Smooth sailing for Yacht Rock revival fuelled by web series, hit ‘dockumentary’ and a fleet of cover bands

Twenty years ago, a group of Los Angeles-based comedians made a mockumentary web series, a sort of Behind the Music-style lampooning of the stories behind classic late 70s soft rock hits from the Doobie Brothers, Toto, Steely Dan, Hall & Oates, Kenny Loggins and Christopher Cross. The short episodes took place at a marina owned by Koko Goldstein, a Svengali figure who presided over the musicians with his lucky harpoon, demanding they “don’t dare lose the smooth”. They called it Yacht Rock. J.D. Ryznar, the main creator of the web series, coined the term while searching for a genre to describe the loosely connected songs which saw Toto record with both Michael Jackson and Steely Dan, and Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins collaborate on What A Fool Believes. “There’s this vibe, this is well-crafted stuff,” Ryznar explains in the recently launched HBO special Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary. “This is relaxing stuff. It’s high-class music. It’s like a yacht … Yacht rock!” The first of 10 episodes was uploaded to Channel 101 on June 26, 2005. The show went on to become a cult hit, two more episodes were made (one starring My Name Is Earl star Jason Lee as Footloose-era Kevin Bacon) and yacht rock became a byword for music with pristine production, clean vocals and irresistible melodies. Smooth music that rocks. Yacht Rock not only revived interest in Toto, the Doobie Brothers, Michael McDonald, Hall & Oates and other bands that suddenly found a younger demographic attending shows, but also launched a flotilla of cover bands, including Atlanta’s Yacht Rock Revue, Los Angeles’ Yachtley Crew and Perth’s own Some Like It Yacht. Talented musicians from pop, rock, metal and country bands formed Yachtley Crew to play a few shows around Southern California in 2017. Described as a the “KISS of soft rock” due to the sailor’s outfits worn on stage, the seven-piece recently completed a six-week US tour to thousands of fans wearing sailor hats and floral shirts while clutching pina coladas. This year, Yachtley Crew set sail for Australia, their first overseas tour, which kicks off in Perth. Frontman Phillip Daniel, who performs under his seafaring non de plume Philly Ocean, is a dedicated karaoke singer whose go-to song is John Farnham’s You’re The Voice. He played in original rock bands around LA and was pursuing an acting career when he auditioned to be Yachtley Crew’s lead singer. Eight years later, he’s as shocked as anyone that his love of soft rock has morphed into a career. “We’re all surprised, we’re elated and excited,” Daniel says from home in LA. “We didn’t know if it was going to be six shows or 600 shows.” Serious musicianship is one of the reasons why it’s been smooth sailing. “When we started, we knew these songs are complex, they’re interesting, the chord changes are difficult, the solos are difficult, the melodies are incredibly high,” Daniel explains. “We set out to make sure we were performing these songs at the top of our ability. We wanted to honour the original artists as much as we could. “We knew our audience would expect that. If you don’t nail the guitar solo at the end of (Toto hit) Rosanna, people are going to notice.” Giving audience members a good time comes before any slavish devotion to definitions of what is yacht and what is “nyacht”, he says. For example, Looking Glass’ cheesy 1972 chestnut Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl) is usually part of a Yachtley Crew show despite being “verboaten” among yacht rock purists. “There’s a few songs that are yacht rock adjacent,” Daniel says. “I would say Brandy is absolutely yacht rock — it’s a song about a sailor.” While rough seas of “passionate opinions” can throw yacht rock off course, the singer totally understands why the genre is enjoying a fresh wave of appreciation. “It’s nostalgic, it’s fun, it’s feel-good music. Some stuff, you look back and it feels dated in a bad way,” he adds. “Yacht rock, you look back at it, and it feels dated in the best way. “We’re live performers, so our responsibility is to the audience and to make sure the people coming to our shows walk away going ‘that was the best night of my life’. That’s what we’re aiming for.” In 2023, Yachtley Crew released an EP of covers plus original song Sex On The Beach via Jimmy Buffett’s Mailboat label – an ironic situation given that one episode of Yacht Rock dismissed the tropical rock figurehead, who died two years ago, as “mellow, but not smooth … kinda shitty”. The band also issued Christmas EP Seas And Greetings last year on UK heavy metal label Earache Records (the owner is a “rabid” yacht rock fan), proving there’s plenty of wind in the sails for this covers outfit. Daniel insists there’s no rivalry with Yacht Rock Revue, “just brotherly love, we respect the hell out of them”. If you think the yacht rock revival is a flash in the pan, then that’s what a fool believes. The phenomenon is riding higher than ever in the wake of the Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary, which premiered in November and not only featured McDonald, Cross, Toto guitar god Steve Lukather, and members of other yacht rock bands and acts they influenced, but also Ryznar and “Hollywood” Steve Huey, who plays Yacht Rock’s fictional host. Director Garret Price suggested that while people may have rediscovered this music “ironically” due to the comedic web series, they soon fell in love with it. “It’s because of the quality of the music,” he told Rolling Stone magazine. “It’s complex and trying things, and the lyrics and artistry are so good that it sticks around. “We’ve heard it our whole lives. Whether you’re grocery shopping, at a doctor’s office … in your parents’ car — it’s always been there.” In the documentary, Ryznar comments on the currents of male vulnerability flowing through otherwise “light and fun” soft rock hits — especially on “fool” songs, such as the Doobie Brothers’ What A Fool Believes, Steely Dan’s Only A Fool Would Say That and Larsen-Feiten Band’s little-known Who’ll Be The Fool Tonight. “There’s something about yacht rock where men just embrace being the sad sack loser in a really big way,” he said. Best known for 1980 favourite Steal Away, Robbie Dupree credits Yacht Rock Revue with “singlehandedly” fuelling the renaissance of really smooth music that rocks. “For well over a decade they have performed hundreds of shows, some including OGs from the 70s and 80s,” he wrote on X. “It is because of them that (dominant US radio network) Sirius created a dedicated station. “They did the heavy lifting to bring the genre to life again with a younger audience.” Dupree added that many of the musicians featured in the HBO doco refused to embrace the yacht rock genre but are doing so now, thanks to the increase in earnings via streaming. The notable hold-out is Steely Dan’s notoriously acerbic Donald Fagen, who told Price to “go f… himself” in a recorded phone call featured in the documentary before his manager gave permission for six Steely Dan songs to be used in the film. That was lucky for Price given Steely Dan are considered, as Ryznar says in the doco, “the primordial ooze from whence yacht rock sprang”. The yacht rock revival has been lucrative for the original artists. The Doobie Brothers are poised to release a new album featuring the first songs written with McDonald since 1980 this year. Before the Doobies’ Swan Valley gig in 2023, McDonald joked that he should thank the guys behind the Yacht Rock web series. “We’ve been lucky in our career in that oldies radio, Yacht Rock and all these things have come along just in time for us,” he told The West Australian. “We would have been done long ago if not for those.” Daniel also feels “humbled and grateful” for the soft rock revival. “No one anticipated that this band would be as successful,” he says, adding that Yachtley Crew’s members all earn far more playing covers than their own originals, while Yacht Rock Revue get paid anywhere from $US40,000 to $US75,000 per gig. Perth musician Matt Geary played in local indie rock outfits Team Jedi, The Ghost Hotel, The Nordeens and Russian Winters from the early 90s before forming Some Like It Yacht in late 2012. Earlier that year, Geary and some of his mates went on the Weezer Cruise. The four-night return cruise from Miami to the Mexican island of Cozumel featured on-board performances from his favourite alt-rock bands, including Weezer, Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh and Lou Barlow. Oh, and Yacht Rock Revue. “We said ‘What is this Yacht Rock Revue’,” Geary recalls. “It was a boozy late night and we said ‘Let’s go check it out’ and everyone was blown away.” Geary bumped into some members of Yacht Rock Revue at one of the ship’s bars. After telling him how much he enjoyed their set, one of the band complained that they used to play original music around Atlanta and now they were “stuck” playing covers. “Maybe it was the hangover talking, but one of the guys said, ‘We did this is a bit of a joke for a friend’s birthday party and everybody loved it’. It turned into a full-time gig.” After the cruise, Geary came back to Perth and “put a crew together”, enlisting friends from local bands to form WA’s own yacht rock cover band. Geary’s initial name was Your Parents’ Records, which came from the fact that when he was learning to play the guitar, his dad would cajole him to learn riffs and hooks by his favourite bands — Toto, Chicago, Boz Scaggs and Foreigner. Another member of the nascent outfit, Russell Loasby suggested Some Like It Yacht, which stuck. “Everyone went ‘bravo’,” Geary laughs. The band spent more than six months rehearsing, working out which songs they could play and which to jettison. Toto’s mega-smash Africa was among songs they initially struggled to perform due to its sumptuous production. “The music can get incredibly technical,” Geary explains. “It was almost testing ourselves – can we pull this off?” Some Like It Yacht played their first ever gig as an eight-piece crammed onto the small stage at Picabar in August 2013. Geary says they weren’t great, but the crowd loved it and soon they’d engaged a booking agent. “This is really fun and it’s a challenge,” he says. “We had no expectation that we were going to be playing regular shows. “We’d play a 50th birthday or this or that, but it took off really quickly. As soon as word-of-mouth spread we started getting offered heaps of shows.” After one early gig, his dad tapped on the shoulder and said: “This is the best band you’ve ever been in.” “Thanks Dad,” laughs Geary, who adds that while nostalgia fuels his love of the genre, many yacht rock songs are technically impressive. “What A Fool Believes, for example, if you break it down to its harmonic structure, it’s an incredible piece of music, but it’s also catchy as hell.” The band members ask two questions when formulating concert set lists: “Is it smooth and does it have saxophone?” While gigs focus on the yacht rock classics featured in the YouTube series, they’ve also tried to weave in some home-grown material. Australia too? Was there a yacht rock scene Down Under? The cover bands think so. Yachtley Crew do Little River Band’s Reminiscing, while Yacht Rock Revue cover Men at Work’s Who Can It Be Now? Some Like It Yacht’s set list has included classics from LRB, Sharon O’Neill and New Zealand rockers Dragon. Air Supply is another antipodean act that should be on the boat. Geary recently started playing yacht rock DJ sets with his wife Candy. He’s ready for the purists who will inevitably tell him a certain song is nyacht. “Any trainspotters who come up and say ‘hey, the Pointer Sisters aren’t yacht rock’, I’m gonna tell ‘em to bugger off,” Geary laughs. That’s what a fool believes. Yachtley Crew play the Astor Theatre on May 12. Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary is on Binge.