Last year Best Coast released a few 7”s that now go for mucho dough on Ebay. Does their quality warrant such exorbitant prices? Certainly. Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno of Best Coast fracture the space-time continuum, reach in, capture a specific feeling of abandoned affection, and distill for us that elusive mana cultivated by 60s girl-groups, where R&B harmonies express only dejection as the song’s young characters always yearn after an endless desire forsaken through indifferent circumstances; churn that with gummy ribbons of garage fuzz, an atmosphere oozing paramount memories of life-altering amber sunsets, and the collective anticipation for their upcoming LP is totally understandable, and the eagerness snowballing and approaching near-fervor completely predictable.

REAX: What do you do in the band?
Bethany Cosentino: I write the songs, sing the songs, and play rhythm guitar.
Bobb Bruno: On the records I play lead guitar, bass, and drums.

REAX: So you both play on the 7”s that have been released?
BC: Yes, everything that’s recorded is Bob and I both. The only thing that’s solo is the cassette tape Where The Boys Are, which came out a long time ago. There’s a 7” we did with James Wilder, that’s a one-man project from San Diego. And the song on that is me by myself, but everything else is Bob and I.

REAX:I was wondering how you chose the name Best Coast? That’s kind of a weird name.
BC: Why’s it weird?

REAX: You guys are from the west coast, right?
BC: Yeah.

REAX:I’m from the east coast. I think that’s the best coast.
BC: I don’t know, I moved away from California and had a different appreciation for it when I got back. I wanted to have a band name that was evocative of California, and “best coast” is a term that, actually a hip-hop term, which is pretty cool. A lot of west coast rappers use the term “best coast.” It’s something that I had heard and I thought of it and I asked Bob what he thought, and we made that the band name.

REAX: You guys are touring throughout Europe this summer. Do you think that’ll change your songwriting at all?
BB: I don’t think so. Los Angeles and California in general is a big influence. I think that’ll supercede any European stuff.

REAX: You both live in Los Angeles, right?
BC: We’re both born and raised in Los Angeles. We were both born at the same hospital just several years apart.

REAX: Bob, how has Los Angeles inspired you with this project?
BB: The weather really is a big thing. Just my personality, whenever the sun is not out, like if it’s cloudy, or rainy especially, I get depressed and don’t really want to leave my room. When it’s sunny, after it’s been dreary a few days, when the sun comes out, it’s this euphoric feeling, and you feel like you just want to do things. It motivates you in that way, either go out and go to the beach or just start working on music in your room.
BC: I left New York because of the weather, that’s really the real reason why I left. I couldn’t handle the winter and I was so depressed that I never left my room. Then I got to Los Angeles and it was gorgeous and 80 degrees and I started writing music immediately. So for me I think creatively, living somewhere where it’s warm and sunny and your house is filled with natural light most of the time, it makes you feel very creative.

REAX: Have you started working on the new record yet?
BC: Yeah the record is finished.

REAX: So when you come back from Europe, when you get back to LA, you’ll be just as inspired?
BC: I write songs all the time. I definitely think when we get back from Europe, we have some shows booked, but I kind of want to take it easy for a second. We’ve been on the road for the last few months. I don’t think you lose inspiration just from leaving a place for a month. I’m only going to get home and be more inspired because our last tour that we did, I got home and started instantly writing songs.

REAX: That’s the new record that’s coming out?
BC: No, those songs were written four or five months ago, and a couple of the songs for the record I wrote thinking that I wanted them on a record. But a lot of them are songs that I had written that Bob and I had never worked on. They were just stuff that I was kind of keeping for myself.

REAX: What’s the new record like? Is it a continuation of what you’ve been making with the 7”s?
BC: I think it’s a lot different. It shows growth. It has a lot of shorter songs, kind of punkier and faster-sounding. The way I explain it to people, which probably doesn’t make any sense, it just sounds like we made a record, as opposed to we record a bunch of songs that got put on 7”s. It sounds like we actually spent time working on something. We’re both really proud of it and we listen to it all the time. We look at each other and know it’s really awesome that we did this.

