Chelsey Cope

If Chelsey Cope played baseball then her new song would be an emotional curve ball.

"Longer Road" is a freshly recorded track from the Oklahoma-born songwriter. She used it to replace another song on an upcoming LP.

"I wrote it a few weeks before we wrapped up the album. ... For me, this record was about taking my time," Cope told The Oklahoman. "I went through a lot of ups and downs emotionally while I was tracking this album, and it was important for me to give every part of it a chance to shine."

Give "Longer Road" an early listen below.

From a thunderous opening riff to its faded ending note, the song is a rollicking force. Squealing guitars and momentous drums punctuate Cope's smokey vocals which share a lyrical brotherhood with Bruce Springsteen's "I'm Going Down" chorus. There's a fiery, hungry edge to this cut, and the songwriter has never sounded more immediate.

Her latest solo release, an EP called "A Deeper Root," emerged in 2012. Cope's upcoming album doesn't have an official release date, but the nine songs will land digitally in the not too distant future.

"I really had no specific direction for this record," Cope said. "Basically, it's just a collection of songs I've been wanting to hear professionally recorded for awhile. In the extent of my career, I've never released a full length record. It's always been a goal of mine.

"The solo thing has and will always have a top priority in my life. Not because of anything other than it is an emotional attachment. It's something I fell in love with years ago, and have used as a stage of expression since I was 13. It's sort of all I know now. "

Back in March 2016, Cope connected with Lunar Manor Recording studio engineer Taylor Johnson (Vonna Pearl, The Wurly Birds) to start work on a full-length effort and it was a good fit from the start.

"Hell, we even started our own band soon after we began this record," Cope said. "Taylor did a lot of producing. I definitely looked to him a lot for advice on what the songs were lacking or needed more of. He also played drums, bass, guitar, and some other fun percussion."

The upcoming record will also include Okie talents Dustin Paige (drums), Chavez Soliz (guitar), Derek Moore (bass) and Josh Lester (cello).

You can catch a solo set from Cope on Sept. 16 to celebrate the second anniversary of Jasper House Haiti, a non-profit offering transitional restoration home, education, therapy and job training to young women in Haiti who've left lives of prostitution, exploitation and abuse.

"This show will be dear to my heart because I visited my friend Maria Atkinson (owner and operator of Jasper House) in Haiti last November," Cope said. "She's doing a really tremendous and beautiful thing out there for young women, and to celebrate its continued success as a non-profit is really exciting." - News OK

It's been five years since we last heard solo material from Oklahoma City's Chelsey Cope. She's occupied her time since fronting two local rock bands and testing out her acting chops (in the William H. Macy-directed film Rudderless). Along the way, the folk rocker has transformed into a dynamite rock 'n' roll singer.

The first lines of "Longer Road" show the 29-year-old seemingly preaching to herself: "Never rely on anyone / to satisfy your hunger for the things you want / it's all gonna break you the same." There's a strong message of self-reliance here, but the last line carries an awareness that continues throughout the song: Things are always darkest before the dawn. Amid the crunching guitars and pounding drums, Cope's vocals remain restrained, as if embracing a coming darkness she's all too familiar with. - KOSU Radio

There are parts of our minds and personalities that are put on display for others to see, but that visible portion of a persona does not tell the complete story of who we are as people. Nearly everyone also has internalized dialogue and perceptions that only they know. As well as a person can know someone else, there is always a portion of that person’s personality that can’t be known from the outside.

These internal monologues and ponderings take center stage on local singer-songwriter Chelsey Cope’s new solo album Where Nobody Goes.

“It’s kind of like the gray matter in your brain where you just kind of keep certain things to yourself, your pep talks to yourself, just the relationship that you form to get you through life the best possible way you know how,” Cope said of the album’s theme in a recent Oklahoma Gazette interview. “But it’s not a part of your life or personality that you really share with anyone. It’s just embedded in all of us, I think, in a different way.”

Despite a lengthy history in the state’s music scene, this is the first full-length album Cope has released as a solo artist. Where Nobody Goes was released Jan. 26, on Cope’s 30th birthday.

