The Los Angles based duo turned live band, Coast Modern are on the rise.
Inside of the last year they have gone from releasing their first single to touring the country with bands like Temper Trap, BORNS and the Wombats.
Their sound is an infectious combination of pop, surf rock, hip-hop and even a little reggae “chug.” The combination of influences are package into something unique and easy to digest.
Needless to say, their music has put them in the spot light at lightening speeds. You can steam their latest single, “Guru,” below. Which we recommend doing.
Earlier this week I had the opportunity to sit down with the band, before they hit the stage opening for The Wombats. Here is a brief excerpt of the conversation:
Casablanca Sunset: Thanks for meeting, can you introduce yourself?
Coast Modern: We’re Luke (guitar) and Coleman (sing) and we both produce and write music under the name Coast Modern.
CS: You guys produce your own music?
CM: Yeah
CS:Very cool. What program(s) do you produce in?
CM: We produce mainly in Reason but also use Pro Tools and Logic. But Reason is where it’s all born. We kind of like the limitations in a way. We feel like that allows us to be more creative instead of downloading a bunch of plugins and bringing in outside gear.
CS: Right on. How long have you guys been playing together as a band?
CM: We played our first show in March of this year at SXSW. However, each of us have been producing for over decade. So there’s a lot of work that has gone on before we got to this stage.
CS: You just got off tour with BORNS, your currently on tour with The Wombats and about to head out on a fall tour with The Temper Trap. Given that your first single was released less than a year ago, is there maybe one thing or one instance that you can attribute to the relatively overnight success you’ve had?
CM: We have a really good team that we work with. Our management (Elise Rogers) has introduced us to a lot of people. And even the people we were working with before we met our currently management team. We’re fortune to work around people that let us be weird and trust our weirdness. Really at the end of the day it starts with the music and we have been working towards this most recent wave of success for a long time.
CS: So let’s talk about your influences, how would you describe the Coast Modern sound?
CM: We listen to a little of everything. It’s easy to forget about all of the influences. For instance, we listened to the Metronomy album English Riviera on the way over here and all of the sudden I was like oh my gosh I forgot how influential this record was for me. We also listen to lots of classic rock, folk and blues music. We’ve been digging into what really excites us and that is music that we want to create.
Oh, and definitely into the super producers like Beck and Pharrell. And not to forget about the teenage years in high school listening to bands like Weezer and Blink 182.
CS: Plans for the future?
CM: We have a music video coming out soon. And we also have enough songs to release and album. We are just riding this wave and continuing to work on the best way to stitch them all together. We enjoy releasing singles and seeing the reaction to each of them individually. The song we will probably be releasing next is the most recent song we’ve written so we aren’t necessarily releasing one song after the other, rather going with the flow and releasing each song when we feel the timing is right.
CS: How about touring the rest of the year?
CM: We are playing Bumbershoot in Seattle next month and then we are doing a month long tour with The Temper Trap. Then playing the Life Is Beautiful Festival in Vegas. And then playing the Meadows Festival in NYC with Kayne West.
CS: So are you guys Kayne fans?
CM: I’m glad someone is just putting it out there (like he is). I think what he does is cool. There’s too much safety in art. He shakes it up a bit and gets people uncomfortable; which gets a dialogue going. Someone needs to de-pants America!
Thank you guys. Look forward to hearing more from you down the road! For more on Coast Modern you can visit their website here.