Q&A: Mediocre Cafe Brings Some Spice To Easy Listening Music

Q&AMusic

Jul 19

☆ BY SHARON LAZO ☆

Photos By Maya Gorman For The Luna Collective

WITH MELLOW TUNES AND SWEET-SOUNDING VOCALS - Mediocre Cafe has come around to prove that you can make “easy listening” music (no pun intended), but sprinkle meaningful lyrics to add more substance. Mediocre Cafe is a project created by songwriter Cooper Coffroth with friends Claire Tauber, Noah Campos, Plum Anderson, and Taylor Kohl. Within this creative project, they were able to produce this work of art called Easy Listening released early May; a collection of songs within the span of two years to which Cooper and the gang cleaned up and perfected. Made to not only have the listener feel at ease with the euphonious instrumentation, but to relate to the lyrics that hold raw emotions in them.

Read below to find out about their eclectic sound, their favorite songs from Easy Listening, and their most memorable memories working in the studio. Be sure to check out this awesome band and stay tuned for exciting projects they’ve got cooking up.

LUNA: First off, how are you guys doing?

MEDIOCRE CAFE: We're doing pretty ok, thanks for asking!

LUNA: How would you describe your sounds to someone who has never heard your music before?

MEDIOCRE CAFE: The music is kinda like elevator music, but if a dude wrote some lyrics to it and it was slightly louder, good for playing a game of solitaire

LUNA: You describe yourself as “slacker smart pop”, could you explain what you mean by that?

MEDIOCRE CAFE: I really liked this band "birdwing" and they labeled themselves as "smart pop" which I interpreted as a band that makes pop songs but with weird or "smart" music tendencies. They are way smart, and make pretty different music than us, but I still think it's a cool way to say we like to take pop songs and try to make them kind of wacky or something.

LUNA: How does the environment you’re surrounded by influence your sound or what you decide to write about?

MEDIOCRE CAFE: I think the environment probably influences how the songs come out, but I don't really think about it all that much. The words usually come last and change meanings or whatever quite a few times before I'm okay with them.

LUNA: Talk to us about your release of Easy Listening, what was the creative process like creating each individual song?

MEDIOCRE CAFE: Easy Listening is a collection of songs that I had written from 2017 through early 2019, and eventually was released with Park the Van in May 2020. For me it was the first semi serious thing I ever tried to do musically. I had most of the songs kind of written and then I'd take them to practice where everyone would elaborate on ideas, write their own parts, and make the songs better.

LUNA: Which track off the album has become your most prized possession, one you’re incredibly proud of creating?

MEDIOCRE CAFE: I think “Friends Forever” is my favorite track because Plum Anderson and I wrote it together.

LUNA: Any memorable memories in the studios while making the album?

MEDIOCRE CAFE: We definitely had alot of funny moments in the studio and our old keyboard player Noah made a funny video about it that was on youtube but then I made it private because it was kind of embarrassing.

LUNA: Do you guys have any plans lined up to go back to live shows?

MEDIOCRE CAFE: We played our first live show in about a year and half a few weeks ago at the end of June and it was so fun, we definitely wanna play more soon as it gets safer to do so. Right now we are supposed to play a show at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco on 8/19

LUNA: Lastly, any new and exciting projects in the works for you guys?

MEDIOCRE CAFE: We have just started recording our next album this week and we're super excited for everyone to hear it. It's going to be very groovy and a bit more focused than the first record. Hopefully it shouldn't take too long to come out (-:

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