Band of Frequencies

On October 1, 2011 Band of Frequencies will embark on a month long voyage down the Californian coast with free surfer/environmentalist Dave Rastovich and his non-profit organization Surfers for Cetaceans (S4C).

OFA caught up with the band at Joe’s Waterhole for their brilliant psychedelia, roots, rock and soul fundraising gig Friday, September 23.

Their journey, called Transparent Sea USA, involves sailing kayaks from Santa Barbara to Mexico with an entourage of surfers, environmentalists, artists and musicians travelling the coastline as they follow the annual migration of Grey Whales. Along the way they will all be involved in daily beach clean ups, performing live music at community events and sharing information to highlight the plight of marine mammals (Cetaceans) and relevant coastal environment issues.

Band of Frequencies lead singer and guitarist Sol Carroll said “It’s about getting communities involved in protecting their own environment.”

On the way the crew will come to port for four major regional events. Each night they will host a screening of Minds in The Water documentary, followed by Band of Frequencies live performances, art shows & auctions and in support of Surfer’s for Cetaceans and other ocean minded charities.

Follow their voyage at www.transparentseavoyage.com and www.bandoffrequencies.com

If you are passionate about the oceans future (and your own), then check out www.s4cglobal.org they would love your support.

Band of Frequencies has also recently provided music for a powerful indigenous documentary, “Our Generation”, about the oldest culture in the world and their fight for survival.

“We are stoked to be a part of the film, we’re massive fans of the film and full supporters of what they are doing,” said Sol.

Check out the film here: www.ourgeneration.org.au

Band of Frequencies return home mid December to expand our minds once again, with the release of their new single ‘All I’ve Found‘ sporting a film clip featuring surf legend George Greenough. The release will coincide with their performance at Woodford Folk Festival 2011. Sneak peek here.

Safe travels guys! We all look forward to sharing in your sounds and creativity soon. - Our Festivals Australia

Frontman SHANNON SOL CARROLL of bluesy rock trio BAND OF FREQUENCIES chats to NINA BASSON about the Bleach* Festival, surf culture and free spirited music.
Band Of Frequencies have just returned from touring California and Hawaii, writing a song a day for 23 days as part of the Transparentsea Voyage, which aimed to raise awareness of ocean conservation issues. The band’s connection to the ocean is instantly apparent, and although their eclectic blues, funk and reggae-influenced sound could not be called straight up surf, Shannon says they are absolutely a part of the scene. “The whole labelling thing is pretty much irrelevant these days. Surf has taken on so many forms over the years and so many styles.” He agrees that if you play music, and you surf, it means you play surf music. “If you’re an artist and you surf, then you are developing and influenced by that lifestyle choice. It just comes through. I think for anyone who does any form of art or filmmaking or anything inspired by the ocean, it’ll be an element.”
Shannon also feels that a strong spiritual connection exists between music and surfing. “I think there’s a spiritual connection between being in the ocean and doing anything really – music is such a direct reflection of where you’re at – where your heart’s at and where your head’s at, and the ocean is so much a part of that balance, so it just comes out without thinking too much about it really.”
This spiritual balance and harmony seem to be a recurring theme in Band Of Frequencies’ songs, and Shannon’s lyrics often refer to freedom and liberation. I ask him if this freedom correlates with the liberating feeling of surfing itself. “It’s freedom across the board, really. It’s freedom from your own thoughts and your own concepts and external concepts from society; freedom to express yourself honestly. Freedom to be as you see fit in that moment, in every moment. A lot of those concepts tend to be concepts that I personally as a lyricist and a writer … [am] aspiring to achieve I suppose. It’s not always possible, but writing about it, thinking about it, and expressing it is a constant reminder for me as a person to return to that complete space of no thought, just trying to return to the source of it all, and gaining the freedom to express from that source. It’s not a new concept, you know, but we all need reminders – any reminder we can get.”
Band Of Frequencies are looking forward to playing the upcoming surf culture and music festival Bleach* and although they’ll only be around for the first weekend, Shannon is keen to catch all the other artists he can. “It’s a great festival, there’s a great crew who are putting it together, a great line-up, it should be a really interesting event … All the artists I’ve seen, and the musicians I’ve seen on the line-up are stellar, they’re really well selected and really amazing.”
As a band known for their collaborative nature, I ask Shannon whom we’ll be seeing on stage with Band Of Frequencies at the festival. “We always like to have a jam, so it all depends on who’s around and gets roped in,” he laughs. - RAVE Magazine

