The Coasts [Interview # 150]

1) There exists a band called “Best Coast”.  Being “The Coasts”, do you find their name to be a bit of bragging or overcompensating perhaps?

Haha, not really, especially since they basically had it before us. There IS a band in the UK called Coasts that’s gaining some popularity, so they’re the only ones who make us nervous about our name. But we’re keeping it for now.

2) You have physical CDs, but would you ever consider releasing music on cassette or record?

We would LOVE to release our next album on vinyl, but it costs a lot of money for us - especially when you factor in the other costs of recording and mixing and traveling and other stuff. Right now, we’re just focused on getting this album done. How we release it is not really a concern yet.

3) You have a new album coming out in the fall. Can you provide the scoop on that?

The scoop is that we’ve got 13 songs recorded at a very bare bones level. We’ve got horns and strings and more guitars and other stuff to add on top, so it’s still a work in progress. We were shooting for fall release, but not sure about that at this point. It’s a lot of work. This album is just really exciting to put together since it has some new directions for us musically and we split singing duties. It’s not as much garage rock this time around.

4) Being from Little Rock, would you say that you are to music what Bill Clinton was to being president?

Haha, not in the slightest. It’s more like we are to music as Bill Clinton is to saxophone players.

5) Speaking of former President Clinton, would you ever consider somehow doing something with the song “Electronica Lewinsky”?  http://ghas.bandcamp.com/track/electronica-lewinsky

Excellent use of “shameless plug.” :)

6) Which truly is the better of the two coasts?  Keep in mind, California will one day earthquake itself into an island or underwater destination.

We haven’t spent enough time on either to give an informed opinion. They’re both different from Arkansas and they’re both exciting - at least the places we’ve visited. So, uh, it’s a tie!

7) You covered Disney’s Robin Hood songs.  What was that like?  Can we expect any more covers of older Disney animated movies, or perhaps even newer ones?   Lion King, perhaps, comes to mind?  There was always something magical to me about the song in the Little Mermaid where Ariel was singing about wanting to be a part of their world.   But yeah, that Robin Hood movie is still my favorite version of the story being told.

It was a lot of fun, but sadly, Eric (drummer) was still living in Ohio when it was recorded so he didn’t get to play. We originally thought of it when the music site, syffal.com, approached us about covering a song from our childhood. It was just to be one song from Robin Hood, but all the songs are so wonderfully simple (Roger Miller is king), that we thought we could pull off doing it all. It’d be fun to do something like that again with the entire band present, so we’ll see!