Surfer Blood Perform Live on the Interface

Anyone who's attended any university in recent years can attest that there are always those campus musicians that constantly try to get the ladies and/or the acclaim of the general student body by recording songs in their rooms. It's typically okay to roll one's eyes at these theatrics and resume playing 'Modern Warfare 2' but for post-punk garage act Surfer Blood, they actually made good on utilizing their dorm room as a makeshift studio.

"I was really broke," guitarist and lead vocalist JP Pitts told Spinner at a recent Interface taping in our New York studio. "We couldn't really afford to go in [the studio] anymore; it was just hitting a brick wall. All you have to do is tweak it a little bit more and it's gonna have a more idiosyncratic sound that way. It worked for our album so it can be done, for you dorm residents."

While some reports have pegged Surfer Blood as hailing from the University of Florida, they're actually from the West Palm Beach area and met when Pitts was attending Florida Atlantic. To be clear, the dorm room they used was more of a residence hall -- one of those nice, condo-like contraptions that have been popping up on campuses across the US.

"We tried to piss off [the neighbors] a lot by making a lot of noise, but it never seemed to work," bassist Brian Black added of the recording. While Pitts' neighbors were busy partying it up, he was working on what eventually became the band's debut, 'Astro Coast,' which is out now on Kanine Records. Even with all the temptations surrounding Pitts to go off and do a whole lot of nothing, it seems that finding the right musicians was even more challenging.

"There's a lot of talent down there, but it's spread out," he said. "A lot of the population there are much older people, a lot of retirement facilities, nursing homes -- stuff like that. Those people aren't the best to start bands with, generally."