As surfer’s we are always embarking on that epic road trip. From the then to the now, surfers world wide have packed up the Kombi, Wagon, Van or UTE taking off to the horizon, following the waves, the freedom. And as modern technology pushes us further beyond the imagination, it is humbling to step back in time and take in the good ol’ days. Especially when that inside look at the times before comes from behind the camera of the very forward thinking George Greenough.

Recently George and good friends The Band of Frequencies got together to put music to movie, coming up with an amazing film clip titled “All I’ve Found”. We love George and the Freq’s, and thought we should have a bit of chat with band front man Shannon Sol Carroll to hear a bit about the making of the soundtrack and working with George.

Working with George Greenough is not something just any group of funky musicians can do. How did that relationship come about and what was it like to work with him?

We first met with Andrew Crockett around the time his book Switch-foot was coming together. It is always great hanging out with George. We usually just have a laugh, talk story and then he will come up with a new left field concept regarding whatever we are talking about. He is a really innovative human being, regardless of the subject or context, so working with him is always an exploratory process of seeing things in a new light and coming up with a fresh approach.

How was it coming together as a band to fuse a piece of new music to such nostalgic footage?


It is always a new experience. We’ve improvised a lot of soundtracks to George’s footage before and it always feels like we are bringing present life into a past moment. It’s like time travel in a way, bringing the past into present. Our first idea was to pay homage to ‘The Farm’, the band who composed and recorded the soundtrack to Georges legendary film ‘The Inner Most Limits of Pure Fun’. The footage from this film clip is all from around the same era and we love that soundtrack so it seemed to make sense. But as I watched the silent footage at home I just started playing spacey sound-scapes with acoustic guitar and delays and the theme of this life being a never-ending journey came through. The footage features all these snippets of classic cars on surf adventures off the beaten track over the years so the theme seemed to all fall into place. When we were in the studio the band hadn’t even heard the song yet and at first we toyed with making it into a driving shuffle reminiscent of The Farm’s track in ‘Coming of the Dawn’. It was cool but felt a bit like we were going back into the past rather than staying present. George is such a forward thinker that going retro didn’t seem to fit. I’ve been getting into various electronic composers sonic explorations lately so we tried an approach influenced by that, even though we kept the instrumentation as a live band. I like the blend, but I’m also itching to hear it remixed!

Where did you record the track?

We recorded it at BlackBox Studios in Brisbane with Jeff Lovejoy at the helm. His production skills are second to none and he’s an expert in capturing the live essence of the band. I played my demo version to the band, then we rehearsed it while Jeff got a mix together and then we laid it down in a few takes onto tape. There’s a whole bunch of instrumental outtakes and jams there as well so it’ll be good to check out some of those one day.

Did George have much input into the music?

George’s influence is all the way through the session. He always says, “If you don’t go, you’ll never know.” Lyrically that concept is the backbone of the track. Musically, he likes the bass to be rolling, driving and for the band to “have some horsepower’, so that influence was present in the studio also. George is always thinking about new and better ways to re-design, re-approach or re-create so it only fits that we should approach the sounds in that way.

What are the differences when trying to organize a track for someone else’s creative visual piece compared to writing a song without visuals for a record?

It is different in that it guides your creativity a little more. Themes emerge and there are certain subjects and marker points that jump out as being highlights. Once I had watched the footage a lot I then let the images and the stories that George told conjure up the emotions that I felt before sketching out the basic story. It works well for me as a writer and the band has always really gelled well whilst improvising soundtracks to film so it’s a winning combination.

The Band of Frequencies just came off a completely different style of road trip, joining Dave Rastovich on the TransparentSea Voyage USA. What were some of the highlights from the journey?

