out because there's very little explanation for it. It's not a new song that people latch on to or even an old song that people use for a specific type of TikTok post (like how even the Mountain Goats went viral last year with a TikTok dance set to "No Children"). While "Freaks" is an undeniably catchy song with a killer riff and relatable outsider lyrics, there seems to be almost zero continuity to the types of TikToks that use it as backing music. And unlike when songs get placed in a movie or TV show, the band had no way of expecting the tune would have this second life.
"It kinda would've been sick if it happened the other way," says Rattigan. "If they were like, 'Hey, your song's gonna be in Avatar 2: Way of the Water.' And then we were like, 'Really?!' And then it like blew up that way. That'd be pretty cool. But instead, it was just like, 'Somebody's put your song over like a home gardening technique.' [Laughs.] Or like, 'This 16-year-old kid has like 14 million followers, and he just sang your song online...'"
"...as a thirst trap," Rubeck jokingly interjects. "We had to just stop watching them."
The TikTok frenzy has led "Freaks" to garner over 619 million Spotify plays, taking the song platinum and earning Surf Curse a contract with Atlantic Records. But watching a selection of the well over half a million TikToks that use variations of the tune, there's truly no rhyme or reason to it.
"Freaks" backs people singing along to the tune, kids bemoaning their relationship or parental problems, women celebrating their breast reduction surgery, or people raking sand to find seashells. There's a whole series of people longing for fictional relationships like those in Corpse Bride or Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Sometimes it underscores lists of someone's favorite animes or a pornographic actress's travel logs or a teen's video game exploits. It transcends language and national borders. If this all seems sort of inexplicable, Surf Curse totally agrees.
"They're so weird!" says Rattigan. "There was no like, 'Oh, here's the 'Freaks' dance!' It's like, 'Here's literally the internet.' It's everything you could imagine across the board. It's like the internet incarnate."
While trying to figure out meaning behind the TikTok fame of "Freaks" might drive you crazier than Charlie in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia laying out a string board to find Pepe Silvia, dwelling too much on it belies a very key point.
Surf Curse is an excellent band that did not, in fact, cease making music in 2013. In October, the band released its fourth LP, Magic Hour, which mixes the raw beach punk energy of Buds with a much more professional production style one would expect after hopping on a major label.
The easiest data point to highlight regarding Surf Curse's expanded sound is a doubling in the band's size. After going on tour with Rattigan and Rubeck pre-pandemic, Surf Curse added bassist Henry Dillon and guitarist Noah Kholl to the band full-time.
"I think the sort of the connection that me and Jacob felt with each other when we started the band, we also felt with Noah and Henry," says Rattigan. "This band has always been built on our love for each other and our friendship, and Henry and Noah just fit in really well. And when it came time to write new songs, they were just organically part of the process and made those songs more extravagant in a really nice way. More colorful and more bombastic, and I feel like it comes through on the record."
"It's just nice to share these special moments with these people that I really love. Everyone has these moments of shining in some sort of way," adds Rubeck. "The whole time we were making that record, whenever someone was up to bat, you would just watch it, and it's documented. The magic was captured."
Recorded at the beyond legendary Electric Lady Studios (which has led to iconic albums by Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, AC/DC, Patti Smith, Stevie Wonder, Weezer, and many more), Magic Hour isn't the product of some buzzy band striking while the iron is hot, but rather Surf Curse coming into its own. The band has long boasted more lyrical depth than almost all of its contemporaries that came up in the modern LA indie surf rock scene, but the new record also hits the sweet spot between polished production and raw rock energy. The frenzied and catchy chorus of "TVI" or Rattigan's wild howling on "Sugar" seems just as natural as boosts from string arrangements on "Strange" or "Randall Flagg" (which closes out the album with its own triumphant hollering).
"You put some intentions into [making an album], but a lot of the magic comes out of what you don't intend to make. And I feel like this was an album that we almost didn't even intend to make. It just came out of sort of this very organic and interesting time in our lives," Rattigan says. "In a lot of ways, this record does have that aggressiveness and excitement of Buds, because we were just so excited to be making these songs. There's a lot of screaming, a lot of really heavy parts and heavy lyrics. But it's on this new color palette. It's our most colorful record to date."
So while it certainly takes exponentially longer to listen to Magic Hour than scroll through some short video on your phone, it's worth making the effort. Carve out a little time to more fully ride the Surf Curse wave. Your TikTok thirst traps will still be waiting for you when you return. ♦
Surf Curse, Toner • Fri, Nov. 11 at 8 pm • $20 • All ages • Knitting Factory • 919 W. Sprague Ave. • sp.knittingfactory.com
