Beat Construction: Harrison of Surf Gang enters the limelight

The FADER’s longstanding series Beat Construction series interviews today's most crucial producers and their craft.

Real Surf Gang fans know Harrison has been a key player in the collective since the beginning. From songs with Veeze and Lisha G to beats for MAVI and LUCY (Cooper B. Handy), the 28-year-old producer’s knack for spacey ambience and evocative chord progressions has been just as crucial to the Surf Gang sound as Evilgiane reframing sample drill.

Read Next: MIKE, Earl Sweatshirt, and Surf Gang announce POMPEII // UTILITY

And though his name isn’t quite as famous as Giane’s, in no small part because the Minneapolis native prefers grinding in studio sessions to promoting himself, 2026 will be the year all that changes. He’ll have top billing on the hotly anticipated POMPEII // UTILITY, a collaborative double LP by Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE produced entirely by Surf Gang.

Harrison will be opening on the pair’s wide-ranging national tour this summer and is also gearing up for his own debut album, a collection of ambient tracks with no features (save a field recording of German perfume influencer Jeremy Fragrance). His decision to double down on his own idiosyncratic strengths, regardless of clout or streams, speaks to Harrison’s creative ethos: he’s far more focused on the process than the product.

Otherwise, Harrison is pretty noncommittal to any goals: he thinks it would be cool to score a movie, but he’s not really in a rush. He implies he’s a bit of a studio rat, though the lines between work and play can be poorly defined when your job consists of smoking weed and eating food at the studio with your favorite rappers. Before he got involved with Surf Gang, he was filming music videos for Corbin back in the day, when the rapper still went by Spooky Black, an experience he says set the stage for his subsequent career path.

“Seeing that from super young made me comfortable around artists and also made me realize that big things are possible,” says Harrison. “I kind of always knew I was gonna be involved in music. But I didn't think it would ever be like this.”

The FADER caught up with Harrison mid-March to chat about how Surf Gang first started, collaborating with Niontay and LUCY, meeting MIKE and Earl Sweatshirt, and the recording process behind POMPEII // UTILITY.

The FADER: How did you, Evilgiane, and Eera meet?

Harrison: We had a mutual friend. I had just moved to the city, so I still hadn’t really met a lot of people yet. I was kind of just on my own shit, literally working Uber Eats. But then I met Giane at Super Chief Gallery in Brooklyn. And I had just started dabbling with Ableton a little bit – not even really sure what direction I was gonna take, just playing around with it.

Giane was working with Summrs [among others]. I was like, “damn, he’s doing this shit.” And we just started making beats all the time. He already had Surf Gang established through the tags and his group of friends when we had met, and then we just started navigating through the New York music scene together, and meeting people through that.

Cameron [Eera], we met through one of those artists’ studio sessions, but we were already familiar with Cameron's work. And then we just kept working through the years and had the same goal or focus. We've just been riding through all the things together.

What do you see as your distinct strengths or sounds, and what have you guys learned from each other or working together?

We're all very minimal with our music. It's kind of crazy how we've all gravitated towards the same drums and sounds, even as the years have gone on. Especially me and Giane, because we make more rap beats. I feel like the way that our shit has progressed into even more of a minimal sound has been pretty cool.

The beats we've been making over time, it's matured in a way. If I heard the beats that I'm making now a few years ago, I might not all the way fuck with it, for real. It might be too calm.

Do you think your past self would be like, “Yo, this shit's too quiet?”

Maybe! I don't know. It takes a long time to actually find your real sound as a producer. But I feel like we've definitely gotten to that point. And even if you look back at the old shit, like some of the beats — the beats age pretty well on a lot of our stuff.

I wanted to ask you about your work on JACK & THE BEANSTALK by LUCY (Cooper B. Handy). I was a really big fan of the title track, but especially “Compatible.”

I don't remember how he found us to be honest. I really love his music a lot. Like in the studio, we be joking, trying to sing like him over beats sometimes. It's mad fun.
I don't remember how that song happened, but that song is super tough. Like the page ripping and everything. I love that song. Honestly, it’s kinda goofy

Those are some of my favorite Surf Gang beats. That realm [of music] lets you guys get kinda kooky.

Yeah, we've been working with this artist Samba Jean-Baptiste. It's fun to just work with all types of genres, people who make a different type of music, seeing how they approach the Surf Gang style.
It’s not like we're changing our style for them really, it's more of us just actually physically blending it together in the studio. It’s always really fun to see where that can go. I'm definitely trying to do more with LUCY, for sure.

We recently talked to Dylvinci and Laron about producing Soulja Hate Repellent with Niontay. Can you tell me a little bit about working on that tape?
We've been working together for while, [but] it's crazy because I had like sent him beats like way back when Surf Gang was just starting, [laughs] and he was literally like, “ Nah I can't fuck with these, they’re not that good.” And I was like, “damn bro!” [laughs harder]. But they probably weren’t.
We've just always been working. Like, he'll pull up to LA, we'll just be at the studios. But a lot of times we'll collaborate on the beats when we make a song too. He's also a hella good producer like, super good.

