1000 Palms marks a return to Surfer Blood's DIY ethos. Abandoning the big time studio, the band decided to head back home to self-record and self-produce their third full-length album. Free of major-label-influence, Surfer Blood have delivered a uniquely compelling album, unlike anything in their catalog.
The story of 1000 Palms began on January 1st 2014, after playing a New Year’s show in Portland, OR, the band decided to stick around for the rest of the month, renting a practice space and sorting through a backlog of ideas. By February, as their lease ran out, Surfer Blood had recorded demos for most of the tracks that now feature on their third LP.
After a frustrating time at previous home Warner Brothers, the quartet were beyond ready to return to a more DIY recording process, completely void of the middlemen scrutinizing every bar of previous LP Pythons. With the band self-recording it was in the glamorous setting of an attic studio above a doctor’s office where drums were committed to tape. Frontman John Paul Pitts states “fortunately none of us are strangers to DIY recording, so it was a challenge well-suited to our band”.
The making of 1000 Palms also owes a lot to the kindness of friends and family, with the remaining instrument sessions taking place at the home of drummer Tyler Schwartz’s parents while they were on vacation. Following a few days of very little sleep and after the band pooled resources and called in favors, the band had managed to craft everything you now hear on the upcoming record.