Alexandra Denton, also known as "Surf Curse Singer," is an American musician and singer-songwriter. She is best known for her work as the lead vocalist and guitar player for the indie rock band Surf Curse. Denton co-founded the band in 2012 with her partner Nicholas Rattigan and has since gained an impressive following with their unique sound and introspective lyrics. Born in Reno, Nevada, Denton's passion for music began at a young age. She was heavily influenced by various genres including punk, lo-fi, and surf rock, which can be heard in Surf Curse's signature style. Denton's distinctive voice adds an ethereal and haunting quality to the band's music, often evoking a sense of nostalgia and longing.

Surf Curse Show Review

On Halloween night, indie rock band Surf Curse took the main stage at SOMA in San Diego. This was the second night on the North America tour and the show had been sold out for weeks. People were amped to spend the thrilling holiday at what soon became coined as “Surfaween.” The audience poured into the vast venue all costumed up, buzzing with an untouchable energy

Hailing in from Nevada, the band originally formed in Reno in 2013. Since then, the band has produced four studio albums, becoming well known for electrifying singles such as “Freaks,” “Disco,” and “I’m Not Making Out With You.” They released their latest album, Magic Hour, on October 7th of this year, quickly embarking on tour thereafter. Magic Hour is a vigorous culmination of the band’s nearly decade-long trajectory. It combines the nostalgic air of Buds with the group’s more contemporary developments in their craft. Hearing it live was spectacular, as the band took the crowd under their spell for their Halloween show.

The opening act was the West End based band Toner. They are scheduled to support Surf Curse for half of their tour, beginning in Las Vegas and ending in San Francisco. Toner’s set was intensifying, laying out the contagious energy for the night.

At about nine, Surf Curse hit the stage. Donning streaks of black and white face paint, the band dubbed themselves as “surf kiss” for the night, making an entrance to KISS’ “Detroit Rock City.” They opened up the show by playing songs “Christine F” and “Doom Generation” from their 2017 album Nothing Yet. It was a sight to see as the band jumped around on stage and the crowd began to follow suit, running about with an eager restlessness.

The band moved on to playing songs from their new album Magic Hour next with “Arrow” and “Cathy.” At this point in the heat, their costume makeup began dripping down their faces and lead singer and drummer Nick Rattigan exclaimed to the crowd about the products getting into his eyes. However, the show proceeded, as they dived into playing hits such as “Midnight Cowboy” from Heaven Surrounds You. They appeared timeless here, melting their sound over the moshing crowd.

It is no mistake that the crowd was full of surfers as friends hoisted eachother up into the infinite sea of arms and bopping heads. When the band began to play one of their most defining songs “Freaks,” the crowd began yelling out the lyrics in giddy excitement. Balloons floated in the air, being thrown about as the chorus “I am just a freak!” soundtracked that very moment. People danced about to the nostalgic tune, a song that transports myself back to highschool memories.

To close out the set, the band played their powerhouse of a hit “Sugar.” This song is a personal favorite, but its place as a masterpiece was solidified when I saw it live. The band’s guitarist, Jacob Rubeck, shined during this song as he revealed his seemingly effortless talent. I was surprised that the red beret he wore stayed put as he screamed lyrics into the microphone and absolutely executed the ending of the song.

The band went on to perform an encore consisting of songs “Goth Babe,” “Fear City,” and “Disco.” “Disco,” was the perfect end to the night, giving the crowd one last song to jump around to. It was safe to say that Surf Curse created an entirely memorable Halloween, playing a remarkable show for an ecstatic crowd.

Interview: Surf Curse

Indie rock band Surf Curse are riding their distinct indie-rock wave to a worldwide break. With a name inspired by a hippie uncle’s astral projection into hallucinatory hell and ultimate exorcism into devout catholicism, the band carves between the strange and familiar, filling tracks with head-banging, garage party riffs, and psychedelic introspection. On their new album and major label debut, Magic Hour , the band blends their indie-rock roots with aspects of alternative, punk, power-pop, psych-rock, and no-wave to create their most ambitious and engaging project to date.

The band recently sat down with Nuance for a video interview to discuss the band’s independent origins, sudden blow-up into the mainstream, and recording process for Magic Hour.

