(((folkYEAH!))) Presents - Surprise Chef

Name: (((folkYEAH!))) Presents - Surprise Chef
Start: 2025-07-26T21:00:00-07:00
Location: Moe's Alley, Santa Cruz

Schedule

Sat, 26 Jul, 2025 at 09:00 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

Moe's Alley, Santa Cruz | Capitola, CA

(((folkYEAH!))) presents Surprise Chef!
Saturday, July 26th
Doors: 8pm / Show: 9pm
$22 in advance / $25 day of the show
21+
*Tickets on sale Friday, Feb. 7th at 9am PT*
SURPRISE CHEF
From little things, instrumental juggernauts grow.
The members of Surprise Chef first gathered in 2017 with the modest aim of recording to tape a couple of spontaneous funk jams. As planned, those analogue sessions gave rise to a series of collectable 45’s but the unexpected gold they uncovered was a chemistry and camaraderie that has come to define the lives of the band-members ever since.
Three LP’s and countless international tours later, Surprise Chef is globally recognized and respected with their emotive brand of cinematic soul, a sound that has been informed equally by their isolation in Australia and their deep love for soul, funk and classic film-scores. Their first album, All News Is Good News, established the foundation for their distinctive sound, and each subsequent release has pushed their creative boundaries. Along the journey they've garnered praise from the likes of Questlove and Jurassic 5's DJ Nu-Mark and were sampled for a collaboration between 88 Rising's Rich Brian and Wu Tang's legendary Ghostface Killah. They also provided the soundtrack to a Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime advertisement.
After spending the first half of 2024 immersed in their critically acclaimed re-score of the 1970s Australian cult classic Wake in Fright - performed live alongside a never-before-seen 4K screening of the movie - the band found themselves in an entirely new creative space. Fresh from the intensity of that project, the recording sessions for Superb were intended to be the opposite process-wise; lighter, less intense, more free and spontaneous.
Guitarist and songwriter, Lachlan Stuckey says: “Superb was a real shift in process for us… we care a great deal about the music we make being purposeful and meaningful and that mentality has given birth to a bunch of records we’re really proud of, but also can leave little room for spontaneity. On this record
we wanted to embrace a kind of unbridled joy that inspired us when we first started making music. Making Superb showed us that when we’re more relaxed during the process, we get a whole different kind of record out of it.”