Surf rock: everything you need to know about

It’s sunny, it’s hot, it’s summer. What kind of rock can best fit this state of mind? SURF ROCK, of course!

So put on your sunglasses, take your surfboard (if you have one) and let’s go for a ride on the sunny beaches of the California coast.

DISCLAIMER: This post is based on some of my knowledge and is backed up and supplemented by research done before its writing. You can find the sources at the bottom of the page.

Note: Bands/ artists I quote in the posts, I only mention them to give you an idea of the sounds you find in the different genres. But I want to be clear that over time it has become more and more complicated to do it with style blends and so on.
In addition, my goal is not to categorize artists, but to present them to you so that you discover the different possibilities that there are in rock and metal. And even make you enjoy those genres.

SURF ROCK: WHAT IS IT?

Surf rock is a musical genre born in the late 1950s in California. But it will not take off until the 1960s. It is intimately linked to the lifestyle and the surf culture.

The funny thing about this story is that a lot of bands doing this music don’t live near the sea nor are surfers themselves.

Furthermore, in the beginning, surf rock was not a particular genre. It was just a rock very influenced by the surf culture. And it’s made for! The goal was to get all these young people who belong to this community to dance.

The latter was introduced by artists such as Duane Eddy or Dick Dale. They will be followed by groups such as The Ventures, The Surfaries, Jan and Dean, The Astronauts, and The Orbits.

However, it will be democratized and internationalized by THE band that you must surely think of when I tell you about surf rock: the Beach Boys.

FEATURES OF SURF ROCK

Tone

Generally, the songs are short, fast, and joyful.

Lyrics

Surf music lyrics usually speak about the daily life of surfers: girls, cars, parties, and big waves.

Bands

Surf rock bands are generally composed of :

a lead guitarist and a rhythmic guitarist. They will have a preference for the Fender guitar brand,
a bassist,
a drummer.

However, the singer is not required because some bands only play surf instrumentals.

They can sometimes be accompanied by a Hammond organ.

Picture Hammond organ — source: Wikipedia

The aim is to highlight their musical virtuosity. Moreover, this genre, even if it’s “light”, gives to hear new sonorities for the time.

Melody

We can see an influence of the rock n’roll of the early days. But also other influences and techniques that have revolutionized the world of music such as:

They use a lot of reverb and vibrato.
Reverberation: When a sound is emitted from any source, it reverberates on the objects that surround it (a wall for example). The effect of sound against these objects (arranged at intervals more or less close to the sound source) is called reverberation,
The rhythm of the drum is very fast and in 4/4,
They are inspired by Latin sounds and jazz (for drums)
Dick Dale has also spread the use of effects like tremolo picking or glissando on guitar. These techniques have the effect of creating noise resembling the effect of waves. If you do not know them, I explain them in this article.

Taking the example of the Beach Boys music, we can also see:

Vocal parts were largely inspired by black Doo-Wop, white vocal groups (e.g.: the four seasons), and women’s groups (e.g.: the Crystals, the Ronettes, the Shangri Las).

The rhythmic, very catchy, is a direct legacy of Chuck Berry rock’n’roll.

To give this choral aspect and give more scope to their songs, they use techniques of recordings close to the Wall of Sound.

The WALL OF SOUND

In fact, it is a question of building a sound wall by filling different stamps or magnifying the sonorities.

It’s associated with 2 things:

Phil Spector. He developed this recording technique that gives such a special sound to the artists who recorded with him.
The Gold Star Studio, where he recorded almost exclusively between 1962 and 1966. It has an echo chamber, a DIY mixer, a 3-track recorder, and a group of musicians named the Wrecking Crew.
Echo chamber: an electromechanical or electronic device that adds one or more copies of this signal to the electrical signal with a delay, repeating itself in a decreasing manner.

2 main techniques are used:

Layering: several guitarists, bassists or percussionists play the same note/the same chord or the same passage to give a certain “thickness”. The expected effect is to look like an orchestra.
The layout of the microphones and the echo effect: in the studio space, the microphones are placed to capture both a specific instrument and neighboring instruments. These plugs are sent to the echo chamber for re-recording.

SURF ROCK DIFFUSION

The spread of the genre will be accelerated by the publication of the book Gidget by Frederick Kohner. He was inspired by the stories told by his daughter, who frequented the surfing community a lot. This book will then be adapted into several movies.

With this success, several other films will be launched, in the same vein as Beach Party, with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello.

THE SURF ROCK DECLINE

Surf rock began to fade out in the mid-1960s. It coincided with the emergence of a new phenomenon: the British Invasion. Garage rock, blues rock, and psychedelic rock will also contribute to its decline.

Only the Beach Boys would resist and compete against their English counterparts, the Beatles, but nothing more.

However, in the 70s, a revival of interest in some punk bands or derivatives brought back to taste some titles of the genre.

Even if the success is no longer there today, it resurfaces from time to time in the BO of film or series.

In conclusion

Even if it’s not what it was in the 1960s, the influence of surf rock is still present. Even today, we can listen to this genre (without being ashamed) to put ourselves in a good mood or on the holiday road for example.

So if you want, you can listen to the playlist dedicated to this post just below. And you can share if you liked it or if you think it might interest someone you know.

Spotify Playlist

Also, you can see all the drawings / caricatures right here !

See you soon !