Formed in 2011 in Reno, NV, by lead vocalist/drummer Nick Rattigan and guitarist Jacob Rubeck , Surf Curse had been independently cultivating their sound in relative obscurity for nearly a decade. “We’d always liked playing music together growing up in Vegas because there was really nothing to do,” Rattigan says, “We appreciated music together. But then we started taking it more seriously in college. More seriously, I guess being like actually playing shows.”

That changed in 2020 when their song “ Freaks ” suddenly blew up on Tik-Tok, earning 500 million streams worldwide and an RIAA-certified platinum plaque despite being released eight years before. With the viral success came a record deal from Atlantic Records . Thus the band, adding new members Noah Kohll (guitars) and Henry Dillon (bass), were faced with the beautiful problem of needing to create their first major-label album:

“It sort of came out of nowhere,” Rattigan explains, “it came out of left field because we weren’t doing anything. There was nothing going on. And then the “Freaks” blow up happened, and we got offered a record deal, and we were like, ‘Shit. I guess we have to write a record.’”

With the major-label backing that Rubeck describes as “unlimited power” in an Emperor Palpatine voice, the band bunkered down at New York’s iconic, Jimmy-Hendrix-commissioned Electric Lady Studios to record Magic Hour, falling in love with the place’s historical energy and creative atmosphere. Inspired by their surroundings, Rubeck explains how the band’s appreciation for rock music defines the album: “The whole album is a collage of us loving, and wanting to make important rock music.” Despite the intense focus on the album, it was impossible not to appreciate the lofty new surroundings. Guitarist Noah Kohll remembers sitting in the lobby, forty takes in to a guitar solo recording, trying to recreate an improvisation he did on a demo, and having his attention broken by Frank Ocean and Lorde walking past him.

Inspired additionally by the Jean Luc-Goddard documentary Sympathy for the Devil and the Rolling Stones, Surf Curse differentiates Magic Hour from their previous catalog by its increased sonic depth, careful songcraft, and expanded musical palette. Emotive string arrangements, carefully placed bridges, raging guitar solos, and even saxophone features create an engaging sonic journey across the album’s tracklist, all the while anchored by the band’s initial sound. “It’s very much still a Surf Curse record,” Rattigan said. “It’s not changing us,” Rubeck added, “as much as it’s just crafting more.”

Working extensively on the project with producer Chris Coady (Beach House, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Grizzly Bear), who the group now treats as “family,” the band was equally impressed with his production prowess as his storytelling chops: “The way that we know him as a person, he’s so sweet and direct and knows how to keep things tamed,” Rubeck explains, “and then he just tells us like the most insane stories, and we’re like, ‘this guy has lived a life for someone who seems so well put-together.’”

Even with the help of Coady, the support of their label, and the ambiance of Electric Lady Studios, the band still had to execute, and execute they did. From the blistering opener “ Arrow ” to the intimate, slow progression of closer “ Randall Flagg ,” “ Sugar ” delivers a power-pop anthem with thick guitar riffs with an explosive vocal performance, “ Lost Honor ” steps to a punk beat before unleashing an infectious guitar and vocal harmony, while “ Self-Portrait ” grabs you by the throat with its impeccable guitar riff, perfectly executed screams, and immaculate mixing that retains the energy of a live performance.

“ Unwell ” might be the band’s most impressive song to date, cycling from an upbeat, folksy bounce to heavily distorted metal riffs before slicing both sides together seamlessly with pianos and live strings. However, “ Fear City ” makes its claim with its incredibly fast-rhythm, gripping narrative, and show-stealing saxophone feature.

Speaking of the latter, Rattigan recollects his ambitious writing process on “Fear City:

“That is like, the most words that were put in a song my entire life. And I just was meticulously writing that song like for hours and hours when everybody else is doing their parts and like crafting it to be this perfect little thing that was super challenging…What was interesting about that record is I wasn’t on any social media, I wasn’t drinking; I was completely sober. So, I had to take all that energy and put it into something.”

Rattigan also remembers how the track’s defining saxophone solo came about in a magical session with the instrumentalist Stuart D. Bogie:

“We were listening to some stuff, like James Chance and crazy New York No Wave. And I was like, ‘just do that.’ And then he did it over the entire song, like vocals and all everything. I was like, Whoa, that was crazy. Alright, we’ll put it here here here…he just crafted all of it, it was crazy.”

