FIDLAR have returned with the announcement of SURVIVING THE DREAM the irreverent surf-punk band’s long-awaited fourth studio LP and first in over five years. Previewing the 13-song album’s arrival on September 20, 2024, the group has released their brand new double-single ‘GET OFF MY WAVE‘ and ‘FIX ME‘ – a pair of red-hot tracks bristling with frenzied, cranked-to-the-max sonics. ‘FIX ME’ debuts today along with a brand new music video featuring Sosie Bacon, as she delivers an unhinged karaoke performance.
“This record is about doubling down on what you love,” says frontman Zac Carper. “For us, its about playing shows and making music. Coming back after a few years away, our intention was to self-make an album that the 3 of us are stoked on. We’re very very very pumped on it and what’s to come. These songs are meant to be heard live with the fellow FIDIOTS going off.”
“We picked these two songs to lead off the record because it represents the energy we pull off live,” he adds about ‘FIX ME’ and ‘GET OFF MY WAVE’. “It’s all about the sad moshpit. And having Sosie agree to be part of the video was just awesome. We did karaoke with her on her birthday and she killed it. When we came up with the idea, she was the only choice. She’s perfect.”
Self-produced and self-recorded at Balboa Recording Studio in East LA, SURVIVING THE DREAM is many things for the Southern California trio comprised of Zac Carper, Max Kuehn and Brandon Schwartzel. An embrace of their DIY roots. A reaction to the youthful kinetic energy packed into rooms at their recent live shows. A reckoning with ageing and evolving.
Finding themselves faced with existential downtime several years ago – brought on by a planned hiatus that was incidentally prolonged by the pandemic – FIDLAR returned feeling an odd discombobulation. In some ways everything was the same; and in others, everything was completely different. As a band whose identity has forever been tethered to getting fucked up, their attitude toward it has changed. Partly that’s because they’re older now, and partly because Carper was recently diagnosed with bi-polar disorder; something that has helped him make sense of how he acted and felt at certain times in the past, especially when making music.
As a whole, they’ve grown up; no longer the young, hedonistic youths they’d been when they started out. And yet, their live shows have felt more feral than ever, with young audiences energised and full of the very reckless abandon FIDLAR stoked in their early days. It’s this burning spirit that drives SURVIVING THE DREAM: the debauchery, the feelings of angst, the carefree dispositions, and the questions of belonging that are not, and never have been bound by age. Fucked up, reckless, fun-loving and wild, the record is both a reminiscence of their beginnings and a testament to what they’ve become.
Hot on the heels of delivering a scorching performance at No Values Festivals in Pomona, CA this past weekend, FIDLAR has also announced a sprawling North American headlining tour in support of SURVIVING THE DREAM today. Kicking off in their homeland of Southern California, the run will see the group traveling to two dozen cities before concluding in Los Angeles on Halloween. As stated by FLOOD Magazine, “the group still has plenty of gas in the tank, both in terms of creativity and raw energy. Perhaps this fact is most evident in their live show.” Tickets for all dates go on-sale at 10AM local time on Friday, June 14th via the band’s site here.
1. FIX ME
2. LOW
3. SAD KID
4. DOWN N OUT
5. ORANGE COUNTY
6. BREAK YOUR HEART
7. GET OFF MY WAVE
8. CHANGE
9. MAKING SHIT UP
10. DOG HOUSE
11. I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS
12. NUDGE
13. HURT
In addition to ‘GET OFF MY WAVE’ and ‘FIX ME’, SURVIVING THE DREAM also features FIDLAR’s single ‘NUDGE‘, a track that followed up their comeback EP That’s Life last year. Comprised of standout songs like ‘Centipede‘, ‘FSU‘, ‘Sand On The Beach‘ and ‘On Drugs‘, the EP garnered acclaim and support from the likes of Kerrang, NME, The FADER, DIY, FLOOD Magazine, Dork, Hypebeast, The Line of Best Fit, Loudwire, Consequence, and SPIN, who stated that the EP sees FIDLAR “continue doing what they do best: throwing some of the best punk rock parties on the planet and writing catchy songs about booze and drugs.”
Starting out as a group of drunken punks playing gnarly house shows around Los Angeles with songs like ‘Cheap Beer‘ and ‘Wake Bake Skate‘, the light speed rocket that was their self-titled album blasted them into the stratosphere in the early 2010s. They responded with 2015’s TOO before refining and expanding their sound with 2019’s ALMOST FREE – their last full-length album prior to SURVIVING THE DREAM.
Photo credit – Alice Baxley