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Interview with
COTERIE

(14th September 2022)

Interview with Brittany Long

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Photo – Brittany Long

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Support for COTERIE

“A gentle and harmonic soundscape with lush instrumentation.” NME (AUS)

“I feel like I’m chilling at my fave seaside pup with you guys on stage charming the fk out of everyone.” – ★★★★ Declan Byrne – triple j (AUS)

‘Cool It Down’ peaked at #1 in NZ Hot 20 Charts

‘Cool It Down’ added to rotation on Double J

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Well, it’s been a very busy time for you all. Straight off the back of being special guests of Six60 and playing arenas, how was that experience?
Tyler: Kind of like a dream really, you know we’re just local boys from the coast of Perth, pushing online and on social media to try and get their attention and play maybe a few songs with them or something. Ended up touring all over Australia with them playing to you know, tens of thousands of people, pretty crazy!
Conrad: Yeah the first show we walked out and it was like 20,000 in Brisbane, and then the next night it was sold out again, 20,000 people and we were just like holy moly, it was crazy!

Wow, that’s unreal!
Tyler: Yeah, it’s pretty strange as well, because we kind of have three or four songs released. And we only played two of them live. So to walk out on stage and play a 45 minute set to 20,000 people. And they kind of only some of them know, roughly 10 minutes of our music. We just felt like a super warm response. And they were really welcoming. And I guess they could kind of feel as well, like, we’re just like them. And you know, we’re just trying to shoot for the stars and live our dreams and I think everyone frothed that just as much as we did. So they were just as stoked as us that we were there which felt awesome.

That’s so special, now you literally haven’t stopped, you’ve jumped straight into your own headline tour. I believe you’re playing Sydney tonight?
Tyler: Yeah we’ve got two sold out shows in Sydney, which is again crazy. We’d never toured before this year so to do a headline tour and have every show sell out was a little bit of a shock for us. We’re just here to have a good time. We get kind of lucky, every city we go to seems to be pretty sunny. We seem to arrive just before or just after the rain.

So clearly you just happened to be in Melbourne at the right time then haha
Literally, we were in Melbourne and the weather was beautiful. I was like I don’t know what everyone’s complaining about.

You must have brought it over from WA, I do love WA weather, especially the warmth.
Summer all year!

And obviously playing a hometown show in WA, how are you feeling about that?
That’s gonna be awesome! The west coast show, Perth, our home town, that’s the biggest headline show that we’ve ever done. Astor Theatre caps at like 1200, so yeah, to fill that room was like, you know, that’s just a crazy honor. Stoked to be backed by our home, and you know, the Coasties out there. Even if you’re kind of city based in Perth, you’re still five to 10 minutes away from the beach. So I don’t know, it’s just a good time. And yeah, we’re really stoked that we got the privilege to play the Astor Theatre and for that room to be full is hectic.

Now being WA based are you taking inspiration from your environment; beaches and that kind of thing. I can, I can hear it in the music. You know, that whole beachy like, I don’t know, reggae kind of vibe.
100% West Coast Drive, our new single, it’s literally named after the street and the coastline that we grew up on. West Coast Drive is just this stretch of beautiful beaches, and it’s one long road, no traffic lights. And at any given time, there’s 10,000 people from Perth wondering why they’re not at work, because it’s the middle of the day and they’re all tanning on the beach, going for a surf, or standing down the coastline. So, yeah we definitely write about what we’re exposed to. And if I’m being honest Australia’s one of the best countries in the world, so we’re exposed to beautiful weather, a good time and you know, safe environment. 

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Now what did the Covid period look like for you, obviously you didn’t get hit as hard as Melbourne did. But did you still have opportunities to make music together? And did you find any sort of positives arose from that time and sort of being forced into just having time, I guess where you couldn’t really do much.
I think people in Perth got locked down for about three weeks. We came out of those three weeks buzzing for live music. It was a pretty big positive. We were luck to still be doing shows. We were still playing new songs to a whole bunch of new fans. And I don’t think COVID hit Perth as much as the rest of the country. So yeah, all around pretty big positive for us. We actually managed to do at that time, a pre, you know, bigger headline show, right in the middle. So it was the middle of 2021. And we sold out Freo Social. Which is this venue down in the southern suburbs of Perth. And to have everyone come out, you know, masks on and just loving live music. Yeah, it was amazing.
That was crazy because that afternoon we’re doing soundcheck and we get a call from our mate and it was a little bit of a you know, we’re just doing what we think is fun. But apparently it was a little bit of a big deal we sold out Freo social. And we get a call from one of our mates in another local band he’s like, “Hey, dudes, just a heads up Mark McGowan’s throwing a little meeting and we might be going into lockdown tonight”. Anyway, we played that show and at 8am the next morning we went into another lockdown.