There were so many highlights. Being on a trip down the Californian Coast with an eclectic bunch of surfers, artists, shapers, filmmakers, producers, musicians and creative environmentalists was just epic! We wrote and recorded a song a day for 23 days and uploaded it with artwork to the website as our contribution to the voyage. It was great to collaborate with such inspiring and unique artists as Will Connor, Angus Stone and the whole crew along the way. (The album, is available for download at www.transparentseavoyage.com with all proceeds going to the cause.) It was great to meet people in each location who were passionate and engaged in protecting their coastal environment. Every coast line on the planet needs local, active stewards to keep an eye on what is affecting their local ecosystems and protect them from other humans and corporations that may not care as much about our ocean and this planets natural wonders. Meeting more of those kinds of people and seeing how much of a difference we all make was definitely a highlight.

Tell us a bit more about the new EP?


The new EP, All I’ve Found, is a limited edition release featuring a frame grab of George Greenough from ‘The Innermost Limits of Pure Fun’ on the front cover. It has seven tracks filling 26 minutes with the Freq’s signature blend of exploratory roots, rock, reggae, space blues, psychedelic jams and acoustic bliss-outs. There are a couple of tunes from our forthcoming album ‘Rise like the Sun’ and some extra tracks that will never be released again. The theme song to the ‘’Minds in the Water’ documentary is on there as well as a cosmic surf guitars jam called ‘Primordial Soup”. The last bonus track is an acoustic composition written for a short film featuring Dave Rastovich that explores surfboard designs and music that follow the Fibonacci sequence, (0,0,1,2,3,5,8… etc.) It was recorded in Dave’s tipi and even the crackling of the fire can be heard in the recording.

What is in store for the Freq’s in 2012?


We have a calendar full of infinite possibilities at the moment. We will release our new album ‘Rise like the Sun’ later in the year and tour Australia to launch that. We are also planning to tour several very amazing locations with great waves and music but that is not locked in yet so we will have to wait and see. Next month on March 12th we are playing during the Noosa Festival of Surfing with my fathers band ‘Moonstone’ at the Noosa Surf Club. ‘Moonstone’ were the band that played the soundtrack to life in Coolangatta back in 1970-72 so it’ll be great to jam with them and see who comes out of the woodwork for that. Otherwise we’ll just be making music in our local neighbourhood and getting in the water whenever possible. - SURFERS EYES

You guys were one of the best live acts seen in Noosa ever, so thank you for your awesome sets and sounds. Georgie Hannon USM events - USM Events

If Hendrix was a keen surfer I’m sure he would have asked these boys to be in his backing band at one stage or another. Dave Atkins. - Wolfmother. Resin Dogs. - Vitamin Records

The grooves and beats on this album are second to none. They are funky, yet they still display a bit of chill. Although the album is heavy on the instrumental side, the lyrical end is great as well. In fact, they've even enlisted Australian blues sensation Ash Grunwald to sing and play on one track. Surfer Dave Rastovich, who is a good friend of the band, has also lent his musical talents to the album. These guys can be considered a jam band, but their music is not just about playing for hours. It's about making a connection between their lives and the lives of their listeners. The album even culminated with a 38+ minute song. B.O.F. are amazing musicians and this album is one that is a diamond in the rough. Once the rest of the world finds out about these guys, they are sure to take off. - This is Modern

Band Of Frequencies are consummate musos, who don’t mind a good jam! They can effortlessly glide between grooves, flavours, melodies...even colours for that matter. Ash Grunwald - Vitamin Records

"The Band Of Frequencies sound was a spiritual mix between vintage Santana and Xavier Rudd or something. All I know is that I, along with the rest of the fans in attendance was entranced." Chris Cote - Transworld Surf USA

"Prepare to have your musical thirst quenched. Byron Bay's Band of Frequencies dabbles in the whole pallet of musical genres; Bluesy rock drips away into skull-melting lullabies that pitter-patter like rain into jazz-fusion grooves that inevitably wander off somewhere else altogether." Travis Ferre - US Surfing Magazine

