Elizabeth MirandaSurf Mesa's hit "ily (i love you baby)" was one of the breakout singles of 2020 and it's still riding high on the charts. So if you want to catch the rising star's attention on social media, here's a trick: Talk about the origin of his stage name.
Surf was born Powell Aguirre, but his stage name isn't due to a love of surfing or anything. He took it from a specific part of the video game Counter-Strike, which he says he was "way too involved in" back in high school.
"It was like a map that you could play on in Counter-Strike," he says of the name "Surf Mesa."
He laughs, "So…anyone that DM's me and they're, like, 'Hey, is your name from Counter-Strike?', like, I definitely look out for those and I take the time to say 'yes' and say 'what's up' — 'cause it's really cool!"
And when Surf says he was "way too involved" in playing the game, he wasn't kidding.
"When I was Seattle-based, I had teammates in Oregon, California and Seattle," he tells ABC Audio. "So we all met up in Seattle and, like, competed against teams that had jerseys and their aliases on their back, and there was a prize pool and we would just go at it."
"I guess Counter-Strike was like a huge part of my life," he adds. Of course, these days, he's too busy making music to spend hours on video games. His most recent release is a remix of Shawn Mendes' single "Wonder," the title track of Shawn's new album.
By Andrea Dresdale
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