Interview by Erin Christie
Place yourself here: you’re smack dab in the middle of a chest-height stage with a guitar strung across your shoulders, poised in front of some-thousand fans eager to hear and sing along to music you’ve worked tirelessly on over the past three years. You swivel your view, and your fellow bandmates are there, but not REALLY; you’re unable to connect, and it feels like there’s an invisible wall dictating each of you apart. The show ensues, and it’s rewarding to see the positive reception your newest material has received, but something feels off; stagnant and stale, even. All the while, it’s difficult to place your finger on the source of the problem when, on the exterior, everything seems to be going so right.
For a number of years, the three members of Nashville indie-pop band COIN felt this perplexing but all too real sense of separation amongst each other intimately, but it took some time for them to put those feelings into words. While the trio existed together as COIN — a well-oiled machine, churning out new music, playing sold-out shows globally, and interacting with their nearest and dearest fans — they began a cynical descent into what Chase Lawrence (vocals, guitar) describes as a state of “surreality.” Thus, digging themselves out of this hole and reconnecting with their love for music-making, and their love for each other, became the starting point for their newest full-length album, I’m Not Afraid of Music Anymore (released September 13).
Since their humble beginnings at Belmont University, COIN has established themselves as a band built on an embrace of earnesty via soaringly romantic but grounded lyricism, lending to the open-hearted community they’ve built around themselves. With a sonically infectious and bright discography — from the bubbly and youthful hope of their debut self-titled EP, to the dream pop-infused electronica of their latest project Uncanny Valley (2022) — they’ve become a staple amid what can be called this generation’s wave of starry-eyed alternative rock that soothes the soul. Following the successful and rewarding write-record-release-tour process behind the latter, though, Lawrence recalled the screeching halt that ensued and the resulting sense of apprehension they all felt regarding where to go next.
“I think we were crippled by fear — displacement, fear of rejection, fear of dreaming to big or small. But fear was also the starting point in pushing us to get personal, with ourselves and each other,” Lawrence explained. This process began after he and his bandmates had stewed for about a year, eventually reconnecting with their producer Gabe Simon based on a collective gut feeling that they needed to finally “get the COIN train back on the tracks” and get to the bottom of their feelings of unrest. In turn, these subsequent sessions served as the basis for what became their new record, and also simulated what can only be described as a period of therapeutic friendship counseling; a return to the basics, a reminder of what COIN is all about, and a master-class in why they began making music together in the first place. “It was almost like we all got brand new haircuts and we were too afraid to show them, so we just wore hats, but Gabe made us take them off before we left the studio,” Joe Memmel (bass) recalled. “This was the starting line where we began to really see each other again.”
I’m Not Afraid of Music Anymore is a decidedly brave leap for COIN as a result. Their fifth album, it strips the trio not only of their safety nets, but throws them into the deep-end feet first, pushing them to confidently shed their former twenty-something insecurities in favor of self-assured, naked truths about their relationships (from family to friends to lovers), their perceptions of life as public-facing musicians (aka the “fame monster”, as Lawrence calls it), and their individual journeys in self-actulization while slowly approaching mid-life. It’s a powerfully transparent statement that holds space for the potential of the future in addition to respecting the past’s pitfalls and triumphs — even if putting this to song and hearing it projected back in a recorded file is semi-equivalent to willingly pantsing yourself in front of anyone around to see. While this process should be incredibly terrifying and even embarrassing, COIN tackle it as unified front, more fortified than ever before, and this is what makes this record one of their most remarkable yet. “We’re trying to actually make music for the sake of making music,” Lawrence concluded. “It’s the truest thing we’ve ever made, and I think we’ve somehow really captured who we are.”
Instrumentally, I’m Not Afraid of Music Anymore also exhibits COIN’s newfound honesty further, finding them bull-charging ahead with a fervor to try new things — from gritty basslines, rollicking singalong sections, heartstring-plucking melancholic interludes, and saucy exhibitions of harmonica and horns (also, with each element primarily recorded live in another big first for the trio). These songs are singular in the grand scheme of the COIN canon, and while they strike a similar emotional cord to the classic material of the band we know and love, it finds them dusting off the ashes as a phoenix reborn. Therefore, this collection of songs, while beginning as the band’s blank slate, signifies a limitless future yet to come.
“This album is also so much about the concept that ‘it’s not too late to be the person you want to be,’ and in this case, the person we want to be is ourselves,” Lawrence continued, which rings true in their openness seen across its tracklisting. “There’s nothing more terrifying than that; being yourself and not some engineered version of who you think people want to see. It’s like looking at a selfie you hated six months later and realizing you were looking at yourself through such crazy eyes. It’s about self-acceptance, and accepting your truth, and being vulnerable. This is the selfie; this is what this album is.”
In turn, in the painstaking effort to simply figure themselves out and to love who they see in the mirror, COIN have reinvigorated their love for their craft, and as a fan, it’s truly refreshing to see. The peace and joy they’ve found in this process translates, too, to Lawrence and Memmel’s temperament when I spoke with them just before the INAOMA tour was set to begin. Rather than facing existential dread over the disconnected reality created by previous tours and feeling looming stress over ticket sales and production costs, the pair expressed that they felt true anticipatory excitement this time around: “I’m still very excited,” Memmel grinned. “I’m encapsulated by this record; it’s my personality. It’s like we’ve made something that I would’ve listened to and would’ve been excited about in high school. It’s hard to put that sense of pride into words.”
With a further focus on protecting this sense of excitement this album cycle, it’s become all about tennis for the pair and their bandmate Ryan Winnen (drums) — like with the boys of Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, but replace the sexual tension with unabridged friendship and strength in team building. Wiping sweat off one’s brow with your bandmates slash best friends slash brothers in arms before stepping on stage has been a grounding practice for the trio, especially when they’ve been placing such a huge emphasis on healing their friendships recently. “It’s great, now, to approach things thinking, ‘Oh, yeah, we’re friends first, and we also make music like friends.’ It’s not just this weird ritual where you just grab your in-ear pack with your name written on it and take your territory; we all keep the plates spinning and we’re a team,” Lawrence continued.
Where the members of COIN find themselves today is at the peak of a break-through, having stripped themselves bare and removed their blinders. In turn, their newest album is a triumphant collection of diary entries published not with fear or rigidness, but with overwhelming freedom and a total release of tension. “I’m not afraid of music anymore, because I’m not afraid of myself anymore,” Memmel summarized, and it’s a truly beautiful sentiment.
FAVE TRACKS:
“Take It Or Leave It”
“Blueberry Smoothie”
“Olivia”
“Leaving A Light On”
Yorumlar