It’s half past noon, six hours before doors open for the Surf Curse show, and people are already lining up outside the Garden Amp. Over the next six hours, a mass of cuffed dickies pants swarm to the doors, creating a line around the length of a football field (no cap). After the doors opened and everyone scrunched into the amphitheater, the audience was welcomed by the lovely Your Angel. 

Photo by Syd Trip

Although they had only played two shows prior, Your Angel had a confident and alluring stage presence. According to Maddy, the mastermind and frontwoman of  Your Angel, this is due to her experience in playing in Current Joys and Brutus Viii. Her soulful voice was blanketed in layers of synths and chorus-filled guitar. Paired with an insane amount of fog and intimate stage lighting, Your Angel’s set was an auditory and visual spectacle.

Then came the time for Surf Curse. The boys walked onto the stage and were greeted with applause from the audience who were anxious to hear them play. Nick started pounding the drums for “Christine F”. This was the cue for everyone to go crazy. The aerial strikes of crowd surfers were nearly intercepted by security. Every time the guards would turn their back for a moment, a teen would charge the stage and jump in the audience. This led to an all-out war between the kids and security, which was ultimately won by the youth. During “Disco” the audience stormed the stage and turned it into their dancefloor. Despite the fact that it was epic, the chaos caused a ton of technical difficulties, which led to Surf Curse momentarily leaving the stage to regroup.

SEE THE CLIP OF SURF CURSE PLAYING “DISCO”: HERE

Photo by Syd Trip

When Surf Curse returned to finish their set the ecstatic energy was still present. The pit was raging as people were getting hit from all angles. The band played songs from all of their albums and EP’s, including fan favorites like “Freaks” and “Heathers”. Their set was electric from the beginning and it never showed any signs of slowing down until they played their last note.

SEE THE FULL GALLERY FROM THE SHOW: HERE

After the show was over I was able to sit down and chat with Maddy Boyd, better known as Your Angel. Read the full interview below.

Interview With Your Angel

by isaac Foster

Photo By Robert Nuñez

Hello, could you please introduce yourself?

Hi! I’m Maddy Boyd and my project is called Your Angel and that’s about it.

So Maddy, what got you into making music?

I grew up in a really small town in New Mexico and I was really bored. Am I allowed to cuss in this?

Yes, of course.

Nobody in my family played music, but everyone really loved music. I had a friend who had a guitar at her house so I always went there and fucked around on Garage Band. So yeah, I was just really bored and loved music. 

Your Angel is not your first project, right?

I’ve played in Surf Curse, Current Joys, Brutus Viii, and other people’s projects. Your Angel is the first project that is mine. 

How did working with Surf Curse and Current Joys influence your sound?

I don’t think it necessarily influenced my sound since I’ve always been doing that. Playing music in front of people was very outside of my realm growing up. It did not seem like something that would be real for me. I learned so much from them about touring and how to play a show. I never fucking played a real show. I used to bust on the sidewalk, that was my extent of playing in front of people. They did not necessarily influence my sound but they taught me everything about anything in regards to playing shows. They’re also really close friends, like family to me.

There was a huge crowd tonight, to say the least. Since this was Your Angel’s third show, was it nerve-racking for you to be up there in front of all those people? 

Uhhhh no. It’s weird because I’ve been touring in those bands and playing for a lot of people but I’m not in the center and nobody’s looking at me. Yeah, it’s fucking weird. This was a weird third show to play. It was really fun and amazing. I expected to have a harder time than I actually did. Before I was freaking out but then once I was doing it I was fine because everyone was really supportive.

Pipe Dream is your first release and the single off your album. Are you referencing a pipe to smoke? A pipe for Mario Brothers? A PVC pipe? What kind of pipe are we talking about here?

*Laughter* None of the above. A pipe dream is something out of reach. For me, it was in the context of a relationship. I was trying to create something out of something that could never be.

I’ve been there.

We’ve all been there baby. It’s just not accepting something for what it is and trying to make it into something that you thought was initially and not being able to let go of that.

What were your inspirations for this album?

When I was growing up my mom fucks with Prince and The Smiths and all that shit. But my dad was strictly country, half the time I grew up on the farm like Willie and The Boys. Real country is all he ever played. When I was making this record I listened to a lot of Kate Bush and Beach House and a lot of Marty Robbins who’s a country artist from the Johnny Cash era. When I made this record I did not know what the fuck I was doing and I think that’s why it sounds the way it does. It was the first time a had recording software so I bought a MIDI keyboard and a bunch of shitty synths from thrift stores, they were basically toy keyboards. I fucked around because I really really didn’t know what I was doing. I made demos and took them to my friend Nick James who’s my best friend in the whole world. He knows how to engineer and we recorded with live bass and drums instead because I had shitty MIDI drums. Those demos sound so heinous dude. I’ve gotten better now but the demos for this record so fucking bad. He made it sound good. I think a lot of the sound of this record has to do with the fact that I had no idea what I was doing in a very real way.

I know you released the album last year, but do you have any other plans in your foresight?

Yeah. Just keep playing shows. I make a lot of shit. I have half a record done. I am just going to keep playing shows and put shit out, doing the band thing. I’m trying to not get ahead of myself. A lot of people like to get ahead of themselves in this shit.