Carter Reeves Closes Surfer Girl’s Daylong Album Cycle with Darker Grooves, Wiz Khalifa and a Touring Family Fluent in Chaos.

August 29th, 2026

Jupiter’s late-August sky seemed determined to make Surfer Girl live up to every wet part of its branding.

Gear was being pushed through the rain at Abacoa Amphitheater. There was no green room waiting on the other side. Load-in had become cardio with consequences, yet Carter Reeves was not particularly rattled. He had already watched the Florida forecast lose three straight rounds.

“We’ve been dicey since we got here three nights ago, but every single time we’ve gotten up there, it just feels like the clouds kind of clear and the sunshine comes out,” Reeves said before Surfer Girl opened for Pepper and The Movement on August 29. “Hopefully it’s the same thing for tonight.”

The weather provided an appropriately dramatic backdrop for a band that has spent years bottling sunshine, only to discover some of its most interesting thoughts after dark.

Released August 21 through Ineffable Records, Midnight completes the four-part album cycle that began with Sunrise, continued through Noon and Sunset, and now arrives at the final hour with 15 songs that let a little more shadow creep into Surfer Girl’s reggae-pop glow.

For Reeves, who first built an audience as one half of the genre-bending duo Aer, finishing that daylong journey has brought equal parts satisfaction and uncertainty.

“Midnight has not left me wanting more,” he said. “I’m so proud of that album, and I feel like we collectively as a band left it all out there.”

That sense of completion has placed him somewhere both “terrifying” and exciting. For the first time in several albums, there is no predetermined point on the clock dictating where Surfer Girl must go next.

That freedom could lead toward a more stripped-down, soulful direction. It could send the band somewhere completely unexpected. Reeves joked that a heavy metal record might be next, and with Surfer Girl, it is probably best not to dismiss the possibility too quickly.

Most albums receive their titles after the songs begin revealing a personality. Midnight already knew its name and destination before Reeves had mapped the entire route.

“I allowed the title to guide the sound more than you typically would,” he explained. “I just wasn’t afraid to go a little deeper on some darker tones or things that coincide more with a nighttime party than chilling and laying back on the beach.”

He also appreciated hearing the album described as “sleek.”

“That was definitely in mind,” he said.

The result still moves with the breezy rhythms and genre-hopping confidence associated with Surfer Girl, but these songs do not stop dancing when uncomfortable truths enter the room.

Surfer Girl performs at Abacoa Town Center Amphitheatre ©South Florida Insider

Tracks such as “Sober,” “Lose Touch” and “Priorities” carry introspection inside grooves built to keep bodies moving. The music offers escape, but the lyrics understand that escape usually comes with an expiration time.

Asked whether wrapping those difficult truths inside irresistible rhythms makes them easier to hear or easier to hide, Reeves paused.

“Whoa, that’s a damn good question,” he said.

His answer lives somewhere between the two.

He remembers the peculiar emotional whiplash of being out with friends, having the time of his life, and then receiving a text or phone call that instantly pulls him away from the party. Sometimes the interruption comes from a mirror after one drink too many and the sudden realization that the person staring back needs to make a few changes.

“You want to numb the pain and have a good time and party and distract yourself,” Reeves said. “But a little bit too much of that will get you to a point where you’re going to have to think twice.”

That is the real hour captured by Midnight. It is both the escape and the moment when the escape stops working.

That tension has also changed what Reeves listens for as a songwriter. Lately, he has been drawn toward artists capable of expressing complete stories with remarkable clarity, whether those lessons come from rappers, country writers, Noah Kahan or Role Model.

He is especially fascinated by lyrics that feel immediate, relatable and simple without becoming ordinary.

“I’ve just been listening to songwriters who are mind-blowing,” he said. “Someone can say something so clearly in such little space or in such few words.”

The tradeoff, in his view, is that denser writing often requires production with fewer places to hide. That could influence Surfer Girl’s next chapter, with more room for soul, groove and carefully chosen words to move toward the front.

“I could see the next album having more of a minimal approach from a production standpoint,” Reeves said. “Maybe a little more soul and groove focused, and really trying to focus on what’s being said. Make it mean something to me and hopefully mean something to other people as well.”