Inspired by a movie called Eureka, specifically Gene Hackman’s gold-finding billionaire immorality, Rattigan, co-director Nathan Castiel, and actor Sarah Ritter create a visually impressive, sinister fantasy world in the music video for “Self-Portrait:” “The human story here is humanity being corrupted by something.”

With their first big-budget video, Rattigan creates a twisted, Wes Anderson-adjacent winter fantasy world around the concept of greed that he describes as “dark Disney.” The video visually portrays how the band has used its newfound support to further a vision brewing organically for years.

After the band’s highly-anticipated European leg, Surf Curse is back in the USA on their Epic World Tour, with tickets available here .

One magic hour with Surf Curse at the Warfield

On November 16–my nineteenth birthday–I watched Surf Curse play at the Warfield in San Francisco while on tour supporting their fourth album Magic Hour (2022). I had seen Surf Curse once before, in November of 2019 at Tropicalia , a music festival in Pomona, California. My younger brother Magnus lost one of his shoes in the crowd as they played and traversed the festival grounds wearing a single hand-me-down Vans slip-on for the next eight hours. Although Surf Curse at an outdoor festival was a different Surf Curse than the one which played the Warfield three years later, the band continues to draw a seemingly never-ending supply of energy from their audience.

In 2013, drummer and lead singer Nick Rattigan and guitarist Jacob Rubeck formed the indie rock group Surf Curse in Reno. Unlike many two-pieces, Surf Curse was drum-driven. Initially a garage rock band with surf inflections like many lo-fi indie groups at the time, Surf Curse has since traversed many meanings of the word “rock” throughout their four (and counting) albums. They quickly became a fixture of Los Angeles’s all-ages and D.I.Y. scene. [“I see the Smell, now I’m ready for hell / If this is the end, well I guess it’s the end / Because my California dream, it came true” – “The Smell Saved My Life,” Buds (2013).] The youthfulness of such scenes permeates their music to this day, though the band’s sound has grown considerably in recent years.

Surf Curse’s emergence from the underground scene and their ability to retain dedicated fans along the way has shown that their sound has lasting power. The scene Surf Curse was born into influenced its sound, and the band influenced its sound right back. The name Surf Curse evokes more than a single band’s catalog for me; it is the feeling of a whole scene that I did not think I would experience live in this way.

The Warfield opened one hundred years ago this past spring. It is a grand concert hall, with ceilings that feel impossibly high adorned with paintings of cherubs (read: a far cry from the warehouses and garages of Surf Curse’s origins). Fans packed the venue before the opener, Toner , even began to play. Hailing from West End, California, a neighborhood in Oakland, the four-piece band makes driving noise rock filled with nineties influences. Although often a bit heavier and darker than Surf Curse, songs like 2020’s “Dark Ecstasy” seem perfectly fit for a Surf Curse show. This hometown show finished out Toner’s fourteen-show stretch of opening for Surf Curse.

In between sets, Vundabar, Hot Flash Heat Wave, The Garden, and Car Seat Headrest blared from the speakers. People jockeyed with each other to get to the floor. In the pit, the audience’s eagerness was palpable—sweaty and heaving. The same eagerness prevailed as Surf Curse took to the stage. Just as one would think that the crowd’s energy was finally waning, another song would begin and throw everyone spinning yet again. Although eventually separated from my friends in the pit, I felt comfortable jumping on my own. Songs I had listened to for ages rang throughout the air and mixed with newer Surf Curse works, creating an atmosphere of familiarity. Surf Curse did not interact much with the audience or with each other onstage, except when Rubeck accepted a hat that an audience member had knit and when the band reminded everyone to take two steps back from the barricade. Their music did the work for them.

The simple phrase “if you feel the way I do” from Surf Curse’s early track “Goth Babe,” captures the essence of Surf Curse. Whether taking the perspective of nihilistic teenage movie protagonists or yearning for companionship, early Surf Curse songs hold space for not only adolescent angst but a tenuous hope for connection. Film and television have influenced Surf Curse since before they were Surf Curse. (Rattigan and Rubeck’s middle school band was called Buffalo 66). Their debut album Buds (2013) directly references the worlds of Heathers , The Outsiders , and Twin Peaks . Such decidedly dark adolescent references contrasted with the band’s buoyant sound. It did not stop there; the band supported the 2019 release of Heaven Surrounds You by organizing a series of film showings that influenced the album and the band’s artistry.

