Phoebe Bridgers Fav Gold Star Preview New EP With Slow-Burning ‘Surrender’

Gold Star, the Los Angeles-based musical project of singer-songwriter Marlon Rabenreither, has revealed the new single “Surrender,” off his upcoming EP Headlights USA.

The video, directed by Cameron McCool, features Rabenreither performing the gut-wrenching track — which was inspired by Denis Johnson’s short stories. “I spent 20 hours in a hotel room in Memphis, dreaming about how it was when we were kids,” he sings.

“Gold Star had been floating in my periphery for a while before I actually went to one of their shows,” Phoebe Bridgers, a superfan of the band, tells Rolling Stone. “People had told me to check them out, and I did the thing where I’d say that I’d ‘heard of them but hadn’t heard them.’ When I finally went and ‘heard them,’ I was mad at myself for the time I’d wasted. They are an insanely solid live band, simultaneously dynamic and comfortable. Marlon has the charisma of an old school rock front man and the soulful lyrics of a Seventies troubadour. I went home and listened to everything they’d ever released. Now, they’re one of my favorite bands.”

Rabenreither has been releasing music as Gold Star since 2012. The five tracks on Headlights USA, conceived and recorded during the pandemic in “different bedrooms and studio spaces all over Los Angeles,” were initially supposed to be just demos that eventually became the actual EP.

Headlights USA arrives September 3rd. It follows 2018’s Uppers and Downers.