Beach Fly is delivering fun and relaxing island inspired music
Beach Fly frontman, John DeMari. Photo courtesy of Beach Fly.
Daily Reggae recently had the opportunity to get to know Beach Fly, the new project from John DeMari of the 2 Minute Pod.
Hi John! Congratulations on such an epic launch and start to your band, Beach Fly!
We are absolutely loving the music so far! So, living in Florida, I imagine you spend a lot of time at the beach! How did the name Beach Fly come about, and do you have a favorite beach?
Hey guys! Thanks for having me on Daily Reggae! Appreciate you very much and glad to hear you're digging the tunes.
Yes, you're definitely right, we are a band of beach fanatics. I grew up spending most of my days at the beach. Often racing home after school to get a surf session in with friends.
The beach and beach culture (like reggae music) have been a huge part of my life and have shaped me tremendously into who I am. Pops, our lead guitar player was a lifeguard for 10 years, and a photographer for Quicksilver and Roxy. Our percussionist Sven is an insanely talented surfer who sends it on some of the world's craziest, most dangerous waves, like Pipeline and Waimea in Hawaii.
We are all watermen and both the ocean and the beach are incredibly special to us. It's hard to pick a favorite beach, every beach has something special going for it, and it's all about your own memories on your own favorite beach anyway!
But every beach deserves to be clean too. We love a good beach cleanup, and plan to organize many. Anything we can do with the band to make a dent in our ocean's plastic problem.
We recently produced our first run of Beach Fly merch, and the T-shirts are made of 100% recycled material. We plan to use recycled pieces exclusively for all of our clothing lines and merch lines, and also donate a percentage of merch profits to beach cleanup organizations.
Beach Fly percussionist Sven catching a giant wave! Photo courtesy of Beach Fly.
All of that to say that the beach and the oceans mean a lot to us, and when it was time to come up with a band name, it was pretty obvious where to turn. All three of us, we grew up for at least part of our lives on a small, island beach town called Brigantine, New Jersey. On this island lives a specific type of fly that locals call the "greenhead". They're kind of a staple character for any Brigantine beach day. And you can only find them on this one, small island.
Despite their pesky nature, we kind of have an odd local pride for these buggers. It's like a weird love/hate insect patriotism thing. So the name Beach Fly is a tribute to our love for the beach and a nod to these infamous "Greenheads" from Brigantine.
Plus, our motto, "Fly High Today!" ties it all together. It means to be the best person you can be, and to rise up above any bad vibes.
Your single, “Thinking Of You” featuring Claire Wright is a jam! Your and Claire’s vocals compliment each other so well, and I love the relaxing lyrics and hook. How did this song come about and any memorable stories around its creation?
Yes! Thank you! Super stoked you're enjoying this one, it's one of our favorites too. Honestly this song had a completely different chorus for like 3 months when Pops and I were writing it.
I remember putting the song aside, not thinking it was anything special. Then one day, I revisited the voice memo and thought, "What if I switched up the chorus?" I started a new voice memo recording, and immediately "I'm thinking of you" came out of my mouth, because, at the time, there was a special someone on my mind! It felt right, so we kept it. Then we got to work, collaborating with Carter Reeves from Surfer Girl to produce the track at his awesome studio in LA.
Claire absolutely crushed it on this song. She's such a talent, and I've been a fan for a while. At the same time while I was writing this song, Claire and I started to become good friends. We met for the first time at an Expendables concert at Cafe Davinci in Deland, Florida, and immediately got along well.
We did a 2 Minute Podcast together and then stayed in touch. Her music has such a great, positive vibe, and when it came time to get something in the bridge section of this song, I immediately thought of her for the part. I sent her over a rough mix, and we were super stoked when she got back to us and said that she loved it and wanted to hop on.
Fun fact, she recorded her verse at Carter's studio in LA like 10 hours after crushing her set at the Cali Vibes music festival. I remember FaceTiming them from Florida during it, and it was a great vibe. Another dope fact is this song was mixed by the legendary Johnny Cosmic. He's one of my biggest musical inspirations, and in my opinion, one of the most talented producers in all of reggae, and he also rocks the stage as a member of Stick Figure.
We got to know each other well at the Camp Navarro music festival, and he was super gracious, offering to help us with production. Having somebody as talented as Johnny involved this early on is something we are super grateful for, and he really took "Thinking of You" to the next level.
It’s rad to see that you’re joining Surfer Girl’s “Sunset Tour”! How are you preparing for the tour and what can fans expect when seeing Beach Fly live? How did you joining the tour all come about?
Yes! So glad you brought this up. We are beyond stoked for the Sunset Tour! I will start off by saying that Surfer Girl quickly became one of my favorite bands after I first heard their debut EP. And I mean like, I knew all the words, super fan, favorite band status. So I was extremely stoked when I had Carter on the 2 Minute Podcast, and we got along really well.
Then he had a show near me in Cocoa Beach, and we went out for a surf together after the show. Us and the Stokeciety crew, we all had a great time, and Carter and I became friends after that day of adventure.
A week later we were both at the Camp Navarro music festival in California. Him performing, and me doing 2 Minute Podcast interviews. This festival organizes these big group campfire jams after the concerts. At one of those, Carter and I played music together for the first time, and he heard my original songs.
Afterwards, on our drives home, he offered to produce our first songs, and I couldn't believe it! I mean this was one of my favorite artists! I couldn't get the smile off my face. Sure enough, a couple weeks later, I was on a plane flying to California to produce our first albums worth of songs with Carter. It was a wild dream come true.
Since then, Carter has been helping us and mentoring me through the music industry. Getting invited on this tour was surreal, and we are all very honored. When it comes to the shows, I'll say, Beach Fly is about fun, and enjoying life, and having a great time.
So we are definitely gonna have a lot of fun on stage. It's gonna be a good time. So don't miss us!
We will be rocking down the whole East Coast, from Vermont to Florida, with a midwest run hitting cities like Chicago and St. Louis. Hope to see you out there!
Photo courtesy of Beach Fly.
Do you have a favorite place to write new tunes? And do you usually write music with a guitar in hand?
I like to travel with my guitar everywhere, because sometimes ideas show up in the most unusual of places. And I don't wanna miss the ideas when they come.
For me, I like to write anywhere with a cool view of nature, or somewhere surrounded by the ones I love, or better yet, both. So I guess lol like, around a campfire with friends, at the top of a mountain, overlooking a beautiful beach, that would be the perfect place to write a song.
What else should fans know about Beach Fly?! Are you open to collaborating with more artists in the future?
I mean, we are just really excited we feel really great about this project. So much love.
And it's all fresh to me, I mean, I'm 20 years old, and I've never experienced a lot of the stuff that's been happening. So it's pretty cool. We are super grateful for our fans! So far, it's a small but mighty group, and they know who they are, and we really love them.
Beyond grateful for anyone that's been listening to our songs. Or following along on social media, or showing up to our first shows. It means more than the world.
We have a lot of super exciting stuff planned, that I wish I could talk about. But as far as collaborations, I will absolutely leak here for the first time publicly, that we have a song featuring Surfer Girl called "Tall Grass" coming out in November, and let me say, wow. We truly can't wait for everyone to hear it.
Thanks so much for having us Daily Reggae! You can find us on instagram @beachflymusic and wherever you stream your music, as "Beach Fly". Fly high today!
