As the sun set over the Mediterranean Sea and crowds gathered in Livorno, Italy, Professor of Economics Ivan Pongracic took the stage at the Surfer Joe music festival on July 25.
Pongracic wasn’t thinking about inflation, fiscal years, or supply and demand. Instead, he was playing with his surf-rock group, Lords of Atlantis. And although his college students may think they’ve seen and heard it all, Pongracic says he has his thumb on an unusual pulse.
“There is an underground music scene that regular people almost certainly would not know about,” Pongracic said. “But it’s kind of a big deal, and not just in the U.S.– it’s popular in much of Europe, Latin America, Japan, and Australia. I’m talking about the instrumental surf music scene that originally dates back to the early ’60s California.”
A quick listen to Lords of Atlantis will bring back memories of falling asleep to “Hawaii Five-0” reruns on the TV in the living room. One step closer will reveal a whole universe of musical complexity both technically and socially.
Alongside Pongracic, Lords of Atlantis is composed of surf-rock veterans Jeremy DeHart (rhythm, bass, and lead guitar), Jonpaul Balak (bass guitar), and Dane Carter (drums and percussion). All members have played for past groups like Aqualads, The Madeira, and Insect Surfers.
“I’m very honored to be a part of this band as every single player in the band is just top-notch and the musicianship in general is out of this world,” DeHart said. “Our very first live show, in Livorno, was also the very first time we had ever played together as a four-piece band and I was so amazed at the ability of everyone to be onstage in front of a huge crowd in a foreign country and really just deliver the goods.”
Unlike many musicians, Lords of Atlantis isn’t in it for the money… or the girls. There’s not much of either in the surf-music scene.
“At this point, it’s mostly middle-aged men,” Pongracic said. “There are not many ladies into it (with some notable exceptions, such as the Surfrajettes, Messer Chups, and a few others). But more young people are beginning to get into it. I was fairly young when I got into it, about 25. There’s a quote from ‘The Godfather: Part III’ where Corleone says, ‘Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!’ It’s almost impossible to leave the scene. We become magnetically drawn to it, despite there not being any money in it. But we just love it.”
After years of back-and-forth communication, Lords of Atlantis finally set off to record its self-titled debut record, which was released in July.
“It was really the pandemic when everything was locked down – nothing was happening, no shows – that’s when we thought we had an opportunity to really do this,” Pongracic said. “It was a chance to do something fun after months of darkness, fear, and uncertainty. We’d been talking about it for years.”
The group recorded much of the album in McNamara Hall in the summers of 2020 and 2021. They wrapped it up at DeHart’s in-laws’ home in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
“It was another inspiring place to create,” Pongracic said. “Dane is actually a pilot, and he’s a co-owner of a little Cessna plane. He basically said that if we were willing, we were going to meet in Indianapolis, load up as much as we could into the plane, and then fly over to the Blue Ridge Mountains. And that’s what we ended up doing.”
Finally, Lords of Atlantis wrapped up its brainchild of a handful of years: a 13-track debut that sounds about as clear as the water it is inspired by. Free-flowing and crisp, even those who don’t listen to much instrumental music can find something to love in its folds. For fans of indie-surf groups like Ocean Alley, Sticky Fingers, and Lime Cordiale, Lords of Atlantis can offer a different look into an even more niche genre.
“In the words of the late great Tom Petty, the waiting is the hardest part,” Carter said. “This album took three years to complete and we talked about doing it for a couple of years before we started. There were lots of texts, emails, video conferences, and phone calls. The process forced us to say everything we wanted to happen in words because there were no jam sessions to allow us to play off of each other in real-time.”
Image by: Robert Alexandru Dobre