Chillingsworth Surfingham is to John Ashfield as Pee-Wee Herman is to Paul Reubens—except Reubens never wore an unwieldy and visually limiting, over-the-head bear mask that subjects Ashfield’s cranium to uncomfortably high temperatures.

 

This is where it’s more than acceptable to laud Ashfield with the cliché, “suffering for your art.”

 

There’s more. Chillingsworth Surfingham is not just an isolated character, he is also the namesake of namesake of Ashfield’s progressive surf band, Chillingsworth Surfingham.

 

Chillingsworth’s alter-ego is a music teacher and multi-instrumentalist with a vast knowledge of arrangement and production techniques, as well as possessing the chops to conjure most of the ideas spinning around his brain into the parts he plays on his recordings. The band’s first album, Chillingsworth Surfingham (2021), and its most recent release, Mavericks (2024), are informed by Ashfield’s deep and diverse musicality—even though his extensive influences sometimes means his surf compositions might end sounding more like Roxette than the Ventures.

 

“When I began the Mavericks project, my husband said, ‘You need to finally write a traditional surf song,’” relates Ashfield. “Well, ‘Emergency Bear’ and ‘Nancy Drew Mysteries’ were my attempts at ‘trad” surf,’ and they are not that [laughs].”  

 

Chillingsworth Surfingham’s modified and futuristic approach to surf music is also swayed by Ashfield’s leadership of San Francisco indie-power-pop band The Bobbleheads, the similarly broad influences of Chillingsworth drummer Rob Jacobs and bassist Pat Ennis (who, somewhat unsurprising, also play in The Bobbleheads), and the madcap surf and garage-rock sensibilities of co-guitarist Lewis Bailey (confusing matters even further, Ashfield plays in Bailey’s band, the NovaRays, as does Jacobs).

 

At this point, you might assume the conceptual potpourri shared by Chillingsworth Surfingham’s members would serve to produce the musical equivalent of a dark and foamy churning surf. It does not. While Ashfield honors the varied input of his bandmates, his steady hand and production smarts keeps the musical mélange focused, full of hooks, and fun as all hell.

 

Let’s talk about the genesis and musical concept of Mavericks…

 

Well, I've never really had a business plan for anything. In fact, the first album was an accidental COVID lockdown kind of thing. I didn't even go into it with the notion, “Oh, I want to play surf guitar”—although I've always loved surf guitar—it just happened that way.

 

How so?

 

I was planning an entire album for The Bobbleheads, and the idea was to get everybody to record their parts at home, as COVID made it impossible to record all together in a studio. But the other guys weren't into it. Perhaps, they were too depressed by the lockdown. However, I teach music in an elementary school. I’m used to doing music all the time, and I wanted to keep busy. I wanted the escape of creating music.

 

But then, things got uglier with the anti-lockdown riots and all that stuff, and I found I simply couldn’t write groovy power-pop lyrics anymore. Suddenly, the music became instrumental, and that was fun, because as much as I wish I could sing like Brian Wilson [Beach Boys], my voice is much deeper. But when writing a melody on guitar, I don't need to worry about my range. I can use high notes I could never physically sing and take the melodies to places many vocalists could never reach. It was liberating.

 

Did you refine anything compositionally or production-wise when you started working on Mavericks?

 

Yes. The Chillingsworth Surfingham record was all me. It was recorded on Logic with drum machines—although I had Rob add acoustic drums to the songs later. While Rob is one of those drummers who can play to a click track and not make it sound robotic, I still wanted a different feel for Mavericks than what we got with Chillingsworth Surfingham. I decided to record Mavericks mostly live with the entire band. No drum machines. I wanted a live feel, rather than the sound of an overdubbed or layered approach. There are songs on the first album that we really can’t perform on stage effectively, because I recorded 15 different guitar parts. I’d have to bring every guitarist I know on stage with us to do those tunes [laughs].

 

On the other side, maybe a heavily textured song with multiple instrumental overdubs shouldn’t be expected to work perfectly for live performances. But that’s okay with me, because I’m all down for making a record what it is, and rolling with that.

 

Although, like most songwriters, I assume your process may change from song to song, do you have a foundational approach to composition?

