We got in touch with brothers Will and Thomas Roud, who are releasing their first EP with their band Coate. Taylor Welsh and Dan Black make up the other half of the group, a delicate-sounding project which echoes certain elements of the highly influential 1980s emo scene. However, the EP’s release has been somewhat disrupted by the recent earthquake in Christchurch, where they live, so this interview also serves as insight into how the quake has affected the Cantabrian music scene.
We heard this EP was recorded in a church?
Yeah it was, our Mum is a priest so we just arranged it with her. It was pretty cool, recording everything at once in a large space can be difficult when we want to avoid [audio signal bleed-through] so we spread out a bit but while keeping it all in time and hearing each other. Got there in the end!
Is it true you did it with analog equipment too?
Sure is! Our friend Chris Dawson who I met through MAINZ a couple years ago has a reel to reel tape machine and since we knew there would always be a certain limit to how 'professional' sounding our EP could sound on a budget of basically nothing, we thought we'd go for something with a bit more character. So I bought some second hand tapes on trademe and we went for it. Really happy with the sound in the end. Some frequencies were lacking but it has a certain natural sound to it that we're happy with. It's like seeing us play live but with less mistakes and better levels.
We were all pretty stoked with it, I was expecting heaps of hiss and pops and distortion but it all sounded great. All the gear helped I think, even with the fairly old and scratchy mixer we were using. .
Eight tracks is pretty long for an EP - why'd you choose not to call it an album?
Good question, I don't really have an answer though. I think we made some sort of joke about 40 minutes and under being an EP at one point. It was always intended to be an EP first up really, but we had been putting it off for quite a while so we ended up with more songs to put on it than we had anticipated.
What about the idea of a band's first release being an 'introductory' kind of thing? Is that why you called it an EP?
Will: We didn't really have any worries about etiquette, we just took the opportunity to record everything we had written. It was by chance that it wound up sounding relatively cohesive as a release. We dislike the idea of a release being introductory over playing live shows first.
How are you planning on releasing it?
We've had a few different ideas about that. In the last couple of shows we played we had some copies of the EP available. The recent earthquake means an actual EP release show is going to be difficult, so we're thinking of doing it via Bandcamp where people can get it for free or donate $5 and we will send a physical copy to them so we can do it make to order so we spend more time making them really cool. We have friends in the UK and USA who are keen to distribute too as well, and possibly someone in Japan. No doubt that'll be super limited number but it's pretty awesome still.
What's happened to music in Christchurch since the earthquake?
Hard to say for certain. But it seems really unlikely that there will be any venues for quite a while. Plus Lyttelton was also popular for doing shows but they were hit really hard as well. There was a gig the other day in St Alban's park to take people's minds off the stress of it all. It probably just means there will be way more house shows - which we prefer anyway.
Do you think without a habitat for local music, people will begin emigrating to other cities? Will Christchurch music die out?
We can't really speak for other people but for us, since Uni is kind of our primary interest, we'll be sticking around. That's probably not an uncommon stance so I doubt it'll die out.
Is anyone thinking of initiating a new place for bands, to replace the old?
I did see some mumblings about that just on Facebook yesterday, but I don't think there's anything particularly concrete aside from people being keen for house shows. It's probably too early to really start planning that sort of thing. But if something does happen there will be heaps of support for it I'm sure. .
What do you think of the state of music in NZ at the moment?
Will: There are a lot of cool bands being really prolific and DIY which is a positive thing even though it's born out of necessity.
Thomas: I've been hearing more and more stuff I like popping up everywhere so that's cool. I'm looking forward to a lot of local music in 2011.
