Words & Interview by Annette Hansen
“This has kind of been the third time that I’ve had to start fresh,” says singer and guitarist Nick Santino.
The “this” Santino is referring to is his current band, Beach Weather. After the break-up of his former band A Rocket To The Moon in 2013, Santino took some time to build a career as a solo artist releasing a couple of EPs and a full length album.
“I went solo for like a year and I had to just kind of get that out of my system because I just loved writing and songwriting. I always wanted to be a bigger songwriter and I never got to do that,” Santino explains.
Having accomplished that and spending time on the road as a solo act, Santino soon realized he missed the full band experience. He was ready to start up a new project. So in 2015, Santino joined up with bassist Reeve Powers and drummer Austin Scates and together they became Beach Weather.
“I had the idea of trying to put a band together,” Santino says. “I met Austin through a friend in Arizona, and Reeve used to come and hang at shows when I was with [A Rocket To The Moon], so they’ve kind of always been in my back pocket…then we started playing together and we were just like ‘let’s form a new band’.”
Last spring, the band began putting together music as Beach Weather, but it wasn’t until late last summer when things really kicked off. Friends and fellow musicians The Maine invited Beach Weather to be part of their Free For All tour just a couple of weeks before hitting the road in August. While the timing was sudden, the band saw this as a unique way to introduce themselves to the world.
“Our original thing was just to put out the EP in the fall and try to do a fall tour, but then The Maine needed an opener,” Santino recalls. “We were like ‘yeah, I guess we could do the Beyonce thing and announce our record on the same day that we announce being a band and the same day announce being on tour’.”
Quickly putting themselves out there as a new group was something that Santino felt would help set Beach Weather apart from previous projects.
“We were trying to treat [Beach Weather] like its own thing,” he says. “So I think coming out as this mysterious thing and then all the sudden people wake up one morning and are like ‘what? I didn’t know this was happening’. It was an exciting thing for us.”
As the band had planned, they released their first EP What A Drag just before leaving for tour. The EP features five fun and upbeat pop/rock tracks with a hint of soul. With a new band and fresh inspiration, Beach Weather aimed to cultivate a totally new sound that was free of any previous limitations.
“I kind of like grew up a bit musically,” Santino says. “From growing up I kind of started respecting a lot more different types of music. I don’t dislike any kind of music. I feel like I can take influence from anything.”
Beach Weather was a chance to take those influences and make something completely new according to Santino. “When I was starting Beach Weather I was like ‘I want to do something fun, something I haven’t really done before musically.’”
Now, roughly a year after forming, Beach Weather is pleased with the ride so far. Not only have they been able to create music they are proud of together, but they’ve formed a bond as friends that has only strengthened in the last year.
“It’s become like a family very quickly,” Santino explains. “There’re only three of us. I know these two guys really well now, and they know me really well. We work off each other really well.”
And it’s that lightheartedness and sense of camaraderie that they hope audiences take note of. “We don’t go on stage with that crazy persona like ‘this is who we’re pretending to be,’” Santino says. “We’re weirdos on stage and we’re the same-old weirdos off stage.”
Recently, the band gained some extra headway by opening for PVRIS on part of their headlining national tour. A tour that sold out several dates before the full line-up was even announced. Beach Weather would be playing in front of a good number of new ears.
“We knew going into it that it would be all new fans,” Santino says. “There would probably be a handful who knew who we were after they announced the openers… these kids were going strictly for PVRIS and then they have the openers, so they have some new bands to discover.”
For them, the tour was yet another opportunity to put themselves out there for new crowds and connect with potential new fans.
“That’s our job to win over as many people as we can with our music,” Santino expresses. “We do this all ourselves, we’re all independent, we don’t have a label, we pay for our own merch, and at the end of the day, I would much rather walk away knowing we have a handful of new fans in every city than walk away with any sort of money or anything like that. I think it’s more satisfying knowing that you’re making a little bit of an impact with your music.”
So far the band has been nothing but pleased with this fresh, new start with Beach Weather. The band is already putting in the work for future plans while simultaneously enjoying the impact they’ve already left on others and even themselves. While starting over can be intimidating, Beach Weather knows it can lead to great things.
“This has kind of been the third time that I’ve had to start fresh,” Santino says. “I think that’s probably the most difficult thing. I think you just need to be confident enough in what you’re doing and I think people will see that and be like ‘it’s not like a gimmick, they’re actually passionate about it.’”
