The first breath of air upon entering Beach Bums’ practice warehouse lays still and tinged with marijuana smoke. Around the corner from the front door, the band practices its new material in preparation for an upcoming show, taking smoke breaks in between songs.
Citrus recording arts student, guitarist and contributing songwriter of Beach Bums, Jonathan Horsley, 22, jams out a few more songs with his band-mates before sitting down to talk about the band’s motivations, tour life, and the new album.
Beach Bums performed in Norwalk on June 2, as a part of the first Anti-Prom Fest.
“I’m so glad Anti-Prom is finally a thing,” Horsley said to the audience while onstage during the show. “Just jump the f–k up and dance.”
Typical Beach Bums shows are filled with fans singing along, moshing and dancing about.
“Beach Bums shows will always be, like, the best shows you could ever go to,” Herbert Guevara, 20, the band’s friend and filmer, said. “Today was really fun … everyone was faded.”
Guevara travels from the San Fernando Valley to attend and film Beach Bums shows around the county.
“I film s–t for them, I take pictures for them … I pretty much do most of their media now,” Guevara said.
“First, I made stuff for them as a fan, but then, like, we got to know each other and became friends so now it’s more of like a really intimate relationship as friends. Not even just as friends but as business partners, because we’re always, like, constantly working with each other.”
Like in their albums, the band’s eclectic nature shined through as they played styles ranging from stoner rock and hardcore punk, to hip-hop and oldies-style ballads like their song “Fah Q”.
Each member has has been influenced by different styles.
“We make feelings,” Keanu Hardin, the band’s drummer said.
“The approach (to songwriting) is that there is no approach,” Horsley said. “Why start all these bands — why start all these projects when we can just do one crazy art project that’s everything? … We’re not even a band really, we’re just like an art project at this point.”
As for Horsley’s time at Citrus, he said he is “basically out,” and “just has one more class to take” before he is done.
“I’ve been going to Citrus since 2014,” he said. “I just finished (the recording arts program) in 2017, so all I have to do is take a health class, and then I’m done.”
The group recently finished touring the western portion of the United States and is planning to tour again.
“The first half of the tour — it was random,” Elijah Alamo, the band’s bassist, said. “We took an RV, for some reason, and went up to Oregon and played just for the people at the bar. And then played a dope a** house show — in an RV,” he said. “Then in the second half we rented a van.”
Texas marked the midway point of the tour for the band.
“We were supposed to play a house show in San Antonio, but we got there and it was just the nastiest most tweaker house,” Horsley said.
“Man, that sucked,” Randolph Calixto, 19, Beach Bums’ guitarist, said. “Raunchy.”
“It smelled like asbestos,” Alamo said.
The band did not play the San Antonio house, and moved on to another show.
“It was terrible, so we left,” Horsley said. “But the next night was cool because we got another show in Austin again, so we just drove back to Austin and played this cool bar show and got hella beer — got drunk. It was cool.”
Overall, the group said they enjoyed the tour.
“It was crazy,” Calixto said.
“It’s like a learning process,” Horsley said. “We are still super D.I.Y., the tour was booked by us … not by some agent.”
The band said they will focus on booking another tour once they achieve their upcoming goals.
“After these projects come out, we’re going to definitely go on tour again,” Horsley said. “U.S., definitely, and Mexico.”
Horsley said that “this has been a good time for us to just really focus on our craft” and “create more material.”
The new album’s content is entirely acoustic; a sharp turn from much of their previous work.
Horsley said the new sound was unplanned, and the songs were written without the idea of an album in mind.
“Nothing is intentional,” Horsley said. “It wasn’t, like, ‘hey, let’s go record an acoustic album right now,’ you know? It was just, like — that’s how we were feeling in the moment so everything we were writing was that.”
Friends in the audience of the Anti-Prom performance enjoyed the new material.
“I really like their new release,” Laura Quezada, Guevara’s filming partner and fan of the group, 24, said. “I just want to cry to it .. it’s so good … Like, someone break my heart so I can really appreciate it, you know?”
Horsley said Beach Bums is “definitely more than a band.”
“We want to do more than just make music,” he said. “Like, we want to make movies, we want to (do) everything … we just do whatever we want.”
Beach Bums latest album “I Want To Sleep Forever” is available on the group’s Bandcamp page, at https://beachbums.bandcamp.com/ and on Spotify.