 

I tend to be a linear, rather than a modular writer. I’ll sit down and chart out an intro, verse, chorus, and bridge. As I listen, I might go, “The bridge sucks,” and I’ll try to come up with a better bridge. Sometimes, I’ll get the other parts the way I like them, and I’ll suddenly start hating the intro. Or I’ll feel the chorus is good, but everything surrounding it is garbage. I tend to keep revisiting parts.

 

I fact, I often think of songwriting as building with Legos. It’s like, “Here’s a blue Lego brick. Now I need a red one.” If I get lucky, I envision a whole pile of bricks in front of me and the song pops out on its own. “Fjords” was like that.

​

I should also mention that when I was a kid, I learned how to write songs by listening to Partridge Family albums. Those songs were extremely well-written, Brill Building-style pop songs with key changes, bridges, and little codas that a lot of traditional surf songs don’t have. I absorb everything, and I’m like, “Oh, fun—Judas Priest. Surf songs can have guitar harmonies!” I guess I’ve been influenced by too many records that aren’t surf.

 

To that point, what’s in your songwriter’s idea drawer?

 

Usually some Ultravox, Human League, or Roxette song I heard a million years ago. I got all excited when I was writing “Tator Tots,” because it sounded—to me—like Duran Duran, circa 1982, doing a surf song. Nobody else picks up on that [laughs], but in my head, I literally hear “Rio” as the inspiration for that song.

 

When you first introduce one of your songs to the band, how does the collaborative process unfold?

 

When I record full demos at home, I’ll tell the band that certain parts are compositional and need to stay the way they are. But there are definitely parts where I want the band to improve on what I’ve done. For example, I’d never want Rob to copy the stupid drum fills that Logic automatically adds when there’s a cut in a measure. It’s more like, “I want a fill here. Go for it.”

 

Of course, there are times when someone will say, “I don’t think we need this middle section,” or “The chorus goes on too long,” or “This song should be faster.” I listen to them, because I don’t want to be dictatorial. Who would want to be in a band like that? It has to be fun for them, too.

 

It’s interesting. Good music is made all kinds of ways, but I’m sure we’ve all worked with writers and producers who demand things to be played exactly as they want, as well as creators who toss a song up into the air and depend on their collaborators to mold the final song.

 

Absolutely. But what I love about collaborative bands is that every member brings different flavors to the music. For example, “Tator Tots” sounded like Duran Duran to me. But when Pat heard the song, he was thinking Soundgarden. Rob might have been envisioning Belle and Sebastian, and Lewis was probably off looking for yellow Legos [laughs]. Suddenly, you end up with a different thing—a nice musical conversation—rather than a song all being about my influences. The fun element of music is when you have something a little surprising or different.

 

Do you start writing surf songs from a place of consciously obliterating traditional surf clichés?

 

I should clarify that I love trad surf. Obviously, there are lots of people who do it really well. But the whole thing reminds me of my dad being into barbershop quartets. In the 1970s, that was a big-ass deal. Those dudes would meet at the Moose Lodge or something, get away from their wives and kids, drink beer, sing together, and have these huge barbershop events. But the style almost dwindled away, and I didn’t realize why until my dad asked me to write barbershop arrangements for him. I discovered there was actually a book of rules, and you had to follow those rules to have an arrangement officially sanctioned by societies for the preservation of barbershop quartets in America. What happens when you strictly follow “official structures” is the musical style gets placed under glass and everything starts to sound the same.

 

For example, I once heard a college group of female barbershop vocalists sing “Take A Chance on Me” by ABBA. It was awesome. But my dad’s friends were like, “Well, that’s not really barbershop, because they didn’t perform it with the proper voice leading.”

 

That was a big lesson for me. I saw that the reason the ’60s and ’70s barbershop scene was dying was because it didn’t change. It was staying locked into Korean War veterans getting together at Moose Lodges. I think I’m saying that I'm not into gatekeepers. I've always been a fan of hybrids. I love seeing a band like the Young Barons doing a kind of surf-metal-punk fusion.

 

Have you run up against any gatekeepers of the surf style?

 

Sometimes, but it’s important to understand that nothing starts in a vacuum. Classic surf borrowed stuff from other genres. Dick Dale, for example, was influenced by Arabic and Mexican music. The surf groove? There are a million songs that aren’t surf using that groove. “Please, Please Me” [The Beatles, 1963] has that beat. So, the surf beat is the Mersey beat and vice versa, and who cares? I think we should have the freedom to go forward and not have someone say, “Yeah, that’s not really surf.”

