Our Surfaces feature was originally published in our September 2021 issue. Purchase a print copy here.
You may look at pop duo Surfaces and think that’s all they are – two guys creating music that’s meant for radio, but by looking under the surface, you realize they are truly much more. Originating from College Station, Texas, in 2017, Forrest Frank and Colin Padalecki quickly invented their own unique sound – a blend of pop, reggae, jazz and hip-hop designed to feel light and airy.
Surfaces say they are inspired by nature, friendship, storytelling and the likes of musical luminaries Elton John, Jack Johnson, Stevie Wonder, Medicine and James Taylor.
They describe their music as a vacation. “It’s like a mental escape. It’s upbeat, but it’s also introspective. It’s peaceful, it’s calm, it’s wavy, it’s sunny, it’s all of the above. It’s just us. We’re not trying to impersonate a genre or impersonate another artist. It’s like a melting pot of all these genres, experiences, influences and it all just came out in our music.”
What could seem like a lot thrown together always manages to be a perfectly crafted, magical compilation, which is why the band has especially blown up since their US Double Platinum and Switzerland and Australia Platinum mega-hit “Sunday Best” from 2019.
The popular song is an obvious example of Surfaces’ genre-bending nature, with hints of a slow, spoken rap seeping through the heavy piano verses in an almost Chance the Rapper-like fashion. Met with a fun, upbeat, pop rhythm, it’s no surprise that it was so well-received to the point of peaking at number 19 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number nine on the US Billboard Mainstream Top 40 weekly charts.
With a constant stream of accomplishments flowing in left and right since then, the pair has created quite the name for themselves, earning them spots in some of the biggest festivals in the world of music.
Prior to hitting the road for their “Surfaces: Good 2 Be Back Tour” that kicked off earlier this month, the vocalists and guitarists got to perform at their first festival ever – Lollapalooza at Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois – the first of many more to come before the end of the year. Preceding their Sunday set, Padalecki shared that on top of it being the first festival they’ve performed at, it is also the first festival Frank has even attended, and just making it to and not even on the Lolla stage is already a hard-enough feat.
“We’ve never played festivals. This is the first time Forest has ever been at a festival, and now, he gets to play his first one. It’s crazy. We love the energy, and we want to match that energy. Everyone else is excited to be here, so it makes us excited to be here.”
At the time, Surfaces’ newest single, “Sheesh” with Tai Verdes, who found his way to fame with his hit song that went viral on TikTok, “Stuck In The Middle,” was not yet released.
Knowing new music would surprise the audience, it became the song the twosome was most looking forward to performing on the famous Lollapalooza stage; they would share it with some of the biggest names in music like Miley Cyrus, Post Malone, Megan Thee Stallion and more.
“We got this new single coming out soon with Tai Verdes,” they said before their set. “We got to perform it last night at our late-night show, and it’s a little energy bop. The crowd doesn’t know the song, so it’s probably going to be a shock. If it’s anything like last night, we think the crowd will enjoy it.”
Fans sure did enjoy it live and via their streaming devices, which helped catapult it to a whopping four million streams in just 11 days post-release. Its massive success follows just months behind the release of the duo’s fourth album Pacifico that was brought to life, of course, next to the Pacific Ocean.
Created in a house in Malibu, it encapsulates the most honest form of music by getting to the hearts of bedroom creators.
“This is the first album where we rented a house in Malibu, and for two weeks, we did nothing but wake up and record the whole album at this house with home equipment. It was getting back to the roots of what we used to do because we’re bedroom producers/writers at heart. We wanted to tune into ourselves.”
In diving into themselves, they dove right into the hearts and minds of millions of people by providing a realness that many crave in music to feel connected to others.
The opening of a car and the ending of a car, the drive to and from the beach house symbolizes the beginning and end of the record.
“At the beginning of the album, you can hear the Jeep that we drove up to the house. Then the album’s sonics are just us trying to capture the energy of that beautiful ocean sunset on the hillside. At the end of the album, you can hear the Jeep taking off.”
The middle is where the true essence of the album rests, filled with moments of beauty inspired by the landscape it was written in. Like the waves of the ocean they watched, the songs flow effortlessly from one to another with a mature sound that makes Surfaces say this is their best album to date.
“Wave of You,” the album’s lead single and most popular song, specifically allows waves of happiness, love and calmness to wash over its listeners for three minutes and 33 seconds, making for the perfect summer feel and putting them right there in Malibu with the artists. In fact, the song’s music video, the first of four total for the album, had just surpassed three million views on YouTube before Lollapalooza and is designed to do just that.
“The whole concept of Pacifico was to take our listeners and our fans on the journey with us,” said Surfaces. “So, we wanted to exclude ourselves from the video to make it about others. We had a gang of actors that got together and we took them on a journey. The videos are all different colors and themes that all tie together to tell one big story; they’re almost like different episodes from one season.”
Possibly leading to more music videos to add to the series, just five days before hitting the road for two months, Surfaces added three more songs to the show mix with the release of the Pacifico (Deluxe). Adding four extra songs to the original album, including the popular collaboration single with Tai Verdes, the deluxe record allows listeners to hear some different voices outside of the duo like Thomas Rhett (“… C’est La Vie”), Benny Sings (“June”), and Kid Indigo (“Famous”). These four songs add a new surge of excitement to the impending shows, fans are now left contemplating the possibilities of these artists becoming surprise guests for their dates.
After embarking on the almost 40-stop tour on September 8 in Phoenix, Arizona, Surfaces continued along, and by the completion of the journey, they will have hit 23 states overall, as well as Toronto, ON, all before the end of November. Despite the long haul, Surfaces is excited and most looking forward to the various festivals, including Austin City Limits and Music Midtown, that they will be performing at along the way. Before its cancellation, they were also supposed to take the Bonnaroo stage in Manchester, Tennessee, on September 4, which would have been the original first stop on the voyage. The blip in plans won’t throw them off their game, though, as the rest of the tour is still set to go on as planned, thankfully.
While things might have started going wrong early on in the tour, we sure know many things are going right for Surfaces. Other than touring, Padalecki and Frank have a lot coming up before the new year, including some completed songs they teased us with.
“We have some of our, probably, biggest songs that are done, and they’re waiting to come out – they’re with some pretty big people. We have a lot of good stuff in the vault.” Perhaps, the songs they hinted at are those we can now listen to on Pacifico (Deluxe), but let’s hope there are even more coming soon. Then, in February 2022, they will head across the pond for a UK show at the Electric Brixton in London, showing that they’re not only a national success story but also an international one.
As we said at the beginning, Surfaces has much more to them than what we can see with the naked eye. Like an iceberg, only the very tip of themselves peaks out above sea level, but when you look beneath into the depths of their music, you find so much more than your average pop. You find passionate, inspired, genre-defying, soothing, and natural sounds that are a culmination of Surfaces’ inner thoughts and feelings, along with their lived experiences. With a rawness and vulnerability in their voices and lyrics, it is easy to see why people have latched onto their music, turning them into hitmakers and stars.
Listen to Surfaces on Spotify below.
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