Glass Beach (stylized as glass beach) are an American indie rock band from Los Angeles and are currently based in Seattle.^[1] Their music has been described as "heavy indie rock", blending influences including punk rock, math rock, and mid-century jazz. They cite some of their musical influences as Jeff Rosenstock, They Might Be Giants, and The Brave Little Abacus.^[2][3][4]

The band's formation and music is closely tied to internet communities, and according to The Washington Post has "developed a cultish online following".^[5] In early 2020, the Los Angeles Times predicted that the band "likely won't be playing cozy venues like All Star Lanes for much longer."^[6]

In 2015, lead singer J McClendon made the move to Los Angeles, California from her hometown of Burleson, Texas,^[7] where she couch-surfed and worked on her solo project, Casio Dad.^[8] During this time she released an EP titled He's Not With Us Anymore.^[9] Shortly after, while attending the University of Minnesota Morris, close friends Jonas Newhouse and William White heard a song from J's new EP on their school's radio station, and immediately found interest in the musician.^[8] The trio quickly became friends, and soon Newhouse and White joined J in Los Angeles to live together and form Glass Beach.^[10] For the next three years, the group worked diligently on their first album, The First Glass Beach Album, which debuted on May 18, 2019 under Run for Cover Records.^[8]

Before the album's release, musician and artist Layne Smith joined the group ^[10] as the band's guitarist after bonding over Dungeons & Dragons,^[11] and immediately got to work developing the band's live sound and became a key member of the group.^[12]

The band released several singles and a remix album following The First Glass Beach Album, for many of them initially on Bandcamp. These included "running", originally written for Bill & Ted Face the Music before it was cut from the film, and released in 2020.^[13] The band released an alternate version of "classic j dies and goes to hell", a song on their first album, in celebration of the song achieving 1 million streams on Spotify.^[14] They covered Car Seat Headrest's "Beach Life-In-Death" in January 2021,^[15] as well as "Welcome to the Black Parade" by My Chemical Romance in July of the same year, for Pride Month.^[16] The remix album, featuring Bartees Strange, Skylar Spence, Ska Tune Network, and Dogleg, was also released in 2021.^[17]

On September 27, 2023, glass beach released an alternate reality game hosted on their website which culminated in the reveal of the name and tracklist of their second album Plastic Death.^{[citation needed]} On October 11, 2023 the band released the album's first single, "the CIA", featuring themes of fear and surveillance by the Central Intelligence Agency, with a music video directed by White.^[18] On November 6 the band released the second single, "rare animal", about the disappearance of D. B. Cooper.^[19] Plastic Death, produced by Will Yip,^[20] was released on January 19, 2024.^[19]

• J McClendon^[21] - vocals/guitar (2015–present)
• Jonas Newhouse^[22] - bass (2015–present)
• William White^[23] - drums (2015–present)
• Layne Smith^[24] - lead guitar (2019–present)