From SBCC to the Stage: Derek Thomas Finds His Way Back to Music

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It was the mid-’90s when singer/songwriter Derek Thomas headed north from Orange County in a motorhome with his parents to tour colleges.

The first stop was Santa Barbara City College. The connection to the campus was almost immediate, though he can’t remember the exact reason now — yes, he was a surfer and proximity to the ocean drew him in, but still, there was just something about the place. 

“I just really vibed with the grounds and the energy,” he says. “If there’s anything that’s something that resonates with me pretty quickly, I know, and so that was it.”

At 18, Thomas moved to Santa Barbara to attend SBCC and began figuring out what life on his own might look like. He split his first semester between general education courses and music classes, the latter opening up a creative side of himself that would follow him for decades.

His college life was not particularly conventional. He lived in Isla Vista, spent late nights with his guitar, and surfed whenever he could. He recalls small gatherings with friends and playing music with singer-songwriter Jack Johnson before he became famous.

In between classes, Thomas would sit on the cliffs with his feet hanging over the edge, playing guitar and writing songs. It was during this formative time at SBCC that he realized he wanted to make music not just a hobby, but as a job.

“The campus itself gave me that feeling,” he recalls, “it was so open, so connected to the surrounding nature, and it respected the landscape enough to be built around it rather than over it.”

After spending two years at SBCC, Thomas went back to Orange County and took service jobs to make ends meet. In 1998, a work-trade opportunity at a resort in St. John in the Caribbean changed the direction of his life. He arrived expecting to do manual labor but was asked to play guitar instead.

Los Angeles followed, along with formal training at the Musicians Institute, where he immersed himself in songwriting. His path then took him through Hawaii and Ireland before bringing him to Topanga Canyon in 2008.

For roughly six years, Thomas lived in Topanga, spending five of those years studying music intensely with music guru Rick Barda. At times, he worked on music for upward of 15 hours a day.

“I needed to step away from what I was doing for so long,” he says. “I basically at that point had put so much into music that I felt okay about walking away from it.”

He did not, however, walk away from the parts of himself that had always been intertwined with music, the ocean, and a search for something beyond the ordinary. He accepted a job as a guest-experience host and surf guide on a yacht in the Maldives, beginning a decade-long cycle of seasons in the Maldives, North Sumatra, and on a private island. In between, he returned home to record records and explore holistic practices.

Eventually, he moved to Nicaragua, where he launched Soul Surf, a small retreat experience combining wellness and surf travel. It evolved into Casa Soul Water, his “holistic surf sanctuary,” where surf sessions were paired with breathwork, meditation, and contrast therapy.

After years abroad, Thomas felt another pull — this time home.

“I knew it was time to come back,” he recalls.

He settled again in Laguna Beach, where he began recording with local musicians and cautiously returning to the stage. When the Laguna Beach Cultural Arts Center invited him to be its featured artist for the month in January of this year, he put together a band with minimal rehearsal and decided to trust the process.

“We just kind of flowed through the set,” he says.

The performance might have remained a single night, preserved in a handful of phone videos, if not for the sound engineer, who had recorded the show using multi-track stems. When Thomas heard some of the mixed songs, he realized the performance could become something more.

On August 28, he officially released Derek Thomas: Live at the Laguna Beach Cultural Arts Center. Two songs on the album speak particularly clearly to the ideas that have followed Thomas throughout his life. “Be Careful of the Stories That You Keep” is a solo piece about the influence of self-talk.

“It’s really about being aware of your inner voice and the energy that you bring into the environments that you’re in,” he explains.

“Beyond My Mind” is a love song to presence itself, written for the ocean but broad enough to encompass whatever practice or person can bring someone fully into the moment.

“It’s about that thing, whatever it is for you, that takes you to a place where you’re just aligned with the present moment,” he says.

In some ways, Thomas’s return to music has brought him back to where he started: a quiet kid with a guitar, drawn to the ocean and more interested in following his instincts than in having a predetermined plan. Santa Barbara City College gave him the space to find his own path.

“[Santa Barbara City College] was a container that gave me the space to dig deeper into my creative side,” he says, “as well as my appreciation for the ocean and being in nature.”

This article was paid for by Santa Barbara City College. For more information on Santa Barbara City College and the hundreds of programs they offer, visit sbcc.edu or (805) 965-0581. If you are an SBCC alumni please join SBCC Alumni Connect at sbccfoundation.org/alumni.