Exclusive track premiere of ‘Dropout’ by LA indie-punks Strawberry Fuzz, taken from their upcoming album, ‘Strongs Dr.’ out January 18th 2023 via CandyShop Recordings.

Strawberry Fuzz’s Strongs Dr. (named after the Venice Beach street on which much of the album was written) is a continuation of their previous releases’ documentation of the dirty underside of LA life, exhibiting a strong, infectious breed of fuzzy Cali surf-punk with an unapologetic bite. As vocalist Colby Rodgers describes the record: “The album is a blend of all the people I grew up with in LA. Stoners, pill heads, downers, uppers, straight kids — it’s pretty much all in there.” On the same note, focus track ‘Dropout’ speaks on that theme, commenting on the influx of drugs they’d seen drifting down the school halls in South LA.

As vocalist Colby Rodgers writes,
“The album is a blend of all the people I grew up with in LA. Stoners, pill heads, downers, uppers, straight kids — it’s pretty much all in there.
We named the album ‘Strongs Dr.’ after the street our buddy Chris lives on in Venice. We spent a lot of long nights at his place during the making of the album. He also co-wrote and sings on the last voice memo recorded track with me. Shoutout Chris and the entire westside crew.”

Drummer Andy Warren continues,
“Some of the best nights making the album were just sitting around Alex’s studio trying to come up with lyrics or tracking little bits and pieces. We’d pass around a bottle of Jameson, sitting in a cloud of cig smoke, sometimes til the sun would rise. This album captures the energy of our live show in a way that our other releases haven’t. The sounds are way bigger. It’s hard to bottle up the vibe of the live performance, but we found rad ways to figure that out. For ‘Wasting My Time’ and ‘Corner Store’ we applied different techniques, like recording the guitar, bass and drums all at the same time to try and bottle that energy up between us.”

Guitarist Kris Miller adds, “I wanted to punch myself in the face multiple times during the recording of this record. I’m glad we’re done.”

In addition to sharing the full-length record, today, the band shines a spotlight on its focus track, ‘Dropout.’ As Rodgers describes the track’s origins: “In high school, it was casual to see kids taking pills in the bathroom. South LA is a nice beach community but a lot of kids were getting into heavy shit fast. Luckily, I was a stoner back then, so I didn’t get caught up in the oxy.”

Headline photo by Derek Pearlman

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