How’s that for timing!
We got so lucky, it was awesome! Actually Tyler’s kid was about to be born that same day.
Tyler: So we were on standby for not going into lockdown, and then I couldn’t go into the crowd and meet anyone because I couldn’t catch covid because yeah I had a little frotha being born, literally three days later. In terms of Covid I really feel for our entire industry, we had a lot of festivals we were booked to play, we thought like we’re about to crack on, and then everything got cancelled. So many beautiful mates that lost their livelihood so that really  sucked but also at the same time I think a huge Australian cultural narrative is just to make the best out of whatever your situation is. And so you know, the world locks down and we personally found a way to try and thrive and just make as much media as we can. I think a lot of West Coast Drive is just a bit of a post-pandemic pick me up, and we just want people to feel happy and stoked again. Remember that we’ve had two years of hard times, but 20 odd years were really good ones. Keep marching forward.

Absolutely.  What about the inspiration behind the single artwork? Obviously it features your characteristic little skeleton, figurine people.
Brandford: I can answer that one, I thought I’d get one in there haha. The artwork for West Coast Drive. If you literally took us on bikes and skateboards down the exact road, it’s literally a cartoon skeleton version of West Coast Drive. And that’s exactly what we went for. The building, the actual curves of the road everything, the waves. Yeah, the hotel in the back. Famous West Coast drive Rendezvous Hotel. It’s literally an exact replica. 

Awesome. I think it’s somewhere I’ll have to visit next time I’m in WA.
If you ever come to WA you have to go Southwest and then West Coast drive.

I’ll add it to the list. Now let’s get back to the start. So obviously you’ve got your journey with music now. But where did it start? Did you grow up in musical families or was music something you grew up with?
So we’re actually all brothers. So we all grew up in a musical family, our folks are musicians as well. So when we grew up, there was a lot of music, a lot of live music being played, they were in a band. And I remember we used to be at their sound checks just as little kids, watching everything happen and unfold. And I think the environment, the musical environment that we grew up in, just meant a lot of jamming for us four. You know, we all played our own instruments we all just mucked around, on guitars and keys and different things. And then, I don’t know, as we got older, just eventuated into Coterie and what we are now. The ball started rolling. We all like the music that we write and our mates like it as well. So we thought let’s give it a crack, you know, in a serious sense. We’re still waiting for the seriousness to actually happen. We’re still kind of just giving it a crack. So I think it’s not bad. And here we are today.

And the band name, like, what’s the inspiration behind that? Obviously, like, you know, I gave it a little Google and it says a collective of people who share similar interests and ideas.
That sums up literally who we are. Yeah, it’s just like an ancient French word that we googled and the meaning kind of resonated with us. And it was a little bit unique. It just, you know, oftentimes people have an issue reading it, but it’s yeah, it’s just coterie. We hadn’t heard the word used a lot. So it was a little bit of a, maybe that’s good marketing. We had no idea. We’re a small group of like minded people, but we were raised by the same people.