2008 signals a watershed -- not to mention busy -- year for composer, multi-instrumentalist, and groove producer Shawn Lee. First there was the brilliant Miles of Styles, on which Lee indulged folk, funk, and exotica styles from across the globe. Next was the strange, spaced out Walking Backwards collaboration with mysterious production persona Clutchy Hopkins, that combined funk, soundtrack, and library sounds in a heady but moody brew. Under the Sun, the official soundtrack for the film of the same name by Australian director Cyrus Sutton, is the third entry in Lee's catalog this year. The movie is a documentary about the surf industry via the life of two Gold Coast towns utterly wrapped up in it. Lee composed and performed most of the instruments on his 28 cues. While it does embrace the "feel" of surf records from the early 1960s, the take is anything but straight. Lee doesn't attempt to re-create the Ventures or Dick Dale. Instead, his move is to try to re-create the atmospheric conditions that the film centers on in its portrayal of the surf industry. Sun-drenched soundscapes filled with guitars, harmonicas, snare drums, Farfisa organs, and harmonicas (the latter, à la Ennio Morricone) slip and slide together in this glorious batch of tunes. This is as much an homage to the resort teensploitation films of the era as it is a salute to surfing, and as such it works wonderfully. This is pure beat-conscious soundtrack music with a hint of nostalgia in its strictly modernist approach.

The second disc in this package contains 11 tracks by three bands closely associated with the Australian surf scene: Afro Dizzi Act, Low Pressure Sound System, and the Band of Frequencies collective. "Drop Off" is a labyrinthine ten-plus minute track that evokes the entire surf journey, from paddling out to catch a wave, grabbing it, and "entering the zone" while riding it in. The tension ebbs and flows and eventually ratchets up without losing any of its blissed-out melodic groove. Keyboards, loops, and breakbeats, rounded jazzy guitars, and a spacious mix make this one of the great bonuses on the package. "Spoonbender" is another lengthy cut at 11 minutes. Performed by Band of Frequencies, it is designed as a sonically adventurous tribute to the Australian surf hero George Greenough. Here, hand percussion, upright basslines, skittering hi-hats, and dreamy tripped out wah-wah guitars and even a Wurlitzer create a dub-like spacious effect. All of their contributions here were made after days of nonstop multi-track recording. The Band of Frequencies collective is made up of members from Afro Dizzi Act and surfer Dave Rastovich. Their tracks are immediately recognizable, since they play a party-centric meld of psychedelic guitar rock, hard, funky neo-soul, and blues. Check their raucous "Sol Train" for reference.

Whether you listen only to Lee's brilliant soundtrack, these more indigenous contributions from the land down under, or all of the above, this package -- sold for a super budget price -- is a welcome addition to any shelf where (mostly) instrumental music is enjoyed. Look for the Lee tracks to be sampled endlessly in the future. Any way you go, you can't lose. Lee is full of surprises and this may be his biggest and best one yet. ~ Thom Jurek - CD Universe

The boys from Band Of Frequencies live on the beach, surf every day and get to play music for a living. Is there anything crap about their lives?

If there is, they don’t concentrate on it, says singer Shannon ‘Sol’ Carroll, who’s fresh from Ash Grunwald’s bucks party in Byron Bay. In between doing cool stuff, Band Of Frequencies squeeze in other cool stuff, like playing the upcoming Kirra Surfstock Festival.

"We're really looking forward to it; it's going to be a great gig by the look of it. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the other bands who are playing too. It's going to be good playing there. I was conceived in Kirra … so it'll be good to go home again,” Sol jokes.

“We're really grateful to be able to play these festivals and share the bill with a lot of amazing artists. We're playing another one called Golden Days in Coolum (Nov. 6) … and we're looking forward to that one as well. So in the next two weeks there'll be two great festivals with good line-ups, for good causes and good information to be passed around to the community. It's really a blessing to be asked to be a part of it.”

Aside from the awesome line-up of Gavin Doniger’s Mescalito Blues and Tokyo Beef to name a few, the two-day Kirra Surfstock Festival is aiming to raise awareness of coastal management issues affecting Gold Coast surfing spots.

“They've been lobbying to get Kirra Point back in action and get the sand pumping shifted so it's a good cause. It's been a long time since Kirra's been in form as a surf break ... it's just not the same as it used to be.”

Band Of Frequencies have been working on a new album for the past 18 months and hope to get it out early next year. Sol says although the band won’t be debuting any new stuff at Kirra, they’re preparing a killer set.

