For the release of their first collaborative track, we spoke to Surfaces about working with the Rocketman himself.
Having met on Soundcloud and realising that they lived just under two hours apart, Forrest Frank and Colin Padalecki started making music together about three years ago. Their track Sunday Best has been in the UK Top 100 for over three months and has garnered over 350 million streams on Spotify alone.
We chatted on Zoom last week about their transition into music, inspirations and their upcoming collaboration with Sir Elton John! The boys tell me that it was scary realising that they wanted to do music full time as they “come from very practical families, families that want you to be successful in terms of getting a really stable job and providing for your family. They weren’t discouraged by any means, but they thought that music would never be a real job, it would just be a fun hobby.” But on the back of their first album Surf, Frank quit his job in pursuit of a full-time career making music. Padalecki followed suit, and he tells me they “owe it to each other to see where this goes and give what we can to the world.”
The new track Learn to Fly came about after they made a demo while practising for Late Night with Seth; they knew it was a special song but never expected this reaction and understandably they “freaked out” when their managers facetimed them to say Elton John wanted to be a part of the track. The song sounds different from their usual relaxed genre, as it comes as a reaction to their first live tour. Frank tells me “we got the experience of meeting our fans and knowing what it feels like to sing our songs with our fans and I think that that has increased our scope of music and what it can do. Before when we were just sitting in our bedroom, it was a lot of internal thoughts that we were sharing but seeing all of these people, we can now write lyrics that we can all gather to.” So, the song “feels like the whole world coming together.” The call and repeat hook certainly makes the song feel anthemic, perfectly poised for crowd participation when they return to doing live shows.
Their music has a brightness to it, one that is hard to emulate. It radiates summer and a positivity that comes from their palpable passion, “It is what we love to do, it’s our favourite thing to do, so we are always, always working.” Looking forward, they can’t wait to travel again, having never toured outside of North America, they are excited at the prospect of coming to Europe for the first time, as well as meeting fans and collaborating IRL with some of their favourite artists. When I facetiously ask about their dream collaboration, they laugh and tell me that “Obviously, Elton is the unprecedented crazy dream that we wouldn’t have thought twice of, and the fact that it has happened, and we can say that for the rest of our lives, is just incredible.” But they would also love to work alongside Tom Misch and James Taylor.
The song is out now, so stream it, put your hands up high and appreciate the affirmations of the song of Summer 2020.
