On first album in five years, Best Coast return with new songs and a new attitude
Credit to Author: Shawn Conner| Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2020 19:00:42 +0000
Best Coast
When: March 3 at 8 p.m.
Where: Venue
Tickets: $25 at ticketweb.ca
After a nearly five-year absence, Best Coast is back with a new album, Always Tomorrow. Since 2009, Beginning in 2010, the duo of Bethany Cosentino (vocals, guitar) and Bobb Bruno (guitar) released three acclaimed albums of hook-laden indie-pop. In that time Cosentino played the part of the touring rock star, but the 33-year-old is on a new path, as her lyrics on the new album can attest. We talked to the musician about her internet-famous cat, SoCal pop-punk band Blink-182, and making another record.
Q: Who looks after your cat Snacks while you’re on tour?
A: My mom. She takes a lot of pride in being the grandmother/babysitter for my pets while I’m gone. I have a dog now too, a little rescue pup named Josie.
Q: Is she named after the Steely Dan song?
A: She’s named after the Steely Dan slash Blink-182 song. I rescued her from an area in L.A. called Orange County. While I was going to pick her up I kept passing these signs for San Diego, and Blink-182 is from San Diego and they were one of my favourite bands growing up. And they have a song called Josie, and I really love the Steely Dan song too.
Q: Blink-182 seems to have had quite an influence on a certain generation of musicians.
A: I think if you’re from that era, they were a really big band for people of our age. Even though they were mainstream-popular, they felt like a band for misfits. The area I grew up in was very suburban so people just listened to Top 40 radio. When I discovered them they were not as popular as they became. Then when they got huge and popular I felt cool, like, “Yeah, I knew about them first.” (laughs)
Q: The new album is the first since 2015’s California Nights. Was there a time you were thinking about giving up the band?
A: I just reached a place where I couldn’t really write. When your life goes from college dropout to retail employee to suddenly being in a successful band and your job is touring and doing interviews — I didn’t have time to process that. When we came off the Hollywood Nights tour that was really the first time in years when I had no plan. I was like, OK, I don’t know when we’re going to make a new record. I’m just … home. When you have spent years and years running from things and not being in touch with what’s happening in your life it catches up with you. I didn’t have the inspiration to make a new record. I needed a moment to take a step back and live my life.
Q: On the record and in interviews you talk about quitting drinking. Does it make you nervous to be going out on tour again?
A: I have a different mindset on life in general. I think that will be reflected in touring. I don’t know, I haven’t toured in three years, gotten on a bus and done the whole thing in a while. I don’t know what it’s going to look like. I will say that I’ve very excited. I feel reinvigorated creatively and confidence-wise, and I’m really excited to play new music. There’s an energy that comes with new music and new art. But touring is hard. I spend hours in the buildup to the album and talking about myself. Everything that comes with this job is giving a lot of myself. I’m lucky that I now have tools and know that I can give myself a few hours a day to check out from work and take care of myself. I’m lucky I’ve had the time to do that.