The Surfactants in High Plains Drifter Magazine #3

Here is our interview with the awesome Duluth-based High Plains Drifter Magazine. We played at their issue #3 release party at Pizza Luce in Duluth and had a great time. Massive thanks and respect goes out to Jimi and the gang for putting together a great local zine with some really nice photography. We hope to see more and more from them in the future.

You can see some very nice photos of the show here.
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High Plains Drifter Magazine: First and foremost, the band doesn’t all live in the same city, how does the band stay together, not to mention produce great music?

Marcus: Technology. We all have digital audio workstations at home, so usually Zac writes some music and posts it to an FTP site where the rest of us can download it.
We each then write and record our own parts and repost them to the FTP, where Zac pulls them all in, then arranges and mixes them. Nerds.

Zac: Yeah, we all have varying degrees of anti-socialism; so being able to work alone and at home is a great way to reinforce it. Plus, any experienced musician knows that it's not always easy to be creative at a specific time, so this way we don't have to waste time noodling around in a room with everyone else. We can slack off as much as we want and get the work done at our own pace.

HPDmag: How did the member of the band meet? How or who hatched the idea to start a band?

M: We are all longtime members of the HDC (Hog Damage Collective), a group of bands that has included Both, Sleepfarmer, thevirginmarcus, Humanoid, The State Champs, and others, dating back to the early nineties. As for The Surfactants, this was a dream of Zac's. He is the architect. He got the songs together, recruited Bret and Eric to play on them, and kindly obliged me when I insisted on being his lead singer. Since I outweigh him by about one hundred pounds, me thinks he was in no place to refuse.

Z: Brett and I have been in bands together since the mid-90's (Holiday with Abner, Omega 2000, Both). Marcus has been playing in bands around the Duluth/Superior area since God was a babe, and Eric just keeps showing up to shows. I don't know who he is.

HPDmag: You’ve stated that most of your first record was recorded and mixed well before you guys had actually sat down for a live practice. Could you please explain a little bit about how this is humanly possible?

M: It was made possible by the loyalty and enthusiasm that this project engendered in all of us from the very beginning. Long hours of practicing in front of our respective computers didn't hurt either. Then factor in our collective genious, and voila. Wait, did I really just misspell "genius"? Fuck.

Z: It's not humanly possible. Unlike a lot of musicians, instead of throwing our own feces around and hooting like horny gorillas, we use both technology and the Internet correctly. That is, we share information that is our legal right as copyright holders to share. Anyone who does otherwise is an evil sinner, and to cleanse their souls should send us all of their illegally copied files immediately. We pass our files through what I understand to be a series of tubes, then mold them into something resembling a song. I then take out everyone else's ideas and just do everything myself.
Anyway, this is how we got to know the songs before our first real practice. It was a bit strange to get together the first time and play the songs as though we had been playing them together for months, which in a way we had been. As Marcus said, we are all very forward thinking and dedicated to the music, so while other bands my have struggled to communicate their ideas around all the new technology and techniques, we thrived on it. The Surfactants are all about pushing ourselves and finding new ways of being awesome.

HPDmag: It seems that you tend to play more shows in the Twin Cities, but lately you’ve been playing more shows in the Twin Ports. Could you share some insight on the differences and or similarities between the two scenes?

M: The main difference between the two right now is that MPLS actually HAS a music scene. Unfortunately, Duluth's two live music bars and one coffee shop do not a "scene" make. What Duluth DOES have is music...lots of it and much of it quite excellent. The problem seems to be that the local club owners can't make any money having original bands play in their establishments, and the handful of bands that DO draw big crowds all have banjos in them. I don't know what that has to do with anything. I just wanted to point it out. As for similarities, only one comes to mind: everyone is at least 15% less awesome than they think they are. Myself included.

Z: The main difference for me is that I know more people in the crowd. The same ratio of miles driven to people attending seems to be about the same at 100:1.

HPDmag: The current album is amazing. You’re also on, ‘And The Heroine Screams Help . . .” compilation. Could you give us the lowdown on when we can expect the next album to be out?

M: The new record should be out by spring. It will be another EP-style self-release, probably with six to eight songs on it. The new record will have some of the songs we've been doing live for a while, like "Us Against All" and "You Can Say No", to name a few.

HPDmag: I don’t believe that you guys have been on an official tour yet. Are there any plans on touring inside or outside of the Midwest?

M: With our second album coming out and momentum starting to form around us, a regional tour seems likely. Perhaps by summers end. Check in at myspace.com/thesurfactants or at thesurfactants.com from time to time for news.

Z: The best way to see us in a skanky club near you is to book us a show there. Seriously. Give them a call. I've still got a lot of "Twilight Princess" to play and can't be bothered.