The album’s cover art features Cope in a surreal, double-exposed profile shot taken by photographer Nigel Bland at Stinchcomb Wildlife Refuge near Yukon. Those who keep close tabs on Cope’s career will know that nature is a recurring theme for the artist. Her 2012 solo EP was titled A Deeper Root. One of her most recent bands, now dissolved, was named Elms.

“It’s always been an accidental thing, like my trademark,” she said. “I don’t know; I love the outdoors. I could live in a tent. It’s just a part of me, and I don’t even realize it until I’m done with a project and I’m like, ‘Crap; I used a tree again.’”

Where Nobody Goes was released just two weeks after the self-titled debut album from Vonna Pearl, the experimental folk rock band that features the dual vocals of Cope and Taylor Johnson, known for his work in Wurly Birds.

Johnson also produced and played several instruments for Where Nobody Goes. Cope said she was somewhat hesitant about releasing the two projects so close together, but Johnson did not think it was an issue and she was eager to get her record — which she has worked on in various capacities for the past several years — out from between her ears and into the ears of others.

“I just wanted to get it off my chest, out of my head and into the world to be judged,” she said.

Planting roots

Cope grew up listening to country music stars like Garth Brooks with her older sister Rachel, now a local restaurateur. Her grandparents were Pentecostal and big into worship music. They always had guitars and banjos around the house, and the Cope sisters often played around on them, though they did not really know what they were doing.

Eventually, her sister was given a guitar for her birthday. Cope jokes that she was never good enough to be given her own.

“I was almost always grounded because I was a terrible kid who was really bad at lying,” she said.

Cope would sneak into her sister’s room when she wasn’t around and play her guitar for as long as she could, sometimes for most of the day.

“Six hours would go by, and I’d be like, ‘Whoa! What am I doing?’” she said.

Cope eventually moved from country to artists like Jeff Buckley, Jewel and Garbage. For a while, she formed a band with her sister called The Sirens, which played mostly covers around OKC. Outside of her work as a singer-songwriter, Cope’s band experience has been with an eponymous group that featured band members the artist gathered from a Craigslist ad shortly after moving to OKC from Tulsa and the indie rock quartet Elms.

Vonna Pearl, her current band with Johnson, grew as an extension of his work as producer on Where Nobody Goes. Johnson asked Cope to record a few vocal tracks on some songs he was working on, and the results sounded so good to the duo that they decided to explore the concept deeper with a full group.

“We got so stoked on the idea that we just ran with it,” she said.

Where Nobody Goes (provided)
Where Nobody Goes (provided)



Taking shape

Cope paid for the recording of Where Nobody Goes herself, and she could only take the recording process as far as she could afford at any one time. That extended the length of time it took to complete the album, but it was worth the wait for Cope, who has longed dreamed of putting out a proper full-length.

When the album was finally ready, it felt like a career development that was long overdue.

“When you play with these really talented people and they’re in other bands and they’re releasing things, it really inspires you,” she said. “You’re like, ‘I’m too far along in this business to not have something out there.’”

Where Nobody Goes features polished and generally upbeat instrumentation, with a few more delicate moments. Cope’s lyrics are introspective and straightforward.

Songs like the title track and “Shadows” feature near-danceable grooves and contrast with the more personal moments found on songs like “Blind Eye.” Often, Cope finds a great balance, like on “Loved a Fool,” which couples some of the album’s best lyrics with a lively bridge and entrancing guitar distortions.

One of the album’s best standouts is closer “Monster,” a loud and raw piano ballad that Cope said has become a favorite of many.

Though most often, it is the lyrics that people dissect to find an artist’s headspace at the time of recording, Cope has noticed that the instrumentation on her songs is often just as indicative of her mood.

“It sounds cheesy,” she said, “but the instruments you use and all of that, that’s like an emotion in and of itself, and that often portrays the emotion you were feeling when you wrote the song.”

Open future

Cope is planning an official album release show with Husbands and Twiggs for March 24 at Opolis in Norman. She is also in the process of writing a new five-song EP, which she plans to release at the end of this year or early next year.

Recently, she was inspired to increase her productivity.

“I waited a long time to put out stuff, and I just turned 30, so I’m like, ‘Oh my God; I have to pick up the pace,’” she said. “But also, I just really love recording, especially after going through the process of doing this record.”