Of course, minimalism was not exactly the assignment when Reeves decided, largely out of boredom, to produce a song specifically for Wiz Khalifa.

“I was like, ‘I’m going to make a song for Wiz Khalifa,’” he recalled.

Reeves created the beat with Khalifa in mind, settled into the proper studio mood and wrote what he described as a “stoner reggae anthem.” His manager reached out, Khalifa heard it and, to Reeves’ amazement, actually wanted to record it.

That became “Smoked Out,” one of Midnight’s most recognizable collaborations and a natural intersection between Surfer Girl’s reggae foundation and Reeves’ hip-hop instincts.

The most surprising part of the experience may have been what Reeves did not do while filming the video with one of his idols.

He decided against smoking with Khalifa.

“If I did, and I was in front of the camera with 10 people in the room and one of my biggest idols standing right next to me, I would have lost my mind,” Reeves admitted. “I probably would have gone mute and not been able to do anything.”

Restraint has its place, even on a stoner anthem.

Surfer Girl performs at Abacoa Town Center Amphitheatre ©South Florida Insider

Midnight also reflects how much Surfer Girl has grown into a genuine band rather than simply a Reeves project with touring support. Guitarist Jack Pavlina helped write much of the album, while bassist Sam Callahan and drummer Bobby Krak performed throughout it and contributed to its creative direction.

On the road, that musical partnership becomes something closer to a roaming family of self-described goobers.

“We’re all idiots in the best possible way,” Reeves said, quickly refining the designation to “idiot geniuses.”

During the two-week run with Pepper and The Movement, the group traveled with a van and trailer, swapped hotel roommates, traded ghost stories and pushed through the less glamorous realities of touring. A day might begin with a rain-soaked load-in and no private room to escape into, but Reeves said the show usually wipes away the frustration almost immediately.

“I’m lucky,” he said. “It’s a great gang of people.”

That closeness apparently does not guarantee that everyone is equally qualified to speak with hotel security.

Presented with a hypothetical 2:30 a.m. crisis, Reeves immediately named himself as the band member least likely to improve the situation.

He then painted a suspiciously detailed scene: everyone returns from a great show, gets far too loud in the lobby and discovers an unattended ice cream cabinet. They take what they want, fully intending to have it charged to a room later, then attempt to reach the elevator before someone emerges from behind the front desk shouting after them.

Reeves did not trust Pavlina to handle the diplomatic response. Callahan, however, received the nomination to smooth things over.

Every touring band needs a bassist who can hold down the low end and an emergency negotiation.

Surfer Girl’s aquatic branding is nearly as committed as its road crew. Between the band’s name and Midnight tracks “Bottom of the Pool” and “Lagoon,” a mandatory group surf lesson feels almost legally binding.

Reeves claimed natural status among the crew. Tour manager Joe volunteered himself for floaties.

The ocean will have to settle the rest.

That playful disorder fits a band that refuses to stay in one musical lane. Reeves understands that Surfer Girl’s constant movement can occasionally frustrate listeners who want every release to resemble the last one. Repetition, however, has never interested him nearly as much as possibility.

“I don’t love doing the same thing over and over and over again,” he said. “Sometimes I can drive people nuts, fans who want a level of consistency.”

What he asks for instead is trust.

Surfer Girl might wander from reggae toward hip-hop, R&B, indie, surf rock or straight pop without providing much warning. Reeves believes the connection between the band and its listeners is strong enough to survive those detours.

“Maybe we’ll stray you off the path a little bit,” he said. “Maybe we’ll go this way, maybe we’ll go that way, but collectively, the whole pot of what we’re doing is trying to bring in a broad coalition of people.”

That coalition is what Surfer Girl ultimately embodies. It is a beach party broad enough to welcome the rappers, reggae faithful, indie kids, pop obsessives and anyone willing to keep moving when the emotional temperature changes.

The four-album clock has finally struck twelve, but Surfer Girl does not sound finished. It sounds unburdened.

The storm rolls in. The groove starts. The truth gets a little harder to dodge. Eventually, someone attempts to charge ice cream to a hotel room with nobody behind the front desk.

Then the entire cycle begins again.

“After midnight, you go to bed,” Reeves said. “Then you wake up, and it’s Sunrise all over again.”