REAX: When you write a song, how fast to the recording?
BC: The way Bob and I make music is really strange. I write the songs. Then basically what I do is record a demo onto my computer. The demo will be my guitar, vocals, a bunch of harmonies. Occasionally I’ll do a second guitar part that is one string, an idea for a solo or whatever. I’ll send it to Bob. We are never in the same room. When Bob is recording his parts I’m not there. I send Bob songs that I write and Bob doesn’t really get a choice. As far as the 7” stuff that was a very quick turn around. I wrote all of those songs within a month. Bob and I recorded them in a month or two months, not even.
BB: When we first started we worked really fast.
BC: As far as the record goes, it took a little bit longer because it’s a record, but the record still was completed tracking in less than two weeks. We work fairly fast.

REAX: Do you think if you fell in love and were happy that you’d stop making music or the themes of your lyrics would change?
BC: Yeah I’m happy. I’m not a depressed person at all. I have a boyfriend. I choose to write songs about not having a boyfriend. A lot of my songs are inspired by situations from the past or a feeling I’ve experienced at some point in my life. A lot of it though has to do with the fact that I’m very inspired by girl-group music, a lot of the stuff from the 50s and the 60s is all about love and heartache and all that shit. That’s kind of what I’m inspired by, although I like to joke that all the songs are actually secretly about Bobb’s love-life, not mine. Not a true story, just a joke.

REAX: Are you surprised by how people have been responding to your music?
BC: Yeah, I didn’t expect any of this. I really wanted to make music because I was inspired when I got home. I didn’t make music for the entire year that I was living in New York. When I grabbed Bobb and told him you’re doing this with me I think that we kind of, we knew what we wanted to do. We wanted to play shows and do tours. I don’t think we realized, you know, less than a year later we would be headlining our own tour and doing crazy Spin Magazine photo shoots. It’s all happened pretty fast but we’re really excited about it.



REAX: That publicity, does it make your expectations higher for what’s going to happen in the future?
BC: No, not all. I feel like up to this point we’ve had a lot of fun. I don’t make music or write music for anybody but myself. I appreciate the fans and think there’s nothing more rewarding then playing a show and looking and seeing people singing along to your music, but at the end of the day I don’t do this to make anybody else happy other than myself. I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t making me happy.

REAX: Recording vs. the live shows, which do you think is more authentic? the recordings with the rough edges or the live performance where things are louder?
BB: I think they’re just two different sides of the band. In the studio we work-in different ideas, and in the live show, especially with the new record, we would probably need two or three other people to make it like the record. But it’s kind of fun, you have these recorded versions with different arranging ideas and use different instrumentation. It’s also really fun to play live, it’s a more direct, immediate performance.
BC: I think when you go see a band and they play and they sound exactly like they’re record there’s nothing more boring on earth. You could just be at your house listening to the record. I think it’s interesting when people hear the songs, because we’re playing a lot of the songs off the record, and people are responding well to them which is great, but I think when people actually hear them on the record they’re going to be surprised, there’s a lot more aspects to them. But like Bobb said I would need like six background vocalists to sing all the parts I sing on the record and we would need two other guitar players. We honestly can’t really do that. I think it’s cool to get to go see a band and it’s a little bit different than what you hear when you listen to it at home.

REAX: When does the record come out?
BC: There’s not a set date yet but we’re probably thinking it’ll come out in the summer or the fall this year.

REAX: Will you be putting out any records before the full-length?
BC: We have a 7” that should be out the first week of May. It’s not on a label, but there’s a headphone company called Eskuche. It’s this really awesome company that makes these really rad looking vintage style headphones. They are doing a new thing, where they have limited 7”s, and basically when you buy one of the headphones you get the 7” as a complimentary gift. The songs that are coming out on that are two songs we recorded at the same time as “When I’m With You” and “This Is Real.” They were two songs that didn’t get used for that 7”. There might be another one down the line. The thing is I write music so quickly. When we actually get into the studio, we do it so quickly that essentially we could be releasing a record every month. We just don’t have time anymore because we tour a lot now.