theaussieword.com special interview with Perth group Coterie.
How and where did it all begin for you? What drew your interest to the music industry?
As COTERIE goes we’re still a pretty young band having about 15 months under our belt with one Official release “Where We Began”. However the love for music started long before then. Our parents were musicians playing in bands before us four entered the picture, heck our guitarist (Conrad) was nearly born on stage during a show!
What motivates or influences you in your quest to make great music?
Music is a pretty consuming art. I think when you decide you want to make music for the rest of you life, your pursuit to being inspired is in everything.. But ofcourse listening to great music is key.. being able to capture the times we live in, in music really resonates I think..
What are your biggest goals you hope to accomplish as an artist?
Aside from the obvious ones like, quitting our day jobs to make music full time or having our music heard all over the world..
Theres a thing that happens to people when we hear a good song, something shifts inside of us, your heart churns.. to be able to create that moment for as many people as possible, at least a few times – that’d be an achievement.
What can we expect from you in the coming months? Any plans to tour?
Well we have been writing non stop these past 18months, so early next year (January) we’re going to release our 2nd single! And our 3rd will hopefully follow that closely. We’ve been talking about fun ways to tour, I think it’d be cool to buy an old school bus, fill it with our gear, a couple mates and drive across Aus playing shows! Who knows, we might announce something cheeky soon:)
Tell us a bit about your latest release and how would you best describe your music?
Our latest release, ‘Where We Began’ – it’s a pretty honest song about hearts hurting, together and apart. The story was a literal out pouring of a friends pain.. life’s hard sometimes, we gotta be there for each other.. but dealing with hardship needs an outlet I think, for us, it’s Song writing. Sonically ‘Where We Began’ is a lot smoother & maybe more pop than most of our music.. But it’s a sweet thing to love a song you made, and that’s where this landed for us.
Give us an insight into your creative process. What gets you writing songs?
Definitely life, the times we live in, there’s so much happening. Relationships, humanity and on a musical level, good music! I have a serious belief in Aussie Music! I think it’s the best in the world, may be bias but when I hear a good album from an Aussie band or artist it just pushes me to write more!!
Is there a hidden meaning in any of your music?
Not so much, there’s deffs multiple meanings to our music and if our songs mean 1 thing to you today and another tomorrow, lovely. But we’ve tried to keep it fairly honest, share our truths without being overly poetic ya’know.. more so just converse, through music, our heart for something.
Success, what is the secret to it?
When we find out, we’ll be sure to tell you everything haha
Honestly though, just adjust what ‘success’ means to you.. We’re successfully making music we love, if we can do that for the rest of our lives and it pays rent, we’ll be happy!
What has been your biggest career highlight so far?
The combination of writing ‘Where We Began’, releasing it and receiving the response we did and probably getting radio play! Pretty surreal, we’re a fairly young band though so it’s early days, hopefully we land bigger and better opportunities next year!
Which stars of the music industry do you find inspiring?
As I said earlier, I love the Aus Music scene.. bands like Gang of Youths & Ocean Alley that are selling out shows across the country and then taking their music all over the world! Super cool 🙂
Are there any new projects in the pipeline?
We do have a few projects in the works right now, but one of the most exciting projects right now is our TasteMakers series on YouTube! It’s all about COTERIE finding up & coming artists/bands and trying to create a space for them to share their art in a different way! We play their music, our way, with them! You can check it out on our YouTube channel!
The music industry is huge, where do you see yourself a few years from now?
Hopefully, hanging out with the bands that inspire us, writing songs with the same heart we do now and playing shows to a sold out crowd that sing our songs louder than us!
What is your favourite and least favourite part about this line of work and why?
Favourite part -Making Music & listening to music with beautiful people.!
Least Favourite – The Jerks.
Name a few of your favourite Australian artists.
Matt Corby, Gang of Youths, Sampa the Great, Thelma Plum, Ocean Alley, Teskey Brothers, Lime Cordiale
How do you plan on cracking the international market?
Haha honestly that’s more of a dream than a ‘Plan’.. at the moment I believe if we write really good music that will be enough..
Do you collaborate with others? Who is on your wish-list?
Absolutely, maybe not on our own music but we created a YouTube series specifically for collaborating with our friends in the music world – TasteMakers!
But a wish list could be Matt Corby, kings of Leon, miguel, Gang of Youths..
What advice do you give for someone wanting to follow in your footsteps?
Do better! Haha
Nah a real thing, it’s all about good music, work your craft as best as you can!! It really matters!
A message for your fans. How do you best interact and respond with your fans?
THANKYOU! It’s early days, so to the fans that are here now, we love you, we need you, so Thankyou!
Any last words?
Stay classy San Diego!