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Yeah. Amazing. And what about your musical influences? Like does that influence the sort of music you play?
Yeah, well, our parents obviously. And we’re Maori by the way, from Aoteroea. So our culture is very musical. I think personally, we all have different little splashes of like Stevie Wonder and R&B stuff. And then when we got to like high school and then the chili peppers and Jimi Hendrix different stuff came in as well. If you ask any of us it’d probably be a different answer.
Josh:  My influences, I listen to a bunch of stuff that you wouldn’t link to our music, but it’s not always like the type of music, it’s just the feeling it gives me. I actually like a bit of drum and bass.
Conrad –artists, probably Kings of Leon.
Tyler – Yeah, massive Kings of Leon fan, I love his vocal as well. I grew up listening to a lot of different vocalists; Vincent Darby, you know Luther Vandross and a lot of soul vocal, and fell in love, especially growing up in Australia with the Australian music scene. And you know, watching guys like INXS and how they perform, Cold Chisel and all that stuff. Yeah, right now I’m just listening to a lot of Aussie music; Lime Cordiale, Ocean Alley, Gang of Youths. I like Meg Mac, Stella’s a bit of a vibe and always Matt Corby for me.
Brandford: Yeah, definitely. We grew up on that old school r&b sort of you know, jams Michael Jackson was a big one for me.. just got his vinyl yesterday. But then it moved into you know, like a Frank Ocean, Matt Corby sort of era for me especially coming through high school. It was big for me and then I love the locals Spacey Jane as well, especially from Perth. Yeah. And you know Ocean Alley and Gang of Youths are always in there for sure.

Now what about any newer upcoming sort of artists is there anyone we should be keeping an eye out for in particular?
Muroki from New Zealand, he’s a whole vibe and a legend. South Summit are a Perth band that’s coming up. Also, DICE are another cool local band as well.
We love the Perth music scene. Great Gable just released an album and it’s really cool
And they’re a couple of local boys from our scene.Then I think definitely Death By Denim too, they always make good music and they deserve more love than they get.

Awesome, what a great list. Now speaking of album releases I hear there’s one on the cards.
Yeah we just started saying it, I don’t know if we are actually allowed to. We’ve been writing an album, it’s got a bunch of music that we’ve been playing in the live circuit for the last year and a bit and we’ve also been working on some music and production with Six60 and writing closely with Matiu Walters and Marlon. So yeah there’s definitely something coming towards the end of the year and West Coast Drive will probably be one of the feature tracks on that album.

How exciting! I’ll definitely keep an ear out! What does the process look like of choosing the final list of songs that make the album?
It’s horrendous, even just coming on tour the album song list has already changed and we’ve only played two shows. We wrote a new song two days ago and we’ll play it at the show tonight and it might make the album. 

Awesome, can you tell me a bit about that one?
It’s a toss up between Sunshine or Deja vu. There’s a lot of sunshine in our album.

I personally feel like that’s just representative of yourselves as a band though, sunshine and warmth.
That’s it. Sunshine, good times, get to that beach.

Now there’s been alot of discussions recently about restrictions placed on artists preventing them from releasing music due to not having a large enough Tiktok following etc
Well we’re a fairly independent band so we understand if you’re making music and you want the world to hear it, well half the world is staring down at their phones right now so put your music out on the things they’re staring at. I think on the other side, you have artists who are trying to probably play it a little too cool to me. I don’t want to promote my stuff. It’s become taboo a little bit. But like, no matter what you’re doing, you want your work to do well. That’s just nature, so don’t be afraid to just shove it down everyone’s throats. We’re probably not a part of the culture where trying is not cool. If you love something, just go and try and live your dreams. 

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Do you think that like you said being Maori, is that idea of learning to be passionate and loving what you do and everything something you were brought up with?
Yes a huge part of the Maori culture. And you’ll see it, even though we grew up in Australia, you can see it throughout New Zealand, that like “Go for it” like you can do anything. And like there’s so many awesome bands out there and awesome music artists who just aren’t going for it, but I reckon you should just give it a good shot.

Like they say, if you don’t try you’ll never know. Now let’s talk about the collaboration with Six60 how did that arise? Obviously that was a big milestone moment for you guys.
Yeah so there’s a few different stories going around about that. Basically we grew up listening to them, so that’s where it started.I think ‘Don’t Forget Your Roots’ was played on repeat for like a month when it came out. We pretty much guerilla attacked them on social media, it was about January or February last year and we saw a video of them selling out Eden Park and we were like “that’s crazy, 60,000 people, we want to do that”. We were posting different videos of us doing different songs and then we posted a song of theirs called .. Raining? And it sort of blew up a little bit, especially in New Zealand and so we told all of fans to go comment on their page and tell them about us. So they got like 10,000 comments from our people and then their manager and Marlon called Tyler and were like “okay we see you, do you want to come over and jam?”. 

