SPOTLIGHT: Isle of Wight’s Coach Party on the Pressure of Their Debut Record ‘KILLJOY’
BEFORE THEY WERE COACH PARTY — Jess Eastwood, Steph Norris, Joe Perry, and Guy Page played various parts in the music scene of the Isle of Wight. Norris used to be the manager of Black Sheep, a music venue in Ryde. Perry and Page, childhood friends, were in a high school band before Eastwood and Norris were in the picture. As local gigs materialized, they’d find themselves at the same ones, and thus began their friendship.
If it’s your first time hearing about the Isle of Wight scene, you’re probably not alone. It rarely gets talked about outside of England, let alone the island, which is just shy of 150 square miles. Most music venues are part-bar, like Black Sheep and Newport’s Strings. The island does have its own titular music festival, but bigger acts are often sourced from outside of the area. Other than Wet Leg, a Grammy award-winning post-punk band, there have seldom been breakout artists from the Isle of Wight. At least, until Coach Party.
During an era of unemployment, Eastwood (vocals) and Norris (guitar) decided they wanted to form a band. They’d never played in one before and barely began learning guitar. Page (drums) and Perry (bass), after hearing Eastwood’s and Norris’ demos one day, dissolved their band to form one with the girls. “Oh my God, can we please be in your band?” Guy recalls. “That was the end of [their] band,” and thus was the start of Coach Party.
Since this 2016 origin, the raucous and bold rock band has already billed Glastonbury, supported Queens of the Stone Age on tour, and played to audiences of over 100K people, all of which with only three EPs under their belt. They signed early in their inception to Chess Club Records, a London-based label that catapulted careers of alumni such as Wolf Alice and Swim Deep.
Now, Coach Party finally have their debut album, KILLJOY, out in the world.
“We’ve just come off tour, haven’t we? And it was like, okay, we’ve got basically six weeks to record, mix, and master this record,” Norris says about the recording process. “I think that comes across in the recordings of it. I feel that tension. Maybe it’s because obviously I know how that tension was: an urgency. In the songs, I feel it.”
KILLJOY is a gutsy, say-it-like-you-mean-it collection that aims to be bigger than the sum of Coach Party’s previous EPs. The band seems to get closer to their true voice, one that dances on the border between punk and pop. Norris and Page liken the band’s sound to each of their musical influences, but moreso what the others like.
“We don’t try and do what we as individuals would do if we were left to our own devices,” Page explains. “It’s more like, ‘I bet Joe would love this. I bet Jess will love this.’”
Each member favors a different point in the musical timeline: Eastwood is a big pop fan, which can be heard in the melodies of Coach Party’s songs; Norris is “very 2000s indie” (we discuss our mutual love for The Cribs during our interview); Perry loves anything from or relating to the ’70s, and Page favors ’90s grunge. When each of them writes for Coach Party, it’s usually with each others’ interests in mind.
“If you take the extremes of what each of us likes — so if it’s The Cribs, Taylor Swift, Weezer, and Queens of the Stone Age — it’s when those things align,” Page says. “If they’re like four planets, once they align then there’s a song that is us.”
KILLJOY shows this quality off best. The band led with four strong headed singles: nihilistic “What’s The Point In Life,” sardonic and self-aggrandizing “Born Leader,” biting “All I Wanna Do Is Hate,” and red-hot “Micro Aggression.” Coach Party has always had an “angry” sound to them — something they take as a compliment — but on KILLJOY, it seems to have fermented to its full potency. So, what changed?
“We mentally aged so quickly,” Page shares. “When you get to the point where you’re suddenly traveling thousands of miles, you’re having meetings with lawyers, and you’re signing contracts, thinking about money when you don’t really want to be, suddenly … that part of you is becoming much more of an adult that you want to be. It forces a bit of a split personality. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why [the album] feels different.”
For a band still in their youth, the endless arena tours and label sign is a rarity. Their debut touches on ideas of self-worth, success, and existentialism, but owes its sound to frustrations they feel in real time. Norris can listen to certain songs on the album and link it to a hard day or specific memory.
“You realize that actually, yes, it is four friends playing music together which they love and thrive off of, but also it is a business,” Norris says.
“And it’s something that we don’t ever want to do,” Page adds.
“It becomes your job,” Norris continues. You have to keep hold of that youthfulness, and–”
“And remember why you do it,” Page finishes. “The difficult parts or the bits you have no interest in, you’re gonna resent it. We’ve been close to feeling that way, or have felt that way. We manage to bring people out of it and give a metaphorical slap and just say snap out of it.”
I ask the pair if after traveling so far out of the Isle of Wight they still feel close to its music community. They quickly answer: “100%.” Names of local bands seem to roll off the tongue: Panda Swim, who will open for Coach Party on their headlining tour this year, The Operators, a well-loved electronic indie band, Zappa-inspired “chamber pop” band Plastic Mermaids, and Lauren Hibbard, a new-gen pop punk musician who will join All Time Low on tour this year.
“We spend a lot of time in the cafe in Newport,” Page says. “As soon as we get home and go out for breakfast or coffee, suddenly there’s everyone we know to chat about what’s going on in their life and our life. There’s no Judas about people going away and doing stuff. We’re just proud of each other.”
Coach Party embarks on a headlining UK tour this month in support of KILLJOY.
“The amount of places that we’ve seen over this last year is insane,” Norris describes. “I feel very, very fortunate to be able to do that. It’s a funny one — when you get to these places, you don’t actually get to see them. You’re in and out really fast.”
“What we do get to see is the people, and that really is enough,” Page continues. “It’s nice to be able to see the places and their natural surroundings and all the rest of it, but what’s great is just to travel and see musical communities, just realize how big the world of music is.”