Cope is also trying to keep herself open to new opportunities. She always plays around with the idea of starting new bands or exploring new sounds. While she has musical influences, Cope said she never tries to directly emulate them.

She has yet to paint herself into a creative corner. While Cope has a lot of experience, it also feels like she is just beginning to embark on a journey through an open field of possibility.

“It gets really confusing when people ask, ‘What genre are you?’” she said. “I’m like, ‘I don’t know.’ I write what I feel, and that’s about it.”

Visit facebook.com/chelseycopemusic. - Oklahoma Gazette

After 16 years as a musician, Oklahoma singer-songwriter Chelsey Cope released today her first full-length album, “Where Nobody Goes.”

It is the follow-up to her last EP, "A Deeper Root," which was released in 2012. She’s since kept pretty busy fronting the local band Elms and appearing in William H. Macy’s Oklahoma-filmed directorial debut “Rudderless.”

"I really had no specific direction for this record," Cope told my excellent colleague Nathan Poppe back in autumn. "Basically, it's just a collection of songs I've been wanting to hear professionally recorded for awhile. In the extent of my career, I've never released a full-length record. It's always been a goal of mine.

"The solo thing has and will always have a top priority in my life. Not because of anything other than it is an emotional attachment. It's something I fell in love with years ago, and have used as a stage of expression since I was 13. It's sort of all I know now. "

“Where Nobody Goes” is available now on Spotify, iTunes and Bandcamp, and physical copies are due out at a later date.

The single “Longer Road,” which Poppe debuted back in September, was listed on National Public Radio’s “Heavy Rotation” in October. Give it a listen: - Newsok

In this Tuesday Treat Q&A session, I speak with Chelsey Cope about her first LP album, Where Nobody Goes. Chelsey also shares what she’ll never do again in life, places to go in Oklahoma, and where nobody should go.

How do you describe yourself and your music?
“Once I discovered an emotional release in writing and playing music, that was sort of the answer for me. So I think mostly every song I’ve written has an attachment to what I was feeling the moment I sat down to write it.”Once I discovered an emotional release in writing and playing music, that was sort of the answer for me. So I think mostly every song I’ve written has an attachment to what I was feeling the moment I sat down to write it. I consider myself a very laid back gal who wants to laugh a lot. But you can definitely take notice that a lot of my songs are based around personal struggles.

What got you interested in creating music and sharing it with others?
I don’t think I ever once thought, “Hey I’m going to be like that person on TV whose music I love”. I really do believe music chose me, and I think it continues to choose me every day. I lean on it for a lot of support.

Who are some of your musical influences?
I grew up listening to a lot of 90’s country. As soon as I moved cities and was introduced to other things, I really found myself liking Tom Waits thanks to my stepfather. But a big influence when I was younger were artists like Jewel, Cat Power, Neil Young, Patti Smith and Joni Mitchell. I wouldn’t go as far to say they influence how I write, but they are things I enjoy listening to.

Use exactly seven words to describe your album, Where Nobody Goes.
Raw, Emotional, Heartfelt, Angry, Identifiable, Discovery, Growth.

What was the greatest challenge you overcame in making this album?
The time it took to finish. It takes a lot of work to finish a professional project when you’re a 20 something slinging drinks behind a bar. But I’m stubborn and I knew that if I was to be truly proud of this thing, I had to allow myself to experience hard work the hardest way I knew how.



Where should nobody go?
In my bag of Oreo’s! No but seriously, everyone should go where nobody goes. Just don’t let anyone else go there but yourself. We all have things that set us apart as individuals. I’m a firm believer in having a relationship with yourself that you don’t share with anyone. It’s where the pep talks, over analyzing, and the beautiful things hide to be born or to fizzle out.

Where should people go in Oklahoma?
I’m a huge lover of the outdoors. As much as I am a candidate for the arts, nothing makes me happier than visiting some of the beautiful places here a lot of people don’t know about! The Wichita mountains and Roman Nose State Park are two of my favorite places. I also love visiting the Ouachita Mountains. They’re only 3 hours away from the city and it creates such a surreal feeling of being in Oklahoma but feeling like you’re somewhere else.

