Surfer Blood

Surfer Blood
Surfer Blood performing at the House of Blues in Cleveland in 2013
Background information
Origin	West Palm Beach, Florida, United States
Genres	Indie rock, surf rock, alternative rock
Years active	2009–present
Labels	Joyful Noise Recordings, Kanine, Warner Bros. Records, Fierce Panda (UK)
Members	John Paul Pitts Tyler Schwarz Mike McCleary Lindsey Mills
Past members	Kevin Williams Thomas Fekete (deceased) Brian Black Marcos Marchesani

Surfer Blood is an American indie rock band from West Palm Beach, Florida, United States, currently signed to Joyful Noise Recordings formerly signed to Warner Bros. Records. The band has four members: John Paul Pitts (lead vocals/guitar), Mike Mcleary (guitar/backing vocals), Lindsey Mills (bass guitar/backing vocals) and Tyler Schwarz (drums).

Founding members John Paul Pitts and Tyler Schwarz started playing music together in Orlando, Florida under the name Jabroni Sandwich.[1] They then moved back to their hometown of West Palm Beach, Florida and started playing with guitarist Luke Bovat and bassist Freddy Schwenk in 2008 under the name "TV Club". As this early incarnation of the group they developed most of the material that would end up on Surfer Blood's debut album Astro Coast. TV Club lasted for about a year until Bovat was kicked out and Schwenk left the band. Around that time, Pitts and Schwarz met Thomas Fekete at an Ultra Music Festival after party in Miami and the group was re-named to Surfer Blood (a name that Schwarz randomly came up with during a conversation with Pitts about his surfer backpack from high school) with the immediate goal of releasing a record and touring nonstop.

The band's 2009 debut single "Swim" gained much critical acclaim and was named as the 37th best track on Pitchfork's 100 Best Songs of 2009. They released their debut album Astro Coast in January 2010.

The band were widely considered to be the breakout band of 2009's CMJ Music Marathon. In March 2010, playing songs from their debut album Astro Coast, Surfer Blood made quite a splash at the SXSW NPR music party (and returned to SXSW in 2011). In May 2010, the band played at the ATP music festival curated by Pavement along with other groups such as Broken Social Scene, The Walkmen, and Atlas Sound. Later that month, Surfer Blood headed over to Spain to join the lineup at the San Miguel Primavera Sound Festival. In August of that year, Surfer Blood finished out the summer playing two more festivals; Splendour in the Grass in Australia and Summer Sonic in Tokyo.