 

This reminds me of the time the Mermen played at a surf convention. They're almost like a Grateful Dead, jam-band experience, and they are very successful. But they just go off at times, and the dude has like 1,000 pedals on his pedalboard. I thought their set was cool, but people were criticizing it.

 

My view was, “Do you want every band playing like the Pyramids [the band that released the surf classic “Penetration” in 1964] for the entire festival?”

 

This brings up an interesting thought about managing the influence of gatekeepers on artists. You’re a music teacher at an elementary school. Can you help young creators understand the benefits of making music with an open mind?

 

At the end of the semester, I let the kids vote to choose the songs for our final concert. The big rule is that nobody can say that a song sucks. I tell them, “That song you think is lousy—maybe somebody else thinks it’s awesome. You have to think about it like food. You might not like sushi, but that doesn’t mean sushi sucks. It just means it’s not for you. It might be really great for someone else, and you might even change your mind later on and like sushi.”

 

I'm super strict about this rule. If someone says something sucks, they don’t get to vote or contribute a song. This approach also lets us discuss music in a more positive way, because every style of music usually has more in common with other styles than it doesn't.

 

Perhaps this is a good time to dig deeper into your attempts to write traditional surf songs. What do you feel prevents you from landing on classic surf themes?

 

Part of the reason is probably because I don't have a deep drawer of traditional surf tricks to pull from. You go where the song wants to go, and those songs didn't want to be totally trad surf.

 

Have you found any practical techniques to help you get back on a surf track?

 

I shouldn’t admit how I tried to write a trad surf song for “Nancy Drew Mysteries.” I started the writing process by playing the intro riff of “Pipeline” [The Chantays, 1963]. But the trad surf door didn’t open for me. Halfway through the composition, “Nancy Drew Mysteries” became a new wave song.

 

Another time, I started by looking up the tempo of “Miserlou” by Dick Dale, which is about as classic surf as you can get. It turned out to be really fast—like 173 beats per minute—so I set up a generic rock beat at that speed, and I jammed to it until I came up with a riff that sounded surfy. Then, it changed. The song still had that “Miserlou”-style drive, but during the writing process, the melody evolved into something less classic surf.

 

What about methods for combating writer’s block in general?

 

I sometimes jumpstart songs by asking myself what I feel like playing. Maybe it’s a guitar technique I haven’t tried before, or something inspired by watching someone. For example, Dal [Mones, Jr.] of the Del-Novas does these crazy B-string bends from behind the nut. I can’t do that like he does, because I’m clumsy, and wearing the bear head restricts my vision. However, his technique might encourage me to use my whammy bar more or stop playing in the positions I always play.

 

So, I have to ask what inspired the bear head?

 

I’m someone who believes presentation is extremely important to a band. So, when I did the first album, I looked up a lot of modern surf bands, and I saw lots of dudes in Hawaiian shirts. I did not want to be another middle-aged dude in a Hawaiian shirt, so I had to find something else to do. Eventually, I found photos of Los Straitjackets in their Mexican wrestling mascaras and Orville Peck wearing his masks, and I thought they were very interesting staging elements. Peck even said the mask enables him to be more himself than if he wasn’t wearing one, because it helps take away some of his self-consciousness. I was sold. I came up with the bear head and thought, “Let’s do this.” Although, there are times when I wish I had picked a funny hat instead. It can get really hot inside that head.

 

What was the initial reaction from audiences?

 

Some people told me they didn’t take Chillingsworth Surfingham seriously at first, because they saw photos of me in the bear head. Part of me gets that, but surf bands have always had gimmicks. Plus—look at rock music. Every performer is usually doing dorky shit because they are trying to be performers. Chillingsworth is a character. In this band, I am a teddy bear who wears a goofy striped shirt, shorts, and Crocs. What’s the problem? I mean, why not have fun? Surfing itself is fun. If you’re going to make music named after something that’s pretty bitchin’, the music and presentation should be entertaining—even amusing.

 

It can be challenging for local bands to produce content, build audiences, play better venues, and make reasonable wages. How do you personally evaluate whether all of the work is worth it?

 

None of us in the band is careering, right? We’re in our 50s and 60s. We just want to be in a cool band and have fun. To me, that’s success.