In the spring of 2024, Jason “Diesel” Hamad, a former music journalist in his forties, remodeled a three-story house in Cleveland’s Westown neighborhood as a gift to the world of working musicians.
Two years later, Hamad has hosted some 60 touring acts from all over North America who have crashed at the No Surf House after their gigs in the past two years. Thirty bands have slept at Hamad’s place so far this year alone.
And all have stayed at Hamad’s place without paying a dime.
“It’s actually a little hard for people to believe when they first hear about us,” Hamad told Scene. “‘Oh, this is free. What’s the catch?’”
The win-win is what Hamad believes has led No Surf’s popularity amongst musicians to “snowball” in the past two years. On Saturday, Hamad hosted a one-day No Surf Fest with a handful of local bands to commemorate how well his experiment on the city’s west side has gone.
It’s no secret that turning a profit as a gigging musician is not a cakewalk.
Recording fees are steep, gas prices are high, Spotify checks are (mostly) low and burgeoning bands often struggle to earn livable incomes. Eighty-six percent of Cleveland musicians rely primarily on income from their day job, the Greater Cleveland Music Census found.
The No Surf House is therefore a method of keeping lodging costs to a minimum.
“Some costs are financial, some are physical,” said Cor Wright, one of the leaders of the Colorado-based band Frail Talk, who will be staying at No Surf after a Happy Dog gig August 14. “We’ll sleep on couches and floors to make it work. We’re only at the point in the last year of getting hotels.”
No Surf “takes off a huge financial burden and allows us to get more rest,” bandmate Al Woodcheck added. “Sometimes it feels like the industry is working against you. Having a web of people that care—it reminds you of why you’re in this.”
Although Hamad requires bands make less than 80 percent of the local annual median income, none of the groups that’ve crashed, including country guitarist Jaime Wyatt and songwriter Christopher Paul Stelling, have had to pay. The roughly $70,000 in operating costs—keeping No Surf tidy—is covered by donors and grants. Hamad also has his own merch booth run via the honor system.
The good vibes Hamad’s received over the past two years have kickstarted a kind of second phase to his experiment: a program that handpicks a class of artists to stay at No Surf on a yearly basis with dirt-cheap rent of about $100 a month. Hamad is hoping to raise enough money to re-do No Surf’s third floor to make it work and find those truly interested in making it as an artist.
“Do they want to stay an artist? Are they actually committed?” he said. And actually mesh with on-the-road musicians and Hamad himself. “I would want to know whether or not this is the lifestyle they actually want.”
Hamad plans to start selecting renters in a jury process in the next year.
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