Beautiful Beat: Nada Surf Rides On

That record—1996’s High/Low—yielded “Popular,” a dopey song about cheerleader chicks and how to score dates (lyrics were culled directly from Gloria Winters’ 1964 etiquette manual, Penny’s Guide to Teen-Age Charm and Popularity, and, with the exception of the chorus, all spoken in an aggravated monotone). “Popular” hit #11 on the Billboard modern rock chart and earned loads of airplay on MTV (its video featuring copious making out and naked football players grinning in a locker-room shower). “Popular” added Nada Surf to a dubious list of alternative bands who managed to score unlikely radio hits in a guitar-friendly, post-Weezer, post-Nirvana landscape (see Better Than Ezra, Blind Melon, The Toadies, Letters to Cleo, Presidents of the United States of America and plenty of others). For folks who lost interest after the song dipped off the charts, “Popular” continues to define Nada Surf; for the band, they consider it a compelling, if otherwise unremarkable, blip.

“‘Popular’ was ultimately a very good thing, a fascinating ride,” Caws says. “It took care of a lot of curiosity about a certain kind of success that [now] we’ll never be tempted into signing away any rights in the hopes of attaining. As strange as our name is, that song made it well-known, which has been a bonus this whole time,” Caws admits.

“I don’t know how people perceive this band, and I don’t want to know,” Elliot adds. “I can’t really tell you how I perceive this band. There are a lot of people who stop listening to music seriously after they get out of college, so I’m not surprised if we’re still ‘That ’90s band’ to them. That being said, I think as a band we passed through the ‘Popular’ Misconception Gauntlet—the PMG—somewhere around [2002’s critically acclaimed] Let Go. We were kind of reborn there. We weren’t the same band as we were in 1996 anymore.”

Nada Surf’s 15-year arc—from unsigned band to MTV mainstay to cred-wielding indie-pop trio—makes for a pretty good parable: Here is how the contemporary music industry fails bands, and here is how to recover, recommit and move on. After the success of “Popular,” Nada Surf returned to the studio to record 2000’s The Proximity Effect, and had to wrestle the record back from Elektra after executives didn’t hear a single. After a couple of unsure years, the band released the much-lauded Let Go, kicking off a symbiotic relationship with Seattle’s Barsuk Records. Using Nada Surf as an example, it’s possible to argue that the contemporary music industry’s fundamental fault isn’t so much its inability to comprehend the wants and desires of its digitally minded consumer base, but its refusal to cultivate, foster and support young artists—pushing bands out of bed the moment they fail to replicate an initial success (or, in Nada Surf’s case, preemptively shelving an entire album). Still, the band is hopeful that things are starting to change.

“I feel very optimistic about the future of the music industry,” Lorca says. “Companies like Elektra will go the way of the dinosaur—oops, sorry, have gone—leaving room for smaller labels which deserve to thrive because of their ingenuity, flexibility, quality and vision. Anybody that thinks that music ‘sharing’ or ‘illegal downloading’ or whatever you want to call it is ‘bad for the industry’ either works for the industry or drums for Metallica.”

The band’s latest LP, Lucky, is another collection of sweet, melancholic guitar songs, a mew-and-strum concoction not so dissimilar from one-time labelmates Death Cab for Cutie (the two bands remain pals: DCFC guitarist Chris Walla produced 2005’s The Weight is a Gift, and Ben Gibbard sings on Lucky’s opening track, “See These Bones”). Recorded in Seattle with producer John Goodmanson, Lucky is pensive without feeling self-pitying—the sonic equivalent of curling up by a window on a grey afternoon, drinking warm tea in your pajamas and thinking about everyone you’ve ever known.

“The title came from the lyrics in ‘From Now On’ [a track that didn’t end up on Lucky], in which I say I’m just a lucky mess,” Caws explains. “Though I’ve been through a lot and don’t always have it together, ultimately I feel really lucky and grateful for so much. All the usual corny suspects: health, friends, family, art. You can either remember how good you have it, or you can forget. I go dark really easily,” he says. “I’m often just one click away from feeling like life is really bleak. So I have to remind myself of another feeling. A better feeling.”

“Without getting too deep,” Elliot agrees, “I think we’re simply very lucky to be in the position we’re in: still making music after a dozen years together; able to pay our bills and live comfortably without having to sell 80-squijillion records; signed to a couple of excellent record labels; we have fantastic, understanding girlfriends; one of us has a beautiful son; We’re healthy and happy and doing what we love the most and we’re fucking old. I’m gonna be 45 in a few months. It’s crazy. It’s fantastic.”

“[But] don’t misunderstand, luck is not the sole reason we’re here,” Elliot adds. “We worked hard and made a lot of difficult decisions that could have gone many ways. But I think this is a good point in our lives to stop and look around and be thankful for our good fortune. And now we simply continue on with the rocking.

“Still, I think we should have called it Chinese Democracy just for the fantastic ‘Fuck You’ of it. Man, that would have been sweet, don’t you think?”