Video: We the Commas, ‘Pissed Off’

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We the Commas (Photo by Chris Rosa)

Brother trio We the Commas hail from Northern San Diego County and call their musical style “surf alternative R&B” — a decidedly fuzzy term suggesting that their musical path might lead anywhere.

Lenny, Jordy and Cam Comma, who range in age from 23 to 17, are indeed surfer dudes (they even make their own boards), and their kinship with R&B traces to hours spent with their parents’ old soul records. One supposes that the “alternative” part is the elephant in the room.

“Many are going to assume that the people who are playing this kind of music don’t look like us,” eldest brother Lenny says. “We want to break down barriers and show that your cultural norm shouldn’t dictate what you do.

“[Being Black] influences our music, because it tells our experiences. Especially where we live, there’s not a ton of people who look like us. So we’ve learned to be the most authentic version of ourselves. We’re trying to do something different that people haven’t seen.”

The trio debuted this summer with a couple of crush-worthy retro gems, “Sherry” and “Custom Made,” their harmonies reminiscent of the early R&B/doo-wop era. Today brought the release of “Pissed Off,” a full-on rocker drawing on Lenny’s experience in college. “I had no idea what I wanted to do in life,” he says. “I changed my major four times and I felt aimless. I finally had enough, and had to get my anger out because I was tired of feeling like a failure and I felt like no one understood me.”

We the Commas name-check inspirations such as Bob Marley, the Beach Boys, Frank Ocean, Dave Matthews Band, Young The Giant and The Head and The Heart (the latter two bands endorsed the trio’s early cover songs), and their music caught the attention of producers such as ​Rex Kudo and ​Charlie Handsome early on.

The trio’s old- and new-school sensibilities figure to be fully on display when they release their debut EP before the end of the year.

The video for “Pissed Off,” directed by ​Chris Rosa and ​Josh Sikkema, thrusts the brothers into a “Mad Max”-type adventure in the desert … before bringing them comfortably back home.

||| Watch: The video for “Pissed Off”

||| Also: Watch the videos for “Custom Made” and “Sherry”