“We've got an exciting set lined up; we'll be playing with Dave Atkins and he's a monster drummer. Plus there’ll be a few other surprises. But we don't want to let the cat out of the bag.” - Scene Magazine

Far from dead, as the late great Jimi Hendrix once proclaimed, surf music appears to be alive and well and morphing and evolving into a stunning variety of hybrid species. Jack Johnson’s new album, To The Sea, leaps straight to the top of the charts. Those dudes from Midnight Oil and Violent Femmes are calling themselves The Break, and playing surf twang ditties named after surf breaks (Cylinders, Winiki Pop, Massacres, get it?) Tom Curren, Donovan Frankenreiter, Beau and Nava Young, Timmy Curran, Andrew Kidman and his Brown Birds, The Beautiful Girls, the astounding Goons of Doom - the list of surfers turned musoes is long and strange and getting longer and stranger. Everything from nuevo folk hippy warbling to thrash punk to speed metal can lay claim to the surf music tag these days.

Now, some of these folk are more musician than surfer, claiming the surf tag as an easy marketing contrivance. Some are more surfer than musician, bedroom noodlers who thought the muso makeover might add to their career CV and woo sponsors. Short of staging some kind of appalling battle of the surf bands shindig, with heats in the water by day and gigs by night, how do we begin to ajudge the genuine leaders of this dynamic cultural form? That is, top flight musicians who are also lifelong accomplished surfers. Despite my enormous fondness and regard for many of the afore-mentioned talents, I’d like to use this self-appointed platform to cast my vote for one Shannon “Sol” Carroll, and his various musical collaborations - Band of Frequencies, Affro-dizi-act, the Life Like Liquid soundtrack, and a vast catalogue of irresistible, good-vibing tunes and memorable live performances.

I caught a recent set by BOF at the stupendous Sound Lounge, in downtown Currumbin, and was stunned all over again by the musical powers of this prodigious talent. Shannon has the music gene in his DNA - he’s the son of the drummer of 70s band Moonstone, Alan Carroll. On stage, he appears to be having as much fun as a teenage kid playing the tennis racket in his bedroom, almost oblivious to the crowd, transported by the music, eyes closed, fingers dancing over the neck of his Stratocaster, husky vocals emanating like expressions of pure rapture. The only performer I’ve seen attain such a state is the late Jeff Buckley but Shannon probably has more in common with Jeff’s old man, Tim - old school, rockin’ funk ‘n’ groove that transcends time and genres.


The band are tight and the intimate familiarity shared with long-time bassist OJ “the Juice” Newcomb and drummer Mark Henman allow them to improvise and turn each song into a spontaneous jam. Lesser bands tend to have more fun doing this than the audience, but BOF take the crowd with them on these dizzying ascents into improvisation and it would take a cold corpse indeed to remain immobile through their set.

Dave Rastovich is among a regular floating pool of guest musoes who play with BOF, and on this night he takes the stage armed with a humble “kalimba” or thumb piano, a small, hollow wooden instrument with metal keys which one plays with the thumbs. Now, I am an unabashed admirer of Dave and his various creative and environmental endeavours. But as he mounts the stage this night, resplendent in his “Save the Pelicans” t-shirt and armed with his little African folk instrument, the cynic in me wonders if there is any quaint indigenous instrument and worthy eco-cause safe from his attentions. I sense an impending “Spinal Tap” moment, akin to the miniature Stone Henge descending from the heavens. How Rasta plans on joining in the Frequencies’ wailing, funk grooves on his thumb piano seems beyond me. With almost comic effect he plugs the thing in to an amp. Of course, it is an electric kalimba! This will be good, I chortle to myself. Dave is a wholly untrained musician jumping on stage with some of the most accomplished players in the country, yet remains gloriously undaunted. Lo and behold, he starts up a hypnotic, chiming riff on the kalimba and one by one, the band joins in until the whole thing takes off into a freeform, spontaneous, spacey groove, the sort of thing we might beam into other galaxies to try and communicate with higher life forms in a universal language.

There are plenty of accomplished musicians out there. But only a few manage to attain a state where they become a finely tuned antennae to swirling cosmic forces, channeling unseen spiritual energies and transforming a live music performance into a transcendental experience. I know, I’m gushing, but I just happen to believe Band of Frequencies and their other-worldly frontman are that good. Catch them if you can. - Tim Baker
- Surfing World Magazine