Coming off a run of shows down the East Coast as they tour their recent album Nothing Before & Nothing After, everybody’s favorite boys from Falmouth, Crooked Coast, won’t be taking a break just yet as they gear up for another Coast Fest in August. An annual festival organized by the band members themselves, it’s become a staple within their community, serving as a homecoming of sorts for fans, friends and family. Before the festival kicks off, the quartet will be playing a handful of shows while continuing to work on new material. We tracked them down in their tour van to discuss juggling opportunities, dream collaborations and a demand for smaller scale venues.
Allston Pudding: How’s the water, so to speak, before the tour starts?
Luke Vose: Feeling good, we just drove for like 12 hours, stopped and now powering up on Popeyes chicken and peanut butter.
John McNamara: You are, I’m eating real food.
AP: Nice, nice, nice. What song are you guys looking forward to performing the most?
Shaq Druyan: Our second song on the set. Pretty excited about it.
JM: Yeah, our new stuff from our new album, for sure.
LV: What is the song?
SD: New song called “Doomscroll.” That’s a fun one. It’s high energy, a lot of fun, and it’s a good way to kick things up.
LV: We’re gonna sub out. We’ll have, like, a couple new songs we do each night, and we’ll just kind of switch some night by night.
AP: As explorers of genre-bending, or people that find a bunch of different sounds in your music, are there any collaborations that you’d be interested in that people might not expect?
SD: A dream, like me being completely like, not realistic at all: Blink-182 I think would be up there for pretty much all of us.
JM: I thought you were gonna say Marilyn Manson.
SD: I mean, I’m down personally, but, yeah, I don’t know. Blink is kind of up there just because we all grew up listening to that stuff in our different perspective generations.
LV: There’s this guy, goes by the name DENM. He’s sort of in the scene we’ve been playing, and he’s doing pretty interesting, exciting stuff. That’d be a fun collab.
SD: Matisyahu would be cool, another guy in that scene who is just really into doing it.
AP: Luke, you had said this prior that there is a lack of an entertainment industry in New England, and I was wondering, what would you change, or what would you like to see in the industry in the future?
LV: I think there’s a lack of smaller clubs, which is too bad. I know Rockwood just shut down after being open for a year, which is too bad. There’s all these great big clubs, like Roadrunner, MGM Music Hall, but you know the scene kind of percolates out of the smaller venues. So I think that’s something that’s lacking is the smaller rooms, where people can try different things, you can see what’s working, what’s not, and grow into the bigger venues.
AP: That’s been a bit of a shared sentiment with some smaller bands and indie artists around New England. The house shows are, I think, getting a little too crammed and tired, and everyone’s looking for smaller-scale established venues to perform in. Which venue would you say has been your favorite to perform?
LV: Paradise is definitely up there. That’s just like a legendary venue. It sounds great. People who run it are awesome. It’s like a real rock club.
SD: That’s definitely up there. I think it’s kind of up the same vein, but Brighton Music Hall. To me there’s just, I know it’s kind of like a silly thing, but there’s a certain energy in that room that is very welcoming to artists that are our size. Yeah, it’s like a nice size, sound system’s cool, and I feel like, when you really pack it in, there’s a certain energy that comes with it.
AP: You guys have mentioned Crooked Coast taking on sort of like a separate reality, or an entity of itself, where it’s a place where you can kind of escape to. I think you had said that it’s sort of like your Twilight Zone. So, what does that place looklike? What does the Crooked Coast look like, if you had to imagine it?
Ben Elder: Somewhere like a mix between a hayride haunted house, but it’s also a dive bar in a seasonal community.
AP: Love that.
LV: You nailed it. Our music is coming from a haunted jukebox.
AP: What is the first thing you guys will do when this tour wraps up?
LV: We’ll start planning for Coast Fest [poster above], which is our big festival, down in Falmouth, Massachusetts. We produce it and headline it along with a team of people. We’ll be doing some one-off shows, but basically just getting ready for the festival on August 2nd.
SD: It’s all hands on deck for that when we get back home, full speed.
AP: Once that’s over, do you guys take a little break, or is it just going to be moving into what’s next?
LV: August will be pretty busy. We’ll be pretty much cracking through the summer and fall. Then, you know, usually in the winter, things slow down.
SD: Even when things slow down, it’s funny, like, I was thinking about it the other day. We still meet each other at least once a week. We’re constantly writing, there’s always something being brewed up. So even when we’re sort of on the down low, it’s still working time.
LV: We’re already writing a bunch of demos for a new record. So we’re just kind of cranking on new stuff as we continue unveiling the new stuff.
AP: It never never stops. The brain never shuts off.
LV: That’s for sure.
AP: What city or spot are you looking forward to the most on this tour? Is there a city you haven’t been to before?
JM: Chicago will be pretty cool, because we’re playing at the House of Blues, which I’m told it’s our manager’s favorite venue. Pretty psyched to play there. Besides that, I think Asheville is always cool to go to as well.
LV: Yeah, I think for me, The Pour House in Raleigh would be right behind the House of Blues. I’ve just heard about it for years, that it’s an incredible venue, so I’m excited.
Find tickets for Coast Fest at their website. Check out their new music video for”Moving On” feat. Joe Samba below!