Close your eyes and you’re there, even if you’ve never been. The surf, the sand, the wood panel station wagon with surfboards hanging out the back; you can see and smell it all thanks to the boys that make up the East LA based duo Cayucas.
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Not since the Beach Boys has the world been treated to the level of sunshine and harmonies that appear on the indie pop band’s new track “Malibu ’79 Long.” Intentionally straying a bit from their more recent poppier, artsier sound, the twin brothers opted for a bit of a different route with their upcoming album Blue Summer.
Having been fantasizing more about living coastal again coupled with their listening to a lot of Beach Boys music, surf sounds were naturally buzzing about in their brains. That kickstarted the writing process for Zach Yudin to not only start writing, but to start writing songs reminiscent of the original demos he wrote for the band in 2011. The strange thing about songwriting however is as much as you might try to steer them, the universe also plays a part in their direction. In the case of “Malibu ’79 Long,” Zach has been unintentionally writing the song over the last decade, he just didn’t know it. It took this time and this headspace for that to be recognized and and the song properly assembled.
“Being obsessed with all things Beach Boys, I built this song with Pet Sounds & Smile in mind,” Zach readily admits. “Tempo changes, key changes, instrumentation. I had the piano chords lodged in the back of my head for literally 7-8 years, I would play those chords whenever I sat at a piano but never turned it into a song.”
Once Zach worked the song to completion, he played it for his twin brother and bandmate Ben only to find the song needed more work. Rewrites are not uncommon, in fact you almost never have a song nailed in its first form, but rather than rewrite the problem area they opted to just hack it off altogether.
“When Ben heard the chorus for the first time & said “can you cut off the last line.” My reaction was kinda like “huh?” but he was right. I deleted the last line of the chorus & it flowed better. It’s a trick we learned from Dennis Herring (producer), just cut it off when it gets boring.”
Cayucas will release their new album Blue Summer on Sept 25 via Park The Van.
Photo Credit: Cara Robbins
