Spotlight: Coma Culture is a Band Years in the Making
A PHENOMENON OF THEIR OWN — Eric Cannata and Francois Comtois may be familiar names to you. As members of the popular indie rock group Young the Giant, a group that just celebrated its 10 year anniversary, the band has had its fair share of hits. A festival mainstay with millions of streams on songs like “Superposition,” “My Body,” and “Mind Over Matter,” Young the Giant has become a staple of the indie rock genre. But alongside Jon O’Brien — producer, mixer, and owner of The Music Box Studios — these three band members make a new sound as Coma Culture.
Coma Culture’s inception itself was a surprise to the three members; it was never supposed to go anywhere. Artists Cannata, Comtois, and O’Brien are constantly practicing their craft, a habit that often leads to side projects and songs written but left unreleased. Coma Culture became the space where these songs long left to collect dust on the shelves got their time to shine. Such songs color their debut album, Camouflage, released June 25, a date that had been pushed back due to COVID.
Comtois explained the birth of Coma Culture over Zoom, wearing an LA Dodgers hat that hid a mane of unruly black hair, a reminder that he and Cannata were calling from California. “We write a lot of songs for Young the Giant and a lot of times some of them just don’t work for that particular project so they end up sitting around for a while,” he explained. “But I think after a couple of years, if those songs are still scratching at the back of your head and if you keep thinking about them and keep bringing them up, it starts to feel like you want another outlet for them.”
Camouflage has 10 songs that mix strong lyricism with a sort of somber nostalgia, a reminder of times that are other. Mellow tunes that at times seem echoed and distant, like “Hotel,” or strong and with a sort of whimsy like “In Love.” Each song on the record has a distinct tone, owing to the successful behind-the-scenes mixing at O’Brien’s studio.
Each member of the band brought three songs to the record, with one song called “Always,” written by all three in house. “We kind of all went off into different corners with pad and pencil and worked on different stuff and it kind of came together,” Comtois said of the joint song. “It was exciting to see what people came up with and recording it in real-time from the time of inception of the riff to writing basically the finished lyrics, to having finished vocals.”
Cannata shared that out of all of the songs he wrote, his oldest song was four to five years old. “I believe, Fran, you had a song on there from 5-6 years ago,” he remarked. Comtois nodded in agreement. “‘Bad Habits’ was the oldest for me, which was written in 2015.”
O’Brien, whom Comtois and Cannata have known since high school, did tour management for them years ago at Young the Giant. “We used to have friends come out and do tour management duties, so he was on tour with us years ago and wrote this song ‘Hotel,’ which ended up in the Coma Culture record, probably eight to nine years ago,” Cannata said. “So out of the ones in the record that’s probably the oldest one.”
With some of the songs from Camouflage having been written years ago by different band members, it would be easy for the record to feel mismatched or disconnected. But Coma Culture manages to escape this with an acute awareness of what they want Coma Culture to mean — songs that might feel like they were written by different personalities manage to share a sentiment that is echoed throughout the record.
“What Coma Culture means to me is just the day-to-day kind of melancholy; that cloud of melancholy for human beings. I think we really tried to capture that feeling on this record. If that makes sense,” Cannata said with a nervous laugh.
Comtois reassuringly agreed with Cannata. He shared that, for him, Coma Culture is connected to the song “Coma Culture,” which he wrote during the dog days of tour for Young the Giant. Comtois explained that there is a point on tour where you start to miss home, which would lead to attempts to numb those negative feelings as best he could. “I think that applies in a lot of ways to life. So it’s [Coma Culture] about those ways of distracting yourself; ways of isolating yourself from uncomfortable emotions sometimes, but also recognizing that you need to confront those to get through life in a healthy way.”
But what truly helped the band maintain a level of cohesiveness in Camouflage is the visible respect each member had for each other, not only as artists but people. Cannata was eager to share what inspired him most of his fellow band members. “I collaborate with Fran in many different ways and it’s always inspiring just to hear his growth as a songwriter in the last five to six years from when he first started writing “Bad Habits”— one of the songs that ended up on the record — to the songs he is writing now on his own. That growth in itself is really inspiring as a fellow songwriter and collaborator.”
Comtois was quick to repay the compliment. “For Eric, his sense of melody and ability to be a perpetual emotion machine for melody. For me, it takes some time to kind of sit back in it and with Eric, it sounds like there is always a melody that just popped right out of the top of his head and I think it’s amazing and pretty rare.”
Both members also shared that O’Brien had been an inspiration to them both since high school, when he began as a songwriter. They have since maintained that level of respect. “I’ve always looked up to Jon as a mentor in the sense of production and engineering,” Cannata explained. “And I always kind of look to him for advice when I’m working in my own studio. But then on the songwriting side, I would say that I am really impressed or motivated by his ability to connect with his emotional side … and [I’m] really in awe of his lyricism and his perspective as a dad, as well.”
A dynamic like the one that the Comea Culture band members share results in perpetual inspiration. “In the text thread there are a dozen new demos and ideas — some are just little instrumental loops; a few are full written songs,” Comtois said. But the band also hopes to do some shows, if the pandemic will allow it and their schedules permit it.
And they have good news for both Young the Giant and Coma Culture fans: “The plan is to make another record and probably do some shows, but no necessary plans to kinda hit the ground running and do a bunch of tours and everything like that,” Cannata said. “I think there will be more special performances and, you know, hopefully we can find some really cool places to play.”
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