“Disco” (played as the encore) and “Midnight Cowboy,” both singles from Heaven Surrounds You , marked a transition into more complex storytelling and instrumentation than prior releases, yet do not forgo their catchy choruses. On the dreamier album, Rubeck and Rattigan feel more reflective. After a pre-pandemic tour, the duo expanded their circle with the addition of bassist Henry Dillon and guitarist Noah Kholl, who joined the band full-time. Its follow-up, Magic Hour , holds space for snippets of surf rock, peeks of power pop, angsty lyricism, and grown-up rock and roll, all in one.

Surf Curse’s one-hour set contained songs from all eras of the band and elicited a wild response from the audience. Songs from Magic Hour like “TVI” feel constructed for a live show—screamable with bursts of energy, time to sway, and even a “one, two, three, four” built in. You can learn a Surf Curse song from the crowd. Surf Curse is a band that performs , and their audience performs with them. The band saved hit songs like Magic Hour ’s “Sugar” and the Buds track “Freaks”—during which Toner’s lead singer stage-dived—for the end of their set. “Freaks” enjoyed a resurgence in the past year, but I still associate it with being in Santa Barbara the summer before I began high school. Clocking in at under two and a half minutes, the outsider anthem adapts to its environment, just as Surf Curse effortlessly inhabits the stage of the Warfield with sounds from the past nine years.

Surf Curse has always seemed mythic in terms of live music: they had once played somewhere, or someone knew them, or had seen them back when (what exactly “back when” means is fluid). Even as their sound changes, Surf Curse evokes the sensibility of a scene that I was too young to experience live, so being part of a crowd that clamors to hear tracks from Buds like it’s 2013 again is exhilarating. Surf Curse leaves my body feeling heavy, with the haze of exhaustion that can only come from a night spent slamming into strangers to the sound of “take your time, free your mind, I can do this everyday.”

Denton's distinctive voice adds an ethereal and haunting quality to the band's music, often evoking a sense of nostalgia and longing. Throughout their career, Surf Curse has released several well-received albums and EPs, including "Buds" and "Heaven Surrounds You." Denton's lyrics often touch on themes of love, loss, and personal growth, resonating with fans who relate to her introspective and often melancholic storytelling.

Aside from her work with Surf Curse, Denton has also collaborated with other artists and released solo music under the name "Lexi." Her solo songs have a dreamy and introspective quality, showcasing Denton's talent and versatility as a musician. Known for her captivating stage presence, Denton's live performances are known to be energetic and emotionally charged, leaving audiences captivated and wanting more. She brings a raw and vulnerable energy to her music, creating a powerful connection with her listeners. As Surf Curse continues to grow in popularity, Alexandra Denton's talent and artistry as a singer and songwriter have solidified her place in the indie rock music scene. Her contributions to the band's sound and her captivating performances have garnered critical acclaim and a devoted fanbase. With her unique voice and ability to evoke a range of emotions through her music, Alexandra Denton, the Surf Curse Singer, has become an influential figure in the indie rock genre, leaving a lasting impact on listeners all over the world..

Reviews for "Surf Curse's Singer and their Connection to Pop Culture References"

- Jessica - 2 out of 5 stars - The Surf Curse singer's voice just didn't do it for me. I found it to be grating and off-putting, with a lack of range and emotion. It felt like he was shouting at me rather than singing, making it hard for me to connect with the music. Overall, I was disappointed and couldn't get past the vocals to fully enjoy the songs.

- Mark - 1 out of 5 stars - I couldn't stand the Surf Curse singer's voice. It was incredibly monotone and lacked any sort of unique quality. Every song sounded the same because of it. I found myself becoming bored and uninterested in the music because of the singer's lackluster performance. I won't be listening to them again.

- Sarah - 2.5 out of 5 stars - The Surf Curse singer's voice didn't resonate with me. It felt weak and strained, lacking power and control. It often sounded like he was struggling to hit the right notes. While I could appreciate some of the instrumentals, the overall package was hindered by the singer's lack of vocal ability. Not my cup of tea.

Exploring Surf Curse Singer's Lyrical Poetry and Symbolism