Best Coast

by Joanna Orland

Best Coast is Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno. Both from Los Angeles, California, the duo met through repeatedly seeing each other at parties and gigs around the LA music scene, and decided to join forces to form the Best Coast we all know and love. They were kind enough to fight through their jet lag to come straight off the plane to The Borderline venue in London, to have a quick chat with yours truly.

Bethany is the singer-songwriter behind the music of Best Coast, while Bobb brings in his multi-instrumentalist talents to the studio and stage. Their sound is a hybrid of 60’s Californian Surf Music influences combined with 90’s Grunge, most notably on Bethany’s vocals.

“I’ve always kind of just had the voice that I have, and I think my voice can be used for lots of different genres and different types of music. But this is just the kind of music that I feel like I naturally write, so my voice doesn’t necessarily have that peachy, 60’s, pretty sounding thing going.”

Their unique Surfer-Grunge sound developed primarily due to growing up amongst the LA music scene, listening to bands such as Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles, as well as more modern stuff Bethany saw at an all ages LA venue called The Smell, where both she and Bobb frequented to get their music fixes.

The lyrics on the other hand, come from a very personal place, which you can gather from the first listen. Bethany seems to reveal her true and honest feelings through her words and emotive vocals. Her lyrics are not just honest and vulnerable, but what makes them so appealing is how relatable they are.  Something about this relatability, openness and vulnerability that go along with the grungy vocals, makes you not only feel like you’re back in the 90’s, but you’re back to your own youth, dealing with the issues that Bethany is dealing with.  Best Coast is not only a musical escape – they’re musical therapy!

“I just write about what I know, and that’s life…. I just write personal lyrics because I’m that kind of person.”

The band have a numerous amount of fans, apparent through their sold out gigs across Europe, including tonight’s gig at The Borderline. Drew Barrymore is even amongst some of Bethany’s fans, so much so that she ended up directing the music video for the song Our Deal.

“We met her at a show in LA and she’s just like a really big fan and really nice lady.  And her manager and our record label, and this guy that used to work for MTV had this idea of getting her involved as a producer, as a director on the video, and she was totally into the idea.  Again, just one of those things where things fall into place for us. And that one definitely fell into place.”

While Best Coast’s first album Crazy For You was a lo-fi surfer pop sensation, this year’s follow up album The Only Place is a more grown up album, even in their sound quality as they’ve ditched their lo-fi roots and worked with a producer to improve their fidelity.

“We made the first record in two weeks, the second record took almost six months. We recorded it at Capitol Records, which is like a legendary, infamous, old school recording studio in LA.  And our first record was done in a recording studio of an ad agency, it was as big as this room.”

As Bethany grows up, so does her music. Even her career is on the rise and when they return to America, they will be joining legendary band Green Day on tour. For a band with such a bright future, they sure are relaxed about it. One word to sum up Best Coast?

“Whatever.”