On whatever stage she might be standing, Dani Miller is likely the happiest, craziest punk-rocker you ever saw. She’s a natural up there with Surfbort, her loud, colorful band, grinning and wailing right up front in a bikini top and torn nylon, with a rainbow mullet and tattoos up her arms. Every night on the road, she’s the band’s most dazzling special effect.
Miller is as excited to be there as any of Surfbort’s most hardcore fans shouting along to the band’s songs of bong hits and depression, life-saving friendships and dancing with Tony Danza. At their final show of 2021 at The Roxy on LA’s Sunset Strip, the December night was half punk explosion, half Christmas miracle (they ripped out a cover of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” and one side of Miller’s face was bedazzled in silvery jewels). As always, Miller shouts and wails, a joyously enraged, dazzlingly gap-toothed host, fueled on melody and attitude. “Freaking out is the most fun, healing thing,” says Miller of performing. She frequently steps off the stage to wade right into the moshing crowd. “Even when I’m having a really bad day, when I get up on stage it’s just a total blast. It’s just a weird, unexplainable feeling.”
That’s as true in a nightclub as on a big festival stage, and the hard-edged euphoria can be heard on Surfbort’s recently released second full-length album, Keep on Truckin’. The sound is an urgent collision of the wildly contemporary and first-wave American punk rock, all frayed guitar riffs and melody. On the song “Life’s a Joke,” the wild-eyed singer shrugs cheerfully through her daily hurdles: “Nothing’s going my way today, but it’s OK!” Truckin’ is Surfbort’s pandemic record, mostly produced by Linda Perry with a few pre-COVID tracks carried over from sessions with producer Dave Sitek. It’s the next step in Surfbort’s evolution, and critics are calling it a happier record than those past, as Dani spreads good vibes even while sharing her troubles. “I think it’s just me processing differently because there’s definitely still depression, sadness, anger that happens within me, no matter what,” she says. “For this record, it talks about a gnarly subject and then it gets kind of nihilistic, but then it gets happy again.”
“Freaking out is the most fun, healing thing. Even when I’m having a really bad day, when I get up on stage it’s just a total blast. It’s just a weird, unexplainable feeling.”
Amid the bright, aggressive sounds and loud colors in the Kii Arens–directed video for “Big Star,” Miller has clearly found her tribe. She’s shown behind the mic as she is most nights, in her signature upturned eye shadow shooting past her eyebrows like bat wings (or an echo from the epic cat eyes of Divine, the late Pink Flamingos star). And rocking out behind her is the solidified current Surfbort lineup: drummer Sean Powell, guitarists Alex Kilgore and Matt Picola, and bassist Nick Arnold.
One band motto can be found on the old Surfbort Bandcamp page: “Fed up with sheeple polluting the airways and submitting to easy listening and passive ideals.” For years identified as a band from Brooklyn, where the first lineup was birthed around 2014, Surfbort’s members now scatter during their downtime across different cities. Miller and drummer Powell are in Los Angeles, while the others are in Oakland, New York, Texas. Dani made New York her home at age 19 or 20, working multiple jobs, eating cheap pizza, and “being in a trash pile.” The music video for their 2016 single “Trash” shows the band in that early phase—Dani in long, straight hair, no makeup, and fewer tattoos. The sound was more New-York-indie, wall-of-noise than the flinty, fully realized, melodic-punk roar of today.
Singer Dani Miller performs with the punk band Surfbort at the Roxy Theater on the Sunset Strip. On left is guitarist Matt Picola, on the right is guitarist Alex Kilgore.