He told me that you passed out at Tony Seltzer’s studio.
I was surprised he shared that story! It's really he passed out and I just had a panic attack. We really test our limits with the weed and the yerba mate.

What yerba flavor?
I don’t really know, I just get whatever. I literally only drink it if someone else brings it. I don't really think I've ever bought one. It's really Thebe [Earl Sweatshirt]. Thebe really just orders a huge bag. He'd be ordering 15 at a time.

When did you first meet MIKE and Earl?

Thebe came to the first Surf Gang show we ever did, in Los Angeles. So we were like, “damn, that's crazy as fuck that he pulled up low-key.” But it made sense, because he's always been tapped into everything, for sure.

Me and Giane pulled up on MIKE one time in New York around 2022 or 2023, and that's when they made fucking “Minty,” the song that just dropped and that was like a long time ago. But MIKE, like we had known each other in passing and had mutual friends for a while. Same with Thebe too. That MIKE song was just a random one-off session when COVID was super happening. It was right when they had dropped “Real hiphop,” and after that, I just started pulling up on MIKE.

Somehow the idea came that we were gonna do a tape. It didn't have a name yet — It was just gonna be like some one-off, small tape. There's been versions of Pompeii that we were completing before that were way shorter. And that happened just for half a year, a year, making shit, going to MIKE crib sometimes, just making a song every time we would link. And then Thebe hit me.

We just got to talking on DMs about something and I sent him beats.Then two or three years ago, we [me, Giane, Elipropperr] all went to L.A. together. We had this Airbnb, it was super fucked up. Like the toilet literally exploded. But I remember, Thebe pulled up and then we went to Alchemist's studio on the West Side. He played us the four or five songs he had made on the beats that we had sent him. He had an album cover and all this stuff ready and we’re like, “damn, so we’re making this tape?”

The first song was “Chali 2na” and that was with Giane. And then he did “Don't Worry,” which he had already texted me. And “again” was on it, and “again” especially, I was like, “this shit is so tough.”

We started working a lot and we formed a more general collaborative relationship. He’s just helped me so much. And then MIKE came out to L.A. one time too, to finish the shit, and that’s when it got named POMPEII. Thebe had had the name [UTILITY] for his shit mad long ago.

Eventually shit got to the point where it was like, it should just be a thing that's together. It was the Speakerboxxx/The Love Below joke that turned real, but it wasn’t even a joke. It was just the idea that seemed kind of, “damn, would be crazy,” and then shit just worked out.

One stretch of POMPEII I really loved was the span from “NOT 4TW” with Anysia Kym through “F.E.A.R.” with Niontay. That includes “THE POPE,” “AFRO,” and “Minty.” What can you tell me about those songs?

The outro beats, like the one that Anysia got on and a lot of the transition instrumentals, were beats that me and Thebe had saved that we were always listening to that just didn’t have [the right place on the project]. “THE POPE” sound is a sound I haven’t really been doing anymore, but MIKE was really fucking with the super airy, very calming, almost meditative sounds.

MIKE has his own style that’s very different from the typical Surf Gang sound, even though he dabbles in all sorts of things. What sort of beats do you like to hear him on the most?

I feel like MIKE has a super specific ear for beats and it kind of crosses all genres. I feel like Sideshow too, they have this overarching way of looking at music and their vocals. I just trust his ear, and the beats he gravitates toward all fit him really well, especially on this project. Even the songs with Flea [Diamonds], he works really well with Flea, who's another member of Surf Gang and brings something completely different out of MIKE than my beats would too.

You haven’t made much of an effort to be in the spotlight before. Now you’ve got this major double LP with Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE, with a huge tour coming up, and a debut album of more ambient music on the way. What made you decide this was the time to be more visible and prolific?

POMPEII // UTILITY is the first thing I’ve worked on where… it’s just crazy to see people talking and it’s just like, “I guess I’ll try doing it.” But I definitely want to see how far we can take the Surf Gang sound for sure though. It would be super sick if like, someone just popped off of the sound we're making. Cause I feel like we're all a bit older now, and like I said, our sound has matured a bit. So I feel like everything is really concise and as good as it's been so far.

I feel like we're only getting better. And that's the motivation to keep going. If you're always working on stuff, you can look back at your old work, know what hit, know what didn't. It’s also just really important to be working with people in person. That's another thing that always inspires me. Even teaching someone how to make music, or showing someone how to make beats. I love showing the homies how to use Ableton and shit.

I just think making music and just expressing yourself is super important, especially if you have a distinct sound. Or if you feel like you have a you-type beat — I think that's a really special thing.