From the moment they stepped on stage at Wonderfront Festival in San Diego last weekend, it was clear that Porcelain were special: charismatic, lighthearted; San Diego surfer boys one moment, playing multiple festival slots the next.
Clad in Wonder Bread racing suits and tossing winks to the crowd, they radiated an earnest kind of cool; the kind that doesn’t try too hard, and doesn’t need to.
But they were also weird—in the best way. A patchwork of ages and energies, they came off unpolished and unapologetic. Their handful of singles echo that same experimental spirit: lo-fi sound quality, stylistic detours, the occasional out-of-tune guitar. Yet, their live set was nothing short of inspiring.
Photos by Travis Suttle
There’s something oddly comforting about Porcelain. They feel like suburban kids raised on rock and jazz, who loved it enough to play it but never felt beholden to its rules. Their imperfections aren’t liabilities—they’re part of the appeal. Porcelain channels the laid-back ethos of San Diego’s guitar-driven scene with a looseness that borders on defiance, an indie-rock band both in on the joke and entirely serious about the music.
After their set, I caught up with Porcelain backstage and asked a few questions—had they been playing music together their whole lives?
Surprisingly, most of them hadn’t even picked up instruments until a few years ago. The band only came together two years back and just started writing songs from there.
“We have nine songs in the works,” they shouted in overlapping fragments when I asked about a potential album.
“We want our first album to feel like a cohesive body of work,” lead singer Oliver Tucher explained. “So we’re still experimenting with mixers, and with recording stuff. Right now we’re recording at home. Once we lock in the sound and space, then we’ll put out the album.”
Tucher is unmistakably the star of the show. His vocal power and tone are what set Porcelain apart from the sea of indie bands that often blur together in a haze of surf town aesthetics and ironic detachment.
If Porcelain leans into that strength—crafting songs that not only spotlight Tucher’s voice but embrace a more deliberate production style—they could transcend the genre’s tendency to favor texture over clarity, aesthetic over emotional weight.
In a way, the name Porcelain feels fitting. There’s a certain fragility to what they’re doing—not in a way that suggests weakness, but in the sense that it’s raw, delicate, still taking shape. They haven’t hardened yet, and that’s part of the charm.
If they can shape that vulnerability into intention—refining their sound without losing their looseness—it’s not hard to imagine them ascending to the ranks of bands like Peach Pit, or even brushing up against Vampire Weekend. For now, it’ll be a while.