In that first lineup was Matt Picola, who can be seen in a YouTube video with Dani and the others sitting on a boat for an interview in 2015, as they waited to play their first festival gig with borrowed gear. Picola is chatty and ready to rock, a Stella in one hand, wearing a Raymond Pettibon T-shirt. “Literally 30 minutes after that, Matty freaking jumped off the four-story yacht into the East River,” Miller remembers of that day. “And then security people in kayaks came after him.” Those days were out of anyone’s control. Now it’s about “sober rage,” keeping clear-headed and free. “Definitely in the beginning we were all chaos,” Miller explains. “We keep the chaotic vibes directed into the music and less in a self-sabotage way. We’re still crazy. We're still ourselves, but it's a little less hectic on that front. We don't jump off four-story yachts into the East River. I wonder if he caught something. That was so gnarly.”
“We keep the chaotic vibes directed into the music and less in a self-sabotage way. We’re still crazy. We're still ourselves, but it's a little less hectic on that front.”
Picola left the band for a time, and Dani was joined by three punk lifers from Texas. Powell was first to sign on. “I remember when I met Sean, I was wearing all-black and working in a coffee shop and he would just dress like a clown. And I was like, ‘Whoa, why are you dressing like a clown?’ And he’s like, ‘You can dress like a clown if you want, too.’” The band, she says now, “let me unleash my clown self, and just find myself.”
Surfbort has managed to find a growing audience by not especially courting one in the usual ways, as the band continues to thrive on what Miller has called its “strong, freaky vibes.” And support has come from surprising places. High-fashion brand Gucci recruited the group as models for a punk-glam campaign, while Debbie Harry and Chris Stein from Blondie recognized a bit of Blank Generation energy in them. Miller can hardly believe that Harry is now a friend and mentor, sharing a lifetime of lessons learned. “She always tells me just to stand up for myself and what to watch out for and how to be more empowered,” says Miller. “I’m so lucky to have her as a friend because she fricking paved the way.”
The last two years of COVID-19 have been a serious challenge (Dani refers repeatedly to the pandemic as “the apocalypse” in a way that suggests she’s not trying to be funny). During the forced downtime of the peak coronavirus months, the band convened in a Los Angeles living room and sketched out between 50 and 100 songs and ideas. By then, she had already met producer/songwriter/manager Linda Perry at a Nirvana tribute show at Hollywood Palladium in January 2020. She took the new songs to Perry, and soon they were working together. “Linda definitely added a really special touch,” Miller says of Perry, the former 4 Non Blondes singer, now a GRAMMY-nominated songwriter and producer. “She means business. She makes sure that everything is handled, and then gives us the coolest pep talk ever and also busts her ass and gives a shit. We’re just so lucky to have her in our lives.”
“In the end, it’s not about me. It's more just me being like a conductor for people having a blast and making new friends and dancing their asses off and screaming and letting all their angst out.”
One track on Keep on Truckin’ that especially shows Perry’s influence is “FML,” originally a blunt 30-second eruption about suicide. Perry encouraged Surfbort to stretch it out into different sounds and shadings, from sad to euphoric. It now begins with the melancholy strumming of guitar and lyrical lament before shifting into high-energy riffs and vocals, pushing back against that depression. The song’s music video has Saturday Night Live alum (and punk devotee) Fred Armisen wandering the band’s neighborhood with a smile. He finds that small crises are about to send people over the edge, and with a magical flick of the wrist he solves their many problems, and the sun shines again.
The message is connected to the album title: “It's about knowing that even if you're in darkness, there's gonna be good moments ahead,” she says. “Hold on and be patient. Get to the other side when there'll be good times, and Fred Armisen will come into your room and put a smile on your face.” Miller and Armisen have continued their friendship over text. But no words, just emojis.
Even without the comic actor’s presence, she can always find strength behind the mic, even if she still gets nervous there. “I’m like an extrovert-introvert,” she says. “In the end, I realize it’s not about me. It's more just me being like a conductor for people having a blast and making new friends and dancing their asses off and screaming and letting all their angst out.” FL
Punk band Surfbort backstage at the Roxy Theater on the Sunset Strip. (L-R) Singer Dani Miller, guitarist Alex Kilgore, guitarist Matt Picola, bassist Nick Arnold and drummer Sean Powell.
