After a commanding performance at Sea Hear Now, local band Surfing for Daisy sets their sights on the Stone Pony and beyond

By:  | October 26, 2025 |  | 

Photo by Kenny Price

By Ben Miller

If you were among the more than 35,000 people who attended the Sea Hear Now festival in Asbury Park in September, you may have been lucky enough to catch the explosive early Sunday afternoon set from Asbury Park’s own Surfing for Daisy. Despite being on a bill packed with bigger names, their passionate performance on the Park Stage was easily one of the weekend’s highlights.

For those who missed it and may be unfamiliar with the group, Surfing for Daisy is a six-piece alt-folk/rock band. Started in January of 2023, the band includes Nick Francis (vocals, acoustic guitar), Mike Bernabei (electric guitar), Steve Filippone (drums), Cam Seidel (bass), Dan DiSantis (guitar/backup vocals), and Kathryn McCarty (keys/backup vocals). They've become a rising force in the Jersey Shore music scene, touring across the country and earning themselves quite a bit of buzz in the process. On Saturday, Nov. 15, they will headline Asbury’s most iconic venue, The Stone Pony. We had a chance to catch up with them recently. Here’s what they had to say:

Community Magazine: How did Surfing for Daisy originally form?

Nick Francis: Previously, I had a band named Rivva, and around the end of 2022 Mike and I met. He saw Rivva, play a few times at Homesick in Asbury Park and we got together after a while. We hit it off instantly – I started sharing my music, including some of my original songs. We started jamming together and we felt this immediate musical connection that I hadn’t felt recently with the exception of playing with Steve. I’ve known Steve most of my life and at the time I was actually recording with him on a solo project. But after jamming with Mike, I told Steve, “Hey, I met this guitar player, Mike. He is really awesome. Why don’t we maybe give this a shot?” Then before you know it we did our first gig together at Lola’s and it was incredible. It was an empty winter Tuesday or Wednesday and we played organically for three hours. No one was there but the three of us knew we had something going on by the end of the set. From that day forward, we got on the same page, started linking up more, and started trying to make this a band.

Steve Fillipone: As our band grew, we added on Dan and Katie and eventually Cam as our bass player and that’s how we got the six of us.
 

CM: Tell us about the songwriting process. Is it a collaborative effort?

Nick: So, I had a lot of these songs previously written. I just didn’t know what to do with them. I didn’t know where they fit – I didn’t see the full potential of them until we started working together. I wrote a lot of these early songs like Acrobat and Flannel when I was stationed in Hawaii in the Navy. These were some of the first original songs that I had confidence in. So, when I met up with Steve and Mike, I started sharing these songs.

Mike Bernabei: I actually thought maybe he was stealing the songs at first. I didn't really know this kid, and I was like, "Is this serious? He just has 100 songs memorized in his head that are all good?" I remember thinking, “Is he, like, is he telling the truth?” because he has so many songs. Since the beginning, every week, Steve and I wake up with a text message at 2 in the morning with two more new songs and Nick asking, “Is this good? Check this out. I just wrote this just now. Like, do we like this?”

Nick: It's like a drug addiction in a sense – a good, positive drug addiction – because it's something that I have to do every day. I have to create something every day. The great thing about it is that when I had these songs I had shaped them very well, but they wouldn't be what they are without the band. Because of Mike and Steve, the songs blossomed into this beautiful thing that I personally wouldn't have ever been able to really see. I couldn't see past the fog of it because I just didn't know – not until I started playing them with these guys, and they took on the songs and they took over the challenge of trying to incorporate their own pieces into it. I would say they did a pretty damn good job of it.
 

CM: You recently performed at Asbury Park's Sea Hear Now festival. Tell us about that experience and what it was like to perform for so many people.

Steve: It was incredible. I just want to get back on the stage like that – it’s addicting! We had, you know, all of our close friends and our families there, and then I think we expected it to go well, but I don't know if we expected it to go that well. It was cool to see that many people who maybe only heard of us for the first time from the festival playlist decide to get there early at 12:30 to check us out. It meant the world.

Nick: [Festival organizer] Danny Clinch shared with us that it was one of the biggest opening shows that there's been at Sea Hear Now. And I think it's a testament to the hard work we're putting in.
 

CM: How did you guys manage to get on the lineup for Sea Hear Now? That can't be an easy gig to land!

Steve: For one, we're super lucky that we're in Asbury Park because the music community here and the community in general is just awesome. A lot of bands that don't have that. It's definitely an advantage for us. We definitely had some home field advantage, but pretty much as soon as we started the band, that was one of our goals – to play at Sea Hear Now.

We had been playing in town and we were lucky enough to get a show at Danny Clinch’s gallery. He wasn’t there for that one but we kind of got on his radar there. Then, in 2023 we got asked to play at the Sea Hear Now after party at The Lanes which went well. We then started touring in California, Boston, D.C., North Carolina, South Carolina, because they want to see that you're doing it – putting in the time, the effort. Sure enough, we played the pre-party last year at the Wonder Bar. Traditionally how it works is if you play at the pre-party and it sells well they ask you to go onto the festival the next year. When we played, we opened the show and it was packed. Lucky enough, all three bands that played the pre-party in 2024 got invited to play in 2025 including us.
 

CM: What has been the key to developing your following?

Steve: Nick has unbelievable songs, so that's the most important part, but secondly If you don't know the business side of things, it’s really easy to get stuck, even if you have great songs. So, having business plans, setting goals, and stuff like that is really the key to keep pushing forward.

It is a tough industry, all of a sudden the success can just stop. If you don't know how to kind of get to that next level and keep the momentum going, you won’t be able to grow.

Nick: I think Steve really guided us in the best way possible. Don’t get obsessed with social media, focus on putting on the best shows that we possibly can – prepare. Also execute in marketing and promotion of the actual show and being able to sell tickets and then maintaining that fan base and growing that from there. Because again, you could play a show, but if you don't have merch and you don't know how to really perform on stage that well, you're not going to connect with the people. We have tried our best to do this the right way and we have been able to build a community around the band which has fueled our growth.
 

CM: Surfing for Daisy is having their first headline show at The Stone Pony on Nov. 15. What can fans expect?

Nick: You can definitely expect a crazy live show. When we play live we have this weird spiral experience on stage, and we hope it bleeds into the crowd and they see our energy. We hope fans see that we are a family on stage and we want to give our listeners the best experience that they can get.

Steve: We will also be playing our new single “Psychic” which is the first single off the second album. We will play some old songs, some covers, and probably most of the second album that is coming out in the next few weeks.
 

CM: What do you guys have coming up in 2026? Any new music? Touring plans?

Steve: Our first single comes out the day before the Stone Pony show. It’s called “Psychic” and we have plans to do four or five singles going into 2026. Additionally, we are going up to New Hampshire, opening for an artist called King Coyote on December 19 and 20 at the Press Room in Portsmouth. Then we are doing a cruise music festival in January out of Miami where we will play there and in San Juan Puerto Rico and St. Martin. Followed by the Green River Revival Festival with Sam Birchfield down in North Carolina in March. So that is our plan. We're going to be releasing new music, tour a little bit more and get out there and spread this music wherever we can.

For more info, go to SurfingForDaisy.com.