Were we looking to trace the currently rising psych/surf/garage scene to a sort of homegrown aesthetic Johnny Appleseed, we could do worse than Billy Summer. After coming up in the popular and prosperous ’90s Pinellas bar-band scene, Summer founded The Semis, a voluminous and unclassifiable original-rock act that ably showcased his generations-deep knowledge of the genre as well as his songwriting and guitar chops. Among other musicians, he’s almost as well-known for long and thoughtful conversations about all things music as he is for the spectacularly questionable lifestyle choices that now seem firmly behind him.
When asked if he ever considers himself influential, though, Summer seems almost amused by the notion.
“Um, no, never,” he says with a laugh. “I never have believed anybody … I assume maybe two people have listened to our records thoroughly. One of the guys in Jensen [Serf Company] said something about it to me, and I just thought, ‘Come on, you’ve never been to a Semis show.’”
Summer’s self-deprecation aside, The Semis remain arguably one of the most eye-opening local acts in recent memory. Their true reach is tough to gauge, though, because the band was so unpredictable and eclectic that 20 different musicians could’ve gotten 20 different things out of a set, and started 20 bands whose only common factor was a desire to do something different — you know, like The Semis. And Summer’s current band, the stylishly, timelessly unhinged Luxury Mane, will doubtless turn even more musicians onto sounds beyond the here and now.
For his part, Summer thinks the internet has a lot more to do with educating musicians than his own output (“any wormhole or Wikipedia page could send you into a garage-rock record-buying frenzy”). He also credits the resurgence of vinyl collecting with providing plenty of opportunity for discovering new old tunes.
“When you buy a new band’s record on vinyl, right next to it is the rest of the D’s, you know, with stuff right there from 1973,” he says.
Summer doesn’t consider what he did and does garage rock or psych-rock or surf-rock, strictly speaking. Elements of those styles do weave their way in and out of his catalog, however, to varying conspicuous degrees — which makes for compelling evidence he’s helped shape the sounds of some of these eclectic, high-volume up-and-coming groups to a degree he may not have considered.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I would like to think that I’m still producing music that’s — I don’t care about being relevant, I just do what’s in my head in the moment, and if it does affect someone in an influential way, I just hope they make good music. The last thing I need is somebody making shitty music, and telling someone I influenced them. That said, the bands we’ve been mentioning are, in my opinion, making great music. And if I influenced any of them, that’s a great honor.”
