Glass Beach | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Los Angeles, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 2016–present |
| Labels | Run for Cover |
| Members |
|
| Website | glassbeach |
Glass Beach (stylized in lowercase) is an American indie rock band from Los Angeles, currently based in Seattle. [1] Their music has been described as "heavy indie rock", blending influences including punk rock, math rock, and mid-century jazz. They cite some of their musical influences as Jeff Rosenstock, They Might Be Giants, and the Brave Little Abacus. [2] [3] [4]
The band's formation and music is closely tied to internet communities, and according to The Washington Post has "developed a cultish online following". [5] In early 2020, the Los Angeles Times predicted that the band "likely won't be playing cozy venues like All Star Lanes for much longer." [6]
In 2015, lead singer J McClendon made the move to Los Angeles, California, from her hometown of Burleson, Texas, [7] where she couch-surfed and worked on her solo project, Casio Dad. [8] During this time she released an EP titled He's Not With Us Anymore. [9] Shortly after, while attending the University of Minnesota Morris, close friends Jonas Newhouse and William White heard a song from J's new EP on their school's radio station, and immediately found interest in the musician. [8] The trio quickly became friends, and soon Newhouse and White joined J in Los Angeles to live together and form Glass Beach. [10] For the next three years, the group worked diligently on their first album, The First Glass Beach Album , which debuted on May 18, 2019, under Run for Cover Records. [8]
Before the album's release, musician and artist Layne Smith joined the group [10] as the band's guitarist after bonding over Dungeons & Dragons, [11] and immediately got to work developing the band's live sound and became a key member of the group. [12]
The band released several singles and a remix album following The First Glass Beach Album, for many of them initially on Bandcamp. These included "running", originally written for Bill & Ted Face the Music before it was cut from the film, and released in 2020. [13] The band released an alternate version of "classic j dies and goes to hell", a song on their first album, in celebration of the song achieving 1 million streams on Spotify. [14] They covered Car Seat Headrest's "Beach Life-In-Death" in January 2021, [15] as well as "Welcome to the Black Parade" by My Chemical Romance in July of the same year, for Pride Month. [16] The remix album, featuring Bartees Strange, Skylar Spence, Ska Tune Network, and Dogleg, was also released in 2021. [17]
In 2023, Glass Beach released an alternate reality game hosted on their website which culminated in the reveal of the name and tracklist of their second album Plastic Death . [18] On October 11, 2023 the band released the album's first single, "the CIA", featuring themes of fear and surveillance by the Central Intelligence Agency, with a music video directed by White. [19] On November 6 the band released the second single, "rare animal", about the disappearance of D. B. Cooper. [20] Plastic Death, produced by Will Yip, [21] was released on January 19, 2024. [20]