Kewl Haze Drops Psych-Rock Single ‘Double Black Diamond,’ Taken From ‘Suburban Sherpa’
Philadelphia psych-rock duo Kewl Haze wants to help you forget your adult responsibilities for a bit.
Dan Scott Forreal and Derek Sheehan just released their full-length debut, ‘Suburban Sherpa’ (out via PaperCup Music). This 11-song album is a hazy ride through four decades of music history, built on a foundation of deep conversation, shared laughs, and late nights in the studio.
These two are no strangers to the indie scene. Sheehan was the driving force behind the Brooklyn dream-pop outfit Weekender, and Forreal fronted the Colorado psych-funk band Miscomunicado. They grew up down the street from each other but found their true creative rhythm as adults. Sheehan felt burnt out by the standard music industry grind. At the same time, Forreal was bouncing back from a tough breakup. A cross-country road trip back to Philly sparked the blueprint for Kewl Haze.
Frustrated by the strict genre boundaries of their past projects, the pair adopted a simple rule for the new band: if an idea sounds cool, it goes on the record. That freedom led to a four-year run of uninhibited experimentation. Suburban Sherpa pulls together 1960s paisley pop, 1970s grooves, 1980s Madchester beats, and 1990s eccentricities. They take hip-hop drum breaks, vintage analog synths, acoustic guitars, and tight vocal harmonies, mashing them into a sound that feels distinct and alive.
The guys built this lysergic atmosphere in their home studios before teaming up with Matt Barrick of The Walkmen to track drums at Silent Partner studios.
You can hear that studio magic on the standout single ‘Double Black Diamond.’ The track hits with beatnik percussion, outer space synths, and a heavy bassline channeling classic Motown. It captures the exact tension the duo faced while making the record: balancing the mundane demands of a domestic routine with a messy, consuming drive to make art. The song is a tribute to those brief flashes of inspiration when everything makes perfect sense.
Here, lyrics such as “Live it up today, tomorrow I’ll figure out the rest,” clash with snippet memories of domesticity, “there she is, golden mystery, messing with me, I think I’m not thinking.”
When asked the band about it they replied: “Some songs came to us complete and packaged. Plucked right from the divine itself and translated through our hands to wax. Other songs took time to percolate, be it the arrangement, the lyrics or both. Double Black Diamond was a blend. It was like any other writing session one late afternoon in 2022. We got together and came up with a few ideas and one of them was the verse for Double Black, but we didn’t have a chorus. We knew we had the start of a compelling song, but we needed a great chorus. After almost a year, one night during another writing session we reopened the demo project and the rest of the song poured out. That night we finished the foundation of the instrumental arrangement. It took another several months before we attempted to record vocals. I recall it was daunting as it was with many of the tracks because we felt the instrumentals were so strong and we didn’t want to do the songs any injustice with half assed lyrics or vocals. We were deep in the creative cycle of the album, spending long nights in the studio away from wives and girlfriends. Pushing the limits of our instruments and our minds. Being away from home working on the record began to show strain on my domestic life. The lyrics are an honest admission of the fraught nature between relentless pursuit of creativity and the toll it can take on the rest of your life. The track is a big, expansive, soaring psychedelic journey that reminds us to remain calm, cool, collected and trust your instincts despite the unrest and instability happening around us. An ode to enjoying yourself and not to worry, for you will figure it out, for there is always tomorrow; however, don’t lose sight of what’s really important. Lust for life and fame is a high unto its own, but the love of a good woman shouldn’t be overlooked.”
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