Coastal Club

Coastal Club are releasing their self-titled EP on May 9th with the release party to follow on May 13th at MOTR Pub with Moonbeau! We chatted with Alex from Coastal Club about the name change, their writing process, and what is next for the band!

Let’s get the elephant out of the room, why the name change?
We all judge books by their cover, and we all judge bands by their name and album artwork; it’s not a mortal sin, it’s just human nature. Before any particular person even listens to an artist, they usually have some sort of preconceived notion about what that artist might going to sound like. Generally, the very first thing that any person takes note of is an artist’s name. This is why choosing a band name is so important… And we won’t lie to you, we really goofed up. Many of you may be familiar with a very popular band called “Local Natives”. We were familiar with the group when we choose our original band name, “Local Waves”; however, we severely underestimated how much the correlation would be made between the two names. In fact, the very first show that we played with Motherfolk, they accidentally called us "Local Natives" from stage. Man, those guys are real jerks; we sure do hate them (they are great friends of ours - if you’re unfamiliar with this joke, just google the hashtag #motherfolksux). We gathered advice from some our good friends in the music industry and they advised us to change the name, stating that we did not want to be living in the shadow of another band that is in a similar genre in the industry. Additionally, we always felt that Local Waves just a little bit too “trendy" and void of meaning. We had not released any music yet, so we didn’t have any material that was associated with the old name. We were also finishing up recording an EP around that time, and we could sense a general shift in the direction and purpose of the band. All of these things kept accumulating until we finally felt like it was the perfect time to make the switch. Once we decided to make the switch, we finally landed on “Coastal Club” as the new name. We wanted to choose a name that matched our music and story appropriately, but also carried actual purpose and meaning. Most of our songwriting is intended to be care-free and uplifting, as we sing about the things that we enjoy the most in life. Although we are landlocked in Ohio, our ironic band name find’s its meaning when we reminisce about some of the best times in our lives, which were often spent on the beach with friends and family close by. We attempt to capture many of these emotions in our songwriting in order to portray a story that is both reminiscent and full of life. The “club” aspect of our name is intended to demonstrate how some the best things in life are enjoyed most when around family and friends.

Tell us about the writing process for the self-titled EP:
The songwriting process has evolved for us, as I’m sure it does for many artists. Each song tends to have its own unique journey into existence, as our writing process changes and develops over time. We write songs as a band, with each member contributing ideas to the overall form and identity of a song; we also have a tendency to write and develop our own individual parts as we go. Generally, the process begins with an idea; these ideas can either be created individually and then brought to the group, or they sometimes are created naturally while we are rehearsing. The idea could be anything from a guitar line, to a lyric, or anything in between. These ideas then begin to develop and shape into an actual song. This was the process that brought all the songs on the EP into existence, even though these songs are actually some of our oldest songs. We have been writing a lot of material recently; however, before we could record and release the new content, we had to record and release some of the original songs that helped shape our band’s sound.

Release Party in the works?
Yes! We definitely take a liking to parties, so we thought we would have one to celebrate our very first release of music into the world. We are throwing a party at MOTR Pub on May 13th to celebrate with our good friends Moonbeau. It should be a bangin’ time and we would love to see you all there.

What is next for Coastal Club?
We have been playing shows for about a year now and we have not had any music or merch for an audience member to take-away and remember us by. That being said, our immediate plan is to observe how the release goes, since we are finally able to give people a product to take away that we can believe in and can be proud of. After the album release, we have one more small release planned that is sort of a "cherry on top” to proceed the album. As I mentioned previously, we have been writing a lot of music recently; some of which is actually the content that we are most excited about. Our immediate plan is to attempt to get back into the studio as soon as possible and track some of this newer material. In the meantime, our plan is to avoid fruitless tours and try and focus on increasing our influence in the Cincinnati area as well as surrounding cities like Columbus and Dayton. - Cincy Music

The drum beat on this track makes your head bob as a Pavlovian response. The lead vocal on it is absolutely fantastic. I could listen to music like this all day. Seriously it’s one of my favorite pop rock finds in a really long time. The mocking lyric “you are a one hit wonder” about infatuation, the main theme of the track, deserves much more credit. Let’s make it go viral, shall we? - Ear to Ground