That’s unreal.
Yeah and like literally the next day we flew over. They didn’t know we were in Perth and yeah we jammed. When we got to the studio in Auckland, we walked in and they were like “you guys flew here.. to jam?” And we’re like, yeah, you guys just sold out to 60,000 people. 

I mean that kind of invitation and once in a lifetime opportunity you jump on the first flight over right. Sell whatever you have to to buy that ticket.
Yeah, whatever you’ve got. So yeah, and like I guess if you’re genuinely good people and you love the same kind of craft as whoever you’re aspiring to be, then when that opportunity comes good stuff will come from it. So we went over with I guess good intentions and we gelled really well and you know now we’ve done heaps of writing trips, and kind of just boys muck around trips. Yeah it’s awesome, we’re pretty stoked.

Yeah it’s definitely an important thing isn’t it people being good people isn’t it.
Before your craft and everything. 

Yeah you can be really talented but also be a bad person.
Yeah the world’s seeing plenty of those as well it’s definitely like a new era now. How cool is just being nice to people. Nice, you can’t beat that and that’s got the biggest return and that lasts the longest.

Now if you could play with anyone, dead or alive who would it be?
Josh: The Beatles, I’ve been on a big Beatles wave lately. I’ve been watching their doco and I think they’re talented paired with hard working guys paired with groundbreaking thinking. I’d probably take younger Beatles but that’s 100% the one for me.
Conrad: Hopefully do a stadium tour with Coldplay if that’s on the cards.Or like Elvis or someone.
Tyler: See Billie Eilish has already got Sampa and I can’t go and stand on Sampa’s toes. Anyone, like I know the Chili Peppers are coming, I’m a mad fan of them. I don’t listen to a whole lot of his music but Ed Sheeran, he’s like a monster so yeah I’d love to do that. If The Kid Laroi is listening, hopefully.
Brandford: yeah like you know we’re just surf kids from the west coast but I think especially writing the album we had a little bit of a saying like “have Beatle mentality, because their albums are insane. They had rock songs, slow ballads, and acapella. I think like Josh said, just being in a room with the young Beatles would be phenomenal. 

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Now let’s wrap up with my fan favourites in a minute segment.

Favourite ice-cream
Tyler: Honeycomb
Conrad: Cookies and cream
Josh: Honeycomb
Brandford: 

Favourite movie:
Conrad: Pride & Prejudice
Josh: Catch Me If You Can
Brandford: The Hundred Foot Journey

CD vs Vinyl
Tyler: vinyl
Conrad: vinyl
Josh: vinyl

Favourite artist:
Tyler: Van Gogh
Conrad: MJ
Josh: Paul McCartney

Biggest inspiration:
Tyler: Elvis, Prince, MJ, James Brown, Kelly Slater
Conrad: family
Josh: Western Australia
Brandford: My wife
Band as a whole. Honestly West Coast Drive, just the lifestyle in WA and Perth. Like not the biggest but a big inspiration. If you want to catch us writing our best, we’ve all gone into this weird headspace where all we’re thinking about is the beaches and the peach-blue sunsets of Western Australia. Like don’t write in a studio, go to the place that you love, record who cares, but just write a song.

I mean you guys recorded at home and everything right?
Yeah, our whole album was recorded in the loungeroom. 

That’s so special. Just goes to show you not having fancy equipment is just an excuse, you don’t need it.
Shiny tricks aren’t the magic. You’ve got a laptop and a mic, that’s all you need. Like look at Tash’s career she’s playing to 20,000 people all over the world, she started with a fisheye lens from Kmart over her mum’s phone, filming in the loungeroom.

Favourite Disney movie:
Conrad: I’m torn, I have to go like Lion King, Hercules, Tarzan
Josh: The Incredibles
Brandford: Lilo and Stitch

Well thank you so much for your time and for chatting with me today and sharing your journey and musical inspirations and everything. I can’t wait for everyone to hear your new single because I love it already, and best of luck with your show tonight.

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FACEBOOK – TWITTER – INSTAGRAM
TIKTOK – TRIPLE J UNEARTHED

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SOUNDCLOUD – YOUTUBE – WEBSITE

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Press Release July 2022 (below) HERE

COTERIE
debut Australian Headline Tour
starts this week

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AMNPLIFY – DB