What will you never again do in life?
Distrust my instincts. I’ve had a hard time trusting what I feel, and allowing that skepticism to interfere with an otherwise healthy relationship with myself and who I am as a person.

What are some of your favorite monsters?
Ludo from the Labyrinth! I even combined the love of that monster and the composer, Ludovico Einaudi, to name my pup.

Anything else you want to say or let people know?
Just that I really hope, if nothing else, people can find a part of themselves in at least one of these songs. It’s the most vulnerable amount of anything I’ve put out there in one thing. At the end of the day you just hope to feel a little more understood, and like what you put out there could help someone else feel a little more understood too. - Uncovering Oklahoma

Songbird Chelsey Cope is an emerging talent in the 405 with a lush, beautiful voice and gorgeous song composition. She has a show tonight with Defining Times at The Blue Note at 9:30pm. Don’t miss this opportunity to catch two awesome acts in the Oklahoma City area.

1) Who are your biggest musical influences?

Jeff Buckley, Cat Power, Thom Yorke, John Legend, Bonnie Raitt


2) Tell us about your songwriting process.

It’s equivalent to being trapped inside a tornado.. I usually write guitar parts first, find something catchy and unique that I enjoy playing and start singing to the rhythm. Usually the words I sing out loud are a lot better than the ones I spend hours trying to explain on paper.

3) Top five favorite local bands?

1. Lemma (I just recently met and got to know these guys and their music, it’s something special)

2. John Moreland and the Black Gold Band (cha-ching)

3. The Other Lives

4. Dead Sea Choir

5. Twelve Sons (Because I believe in them, and their music makes me want to expand my knowledge)


4) Top five favorite non-local bands?

Radiohead

Jeff Buckley

Talking Heads

Real Estate

Fleet Foxes


5) Top five favorite films?

1. Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken (I’ll never stop loving this movie)

2. Paris, Je T’aime

3. The Princess Bride

4. Tales From the Crypt (not a movie, but damn, did I love that show)

5. Harry Potter films (guilty)


6) Top five favorite artists?

1. My Aunt. Judy Claudette Williams. Battled a lot of things in her life which deserve no recognition, just an applause for attempting to fail the determination of her soul. (amazing painter)

2. Ryan Lawson. (an amazing singer song-writer who I continuously look up to)

3. Michael Cooper (amazing photographer)

4. Hunter Nesbitt

5. Lauren Little (An inspiration, friend, and talented musician that I got to share the spotlight with)

7) Favorite website?

The Onion

8) Favorite 405 hang-out spot?

The Other Room in the Paseo

9) Favorite local restaurant?

S&B Burger Joint

10) What projects are you working on right now?

I’m currently discussing ideas with some talented friends of mine for my first music video, while planning out the EP that will be in progress next month in Tulsa titled “A Deeper Root”. - OKC.net

The first time I ever really hung out with Chelsey Cope, we were at a small venue in Norman for a show she was playing. She greeted me with a ladylike charm, and within five minutes had challenged me to a non-ladylike beer chugging contest in the parking lot. Not only did this girl apparently travel with a bunch of beer in her car in case such an opportunity arises, but she was willing to share it with someone who was basically a stranger in a very public parking lot where there were definitely small children around.

This beer was warm. And not like “just bought from the liquor store” warm, but more like “been sitting in 100 degree heat for a week” warm. We both described the taste as being “hot saliva-ish,” and although I technically won the contest, we were both losers at that point. A few things stood out about her, to me, in this moment:

1. She hadn’t yet played her set for the night. She was slamming multiple beers in the parking lot and still had to go stand on stage with an acoustic guitar and sing at people within the hour. I still can’t decide if this was badass or stupid.

2. She isn’t a tomboy as much as she’s just a laid-back self-aware girl who can fit in perfectly with the guy crowd.

3. She was genuinely upbeat, funny, and happy. This threw me for a loop because all the songs I had heard from her sounded like they could have been written by a post-Zooey version of Ben Gibbard.

When I finally sat down with her months later, I had the chance to ask her about where the balance is between her lyrics and her personality, and which Oklahoma Celebrity she’s sleep with if a gun was pointed to her head. Typical stuff:


RD: Do you mind if I start the column with the story of us in Norman?

CC: I already don’t like where this is going, but no! I don’t care. I have no shame.

RD: Do you really have no shame though, or is it just an act?

CC: No shame! I’m all out in the open. I have nothing to hide.

RD: You’re that much of a free spirit?

CC: It’s not so much a “free spirit” thing, but I think a lot of people know about my love of alcoholic beverages.

RD: Right! I mean, you seem like a very fun/funny person whenever I see you, but your music comes across as very intense and kind of sad.

CC: Well here’s the thing, I’ll send my lyrics to people who have opinions that I value. And they’ll say things like “Oh, that’s deep, and strong,” but I don’t really know how else to write. It’s never as easy as just sitting down, looking outside, and writing about the trees. For me, it’s always about confession.

RD: So everything you write comes from a real place. Like, things that have actually happened to you in real life?

CC: Yeah. Things that have happened to me, or things that I just need to get off my chest that have really pissed me off.

RD: Do you have any desire to write any music that’s more like “happy fun party time?”

CC: Yes! I have actually! I wrote a song called “Dancing In The Sun” for a local film that a this guy Gage Beavers is releasing called “Frankie And The Pirate.” He sent me a clip of the movie that had no sound at all. It was just silent, but it was a “happy” scene so I just sat down and I literally wrote the song in ten minutes. It’s a really upbeat, poppy, song. And that’s fun too!

RD: How long have you been playing music?

CC: I’ve been playing and writing since I was 13.

RD: What type of lyrics does a 13-year-old Chelsey Cope write?

CC: I wrote more about love. I don’t go through things like “heartbreak” anymore at my age so that type of stuff was a lot easier to write back then.

RD: But the tracks on your newest EP have to do a lot to do with “love.”

CC: Yeah but I wrote those like, two years ago. A lot of people will tell you that I am sensitive, and I am sometimes…

RD: I have never seen you be “sensitive” offstage. Do you try to separate your onstage and offstage personas?

CC: Not really. It’s just that when I’m onstage, I’m in a different world. When I was growing up I never had anyone that would take what I do seriously, because I didn’t come from a family that did things like this. And they didn’t understand it. I was the only kid that didn’t graduate from college. I actually went to college, and I was in a sorority, but I cried every night to my dad about how much I just wanted to play music. I just wasn’t happy. So now, whenever I’m onstage, I want to be taken seriously about my music because it is everything that I am. I think a lot of people get intensity and passion confused for sadness.

RD: The last time I saw you play, you were with a full band…

CC: Yeah! It was the first time I had ever played with a full band and the first time I had ever played an electric guitar on stage.

RD: What’s that dynamic like? Better or worse than your acoustic performances?

CC: Definitely way more fun. I want to get out of that “singer/songwriter” hole, and away from the whole “sad” thing that you’re portraying me to be, ha. A song is a song. You’re going to write about whatever the fuck you want to write about. I mean, for instance, “Pity River” is the second song on my EP. It’s about a boy who thought he was better than me and decided to publicly make fun of me over various social media sites, because I made a “bad comment” on one of his pictures.

RD: What could he possibly have to say about you…?

CC: Just saying things like “fuck you, just because you know how to play three chords doesn’t make you a musician,” which is funny because I ended up writing that song about him and using only three chords.

RD: That is awesome. I feel like we should switch gears and lighten it up so I’ll leave you with this…Gun to your head, who are you going to sleep with: Wayne Coyne, Toby Keith, Gary England?

CC: Gary England! Of course!

RD: Really? You don’t even need to think about it?

CC: Well, Toby Keith is a dickhead. And I’m not interested guys like Wayne, so he’s out. Gary England is a very smart, well-respected man. And he’s a legend.

RD: But Gary is like 73…

CC: Yeah but that’s hot. He’s got a Hugh Hefner appeal. In fact, Hugh Hefner kind of looks like Gary England…

RD: No. He doesn’t.

CC: I think I’ve had too many beers. - The Lost Ogle

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For this release we focus on a track by Chelsey Cope, a promising Oklahoma City based artist (originally from Tulsa) with a incredibly striking voice who has been singing and songwriting since she was 13 years old. She released her first 5 song EP, A Deeper Root, in July 2012 and then went to lead vocals of the indie band ELMS. - Insomnia Radio