Smashing Mountains, not Mouths: By Surprise talks to Totally Crushed Out
by Ryan Pangilinan

New Jersey’s By Surprise is made up of the kind of individuals that you would hang out with. Bold statement, yes, but this is contingent on the idea that you like to read, listen to 90s indie rock and, generally, enjoy nerding out. This is the impression that I gathered when I listened to their debut full-length, “Mountain Smashers” (Topshelf).

We got in touch with the band for a brief chat and with the answers they gave to our questions, I have very little doubt that I would hang out with these guys and maybe let them crash in my living room, so long as they don’t mess with my carefully organized collection of Calvin and Hobbes anthologies.

Totally Crushed Out: How did the band form?

Rob Wilcox (guitars, vocals): We all shared the same optometrist, simply put.

Actually. I was in a ska band for a handful of years and Pat, Dan and Devin always went to our shows. I knew Devin from high school and we always got along really well. After my run with that band ended, it was a no-brainer for me to start jamming with Devin, and Dan pretty much fell into place as the perfect option for a bassist. Pat and I would always go to Less Than Jake shows together and we shared a common interest in a lot of music. The band essentially formed through Pat and myself writing a handful of songs together in December of 2005. When the time came to try playing shows, I asked my “jamming buddies”, Devin and Dan to lend a hand, and everything kinda fell into place.

When I first got the album, I noticed that there was a song called “Daggermouth is Playing at My House,” which sonically has more in common with K-Rec era Built to Spill, but it’s definitely the first one that I listened to. However, its lyrical content is very much in the tradition of pop-punk/hardcore bands. Was this a conscious Jedi Mind Trick?

Pat Gartland (vocals, guitars): I don’t think the lyrics are as much pop-punk as they are about a pop punk band.  Maybe the gang vocals are a little pop-punk/hardcore.  The lyrics came from a sorta concept album I was going to write about my year living in North Jersey with my roommates.  There were no elaborate plans involving Star Wars occupations.  Sometimes, in retrospect, some things just seem to come together like that.  I think very few things have some grand elaborate plan where everything comes together in the end… except maybe Arrested Development.  I don’t know how they planned all these minute references to things that would happen two seasons later.  Who knows maybe they didn’t plan it all and somehow it just worked out.  Somehow I don’t think that’s how it happened though.

Now that that ridiculous question is out of the way, the album starts off with “Books by Thoreau” and the whole album itself works as a fluid narrative, not unlike a piece of literature. Was this a concept that you guys had from the beginning of the writing process, or was it something that naturally happened?

PG: We put a lot of thought into the final tracklisting.  Going into the studio, we pretty much knew the order of the songs.  Tracks three and four (“Mostly Harmless” and “Last Chance to See”) were recorded together and then split into separate tracks after the fact.  Just being huge fans of music and knowing what has worked on albums we already love, we tried to put the songs in an order that would come off like [a] mixtape.  We never went into it trying to make it like a book.  All of the book references happened mostly because, at the time we were writing the album, we were reading and discussing a lot of books.  There wasn’t much more that went into it: lyrics about books, putting the songs in an order so they played well off each other.  We also planned the tracklisting knowing that it was going to be an LP, so each kinda has its own flow knowing there is a kind of intermission between “Fountain Splashers” and “$600 Exorcism.”

And as a sort of post-script from the last question, generally speaking, “Mountain Smashers” carries a very bittersweet weight to it, both lyrically and musically, which is somewhat refreshing when most records that are coming out seem to come from a very vapid place. What were the influences behind this album?

PG: Lyrically, the most of my songs were written during a time when I was either unemployed or working a pretty awful job.  I was reading a lot of books that led me to believe there was some amazing life I was missing out on.  Initially, each song was going to be some sort of formal complaint about life and the structures established that humans just follow because it’s so easy to.  Most of the songs are about really specific things that are so specific that you might never know what they are about.

By Surprise definitely takes cues from 90s indie rock, but what are some of the contemporary bands that you guys are into at the moment?

PG: Ages are awesome.  That is Dave Downham’s newish band.  I only say newish because they’ve been around for the better part of a decade now but only just released their first album, “Made in the Trade.”  The music is just weird pop but extremely catchy and innovative.  Dave Dunn of Up Up Down Down and Moon Women plays drums.  I think we’ll always have the Up Up Down Down influence.  I also really like Teenage Cool Kids right now.  My other band, Party the Hut just played a show with this band called Eww Yaboo and they were phenomenal.  It was like garage-y surf punk with lots of reverb.  They threw in some cool three-part harmonies every once in a while too.  It was great.  I think they were from Scranton.

RW: I’ve been listening a lot to Washed Out, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., Trouble Books, The Library, and TS & The Past Haunts. Yuck is pretty fun. I also love Ages. Diarrhea Planet is my newest find this week. Check them out; they’re so weird.

What plans do you have for the rest of the year, whether it would be touring or additional recordings?

PG: I really want to start writing and recording again.  Most of these songs were written between 2008 and 2009.  We even finished recording the record last summer so it’s just been a while since we’ve done some writing.  Our tastes and changed/matured a lot since that time and I’m curious to see what will come out of it.  I’d like to do some small releases like maybe a single or two, or a cassette.

Touring would be cool but it’s just really hard to do because of jobs and such.  I don’t think we play enough Philly shows, so I’d rather focus on that instead of trying to set up a tour for our nonexistent fan base.

Anything else you’d like to add?

PG: Write more letters. Mail is so out dated it’s become hip again.

RW: We support USPS. It’s an issue we take seriously.

Check out By Surprise on Bandcamp and add them on the Facebooks. Their LP, “Mountain Smashers,” is out now on Topshelf Records.