Beach Fossils will release the 10-year anniversary edition of their self-titled debut album via Bayonet Records this fall. The album is available for purchase here..
The band’s Dustin Payseur reflects on the milestone in his own words:
“Wow, ten years… what the fuck? A friend recently asked me if it feels like it’s been a decade since the first Beach Fossils record came out – the answer is yes and no. I was new to New York, my apartment was horrible, it was full of mice and always flooding, I had no money to buy groceries so I was just starving all the time, but I was constantly working on music and that’s all that mattered. Being hungry and lonely and terrified and naive made me passionate about making music because I had nothing to lose.
For me, this record was about escapism. In my mind I was escaping New York, I was escaping loneliness, I was escaping hunger. I was burned out and needed to write songs that made me feel better. I felt like the world was a cold, hard place and I knew a lot of other people felt that way too. I was meditating a lot and learned that meditation could teach you to be at peace with these feelings, so with this album I wanted to create an environment where people could disappear and get lost for a little bit.
I was trying not to have any control over the music, to just let it come out of me. My goal was to channel it without changing it or owning it, the music was free to do what it wanted. Nobody knew who I was so I thought, “what is there to lose?!” Well it turns out the answer is you have nothing to lose, and all of a sudden you turn around and you’ve been putting out records and touring for ten years. It’s strange and beautiful.
I still feel like it’s just the beginning; having this band helps me grow and constantly teaches me new things. No matter how much time has passed, that hungry feeling never goes away. It’s always there and it’s always necessary. When someone tells me that a song I wrote saved their life, that’s the most meaningful thing I could ever hear, it’s the reason I do it. These songs quite literally saved my life as well.
Here’s to another ten years.”
Accompanying the 10-year anniversary edition is the limited edition “Vacation” 7-inch with previously unreleased song “Time.” Payseur says:
“My sister actually took the photo of me in Prospect Park in 2009 when she came to visit and I always liked it, it’s a double exposure film photo from a medium format camera. Anyway, the song got posted on Pitchfork and was announced as a forthcoming 7″ to be co-released by Woodsist and Captured Tracks. Well, Woodsist later decided they were too busy to do a co-release and let me go. Captured Tracks then released the Daydream 7″ and we got busy focusing on the debut LP. So Daydream was the only 7″ to come out before the self-titled dropped. Long story short (or not so short) my idea is that this could be the 7″ that was supposed to